Fifteen Western Tales, March 1954 — page 56: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“se 56 BN FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES _ other side Chip followed his father along a ledge running the length of the canyon wall, just above the noisy camp. The youth looked over. The swaggering bucks ‘were back with their squaws.: Chip could see,and hear them boasting and laughing. Chip eased his rifle over, but his father grabbed the barrel and held it up, shaking his head. Then Chip heard him, close, whispering directly in his ear. “Wait!” Then Chip realized how stupid it would have been for him to shoot. The squaws brought out quantities of liquor. Chip watched the bucks drink heavily of the potent tiswin. The Apaches wolfed down broiled horsemeat and called for more liquor. throw back his head and let out a terrifying yell at the rising moon, or leap into the firelight and whirl in a few wild dance steps. Chip shrank from the edge and wilted in spirit. The carousing Apaches were more savage than he’d thought. He looked — at his father for strength and reassurance. The older man looked back, and Chip knew his father recognized the fear that was in him. “It’s good!” he whispered. “Good.” The Apaches continued to whoop it up, eating, and drinking more tiswin. Chip saw that even some of the squaws were drunk now. Finally the moon came up over the canyon rim, and the boy felt his father pull him back from the ledge.~ Chip was rested again, eager. The Apaches were in a drunken brawl below. “Why don’t we jump them?” he asked. “We could get two-thirds of them with _ our repeaters.” Chip’s father shook-his head. | _“They never get too drunk to fight. Wait. About four or five o’clock.” Then the older man lay down on his side, arm under his head and closed his eyes. Chip was tense, listening. The howling, © Occasionally one would. drunken Indians seemed to make more noise than they had before. It was after midnight, Chip reasoned, before the noise ~ in the canyon began to taper off. Chip crept to the side of his father. _ The older man lay still, breathing lightly, evenly. He appeared asleep and Chip mar- veled at the man, stretched out on his side, completely relaxed except for the arm under his head which served as a pillow. Even in his impatience Chip knew this was the secret of his father’s success as an Indian fighter—the ability to wait until just the right time to strike. But Chip couldn’t sleep, and when the moon. dropped below the rim two hours later he crept again to the edge of the ledge and peeped over. The squaws were gone. Here and there a buck Apache babbled incoherently. As the noisy camp. quieted down, Chip located the ‘horses, up canyon from the camp. Corraled ’em witltout letting them graze, thought Chip. Damned horse thieves... his teeth ground in anger! Finally only one lone buck conmined: sitting in the firelight, staring stupidly at the waning embers. Chip thought the time. had come, and awakened his father. The older man was instantly alert at Chip’s light touch. He had never moved from his posi- tion on his side, arm under his head. Chip saw his father rub the stiffness from from it. “It'd awaked me up in ‘nother thirty minutes,” his father mouthed in his ear. His eyes gleamed as he listened for noise in the canyon. Then to Gp, “Bout time !” The older’ man studied the camp, then led Chip off the ledge. Chip followed him | across the canyon, up the other side a way then sidehilling until they came to the trail that the Apaches had followed inte Syca- more. Halfway up this trail, his father stopped. Chip felt his father’s groping hand on his arm. It _ Chip’s hand to his father’s (eo) = comic peek ‘s — i» _— Oe tie Sere os