Fifteen Western Tales, March 1954 — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

mms ae me Me a ne ee Faas ~ ee an eee a ay rw ory ee err = 96 1 eresizen rates” = girl-hating Dan. And incidentally she'd fallen heir to Chili. “Well, Dad, did your committee. tell that unwashed son of a snake where to get off at?” Lee asked, her white teeth flashing a quick smile. “Beaver Smith is all you so inelegantly term him,” Professor Conway smiled wanly. “But he holds the whip over us, I’m afraid.’ “Don’t let it worry you, Dad. Hang and rattle.” “Eh? Hang, Lee?” “That’s what Dan said when I told him that you were calling for a showdown with the polecat. Dan’s the only man in this spread that ain’t afraid of that two-legged wolf. And Beaver Smith knows it. Dan’s a stem-winder and he don’t need to swill a gallon of forty rod for a_bravemaker, elther...... .” “Your vocabulary, Lee, is .. . “Ts improving. But I don’t know .any of the best words, yet. sie aie he I get within earshot, they quit cussing.” “Who?” “Red Riley and the Bar R cowhands—I forgot. Dan would skin the hide off me if he knew Id let it slip. You needn’t say a word to anybody, but I slip off at night sometimes and go over to the Bar R camp. They’re about five miles back of us with their herd. I trailed Dan one night when he slipped over there. Almost got shot. He recognized me just in time. Dad, I’ll cut you in on the secret, but don’t spill the beans, or Beaver Smith will kill Dan. I'll tell you this much. If Beaver Smith thinks he has us where he wants us, he’s loco as hell. Beaver Smith ain’t the only man in the world that’s crossed the plains before. Red Riley could ”) go up the trail blindfolded. But it’s your | game to keep on looking and eetibg. scared as a cottontail.” T FIRST Lee Conway seemed a prob- lem. She had followed Dan to the Bar R camp one night and Dan, knowing that someone was following him in the dark, had Pod almost taken a shot at her. But as Red said = the kid was close-mouthed and loyal as hell and might even come in handy to carry a | message to Red in case of a fight. So Lee had been taken a little ways in- to their confidences. Her’ gameness, her lack’ * of girlish nonsense, had won over Red and ~ the Bar R cowpunchers. To a man’ they ’ would have died for this dark-eyed young- ster who clung to Dan’s heels, as Red put it, like a coon dog. “When her folks named her for General Lee, they didn’t make no mistake,” said Riley: Red Riley, who had fought with the Southern cavalry, could have paid _ the youngster no finer tribute. Lee had over- — heard Red telling it to Dan and the Bar R men, and had flushed with happiness. And that night she had dug into a trunk and from among her dead mother’s effects had taken a small revolver which from then © : on she carried hidden under her shirt. A dim light. burned inside the canvas- topped Whiskey Wagon, from which came the buzz of low-pitched voices. A guard dozed outside, his back propped against the front wheel of the wagon, his gun across his lap. It was past midnight. Dan should have been on guard. Instead he was within earshot of the Whiskey moet on, flattened, Indian fashion, on the ground; behind a greasewood patch. He could not make out the words of the two men talking inside the Whiskey Wagon. : One of the men was Beaver Smith. And as Dan recognized the voice of the other - man his hand gripped tighter the butt of his six-shooter, because the voice could belong» only to one man. That arrogant, mocking, yet soft-toned voice was Duke Harbison’s! Cold sweat bathed Dan’s body and the’ palm of his gun hand was moist. And he - was remembering the words of his dying ~ father, to use the cedar-handled Colt to kill Duke Harbison. Dan remembered his ” His mother’s heart-breaking © sister Nat. grief that had dulled her mind. His thumb ECOMIEDOOKS: CO