2-Gun Western, February 1954 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

12 penpets’ with marks of buckshot. ucy had used the scattergun, but it hadn’t helped her much. A window was open; they had come at her from two directions at once. Old Jump’s face whitened. “Now maybe you'll listen when I tell you what kind of snake blood that In- jun’s got!” he said furiously. S Bears FOUND plenty of horse tracks outside. But horse tracks are pretty much all alike, and these headed out to the road where they’d be lost in a maze of others. Old Jump, though, kept searching. Final- ly he made a thin shout and pointed - to the deep-laid dust near the hitch- rack. “Here’s sign we can foller—a horse with a hind shoe missin’. Piece of luck!” 3 The trail was absurdly easy to fol- low. The horse with the missing shoe had trailed behind the others on the run they had made toward Standpat, so the sign was not.obscured. That bothered Jed, though—a man would hardly take a marker horse on a raid involving a woman. But Jed and Ta- tum had no choice but follow the sign. They had to find Lucy by any means that came handy. The sign led them into the town, past the long lines of bleached sag- ging shacks that were relics of the boom days, and into the hard core of the town that had survived. There it was lost under more recent tracks. As they wheeled their horses un- certainly a portly little man came out of the saloon and called, “Hey, Rock- lin, c’m’ere!” When they rode over Jed saw that the man was Sam Farlew, a grubstake prospector who nailed every stranger with tales of wealth to be had in re- turn for a forty-dollar ‘stake. Far- lew got an arm around a porch post and leered knowingly at Jed. “Got yourself whipsawed, hey? Man that gets Black Jack down on ‘im might’s well pull for new country. I heard Jack an’ his boys talkin’ when they come through town awhile ago— seems they’d been out to your shack lookin’ for you, an’ found some kind of contract you had for sellin’ beef. Reckon Jack’ll take right good care of that market for you!” “Did they have a woman with 2-GUN WESTERN them?” Jed demanded. Knowing Far- lew pretty well, he added, “A straight answer could earn you a bottle.” Farlew drew himself up important- ly. “Don’ need no bottle. Got plenty money—gonna have plenty more. Didn’ see no woman anyhow.” He turned awkwardly and swayed back into the saloon. Old Jump Tatum swore. “Knowed I shouldn’t let you get tangled in this. The Injun’s out to get you now.” “Forget that.” Jed sent a swift glance along the row of horses at the saloon rack and saw that none of them was missing a hind shoe. “I don’t reckon they’d keep Lucy in town— too many chances of word getting around. If we make a circle to cut all the roads leading out of here we may pick up that sign again.” As they left the town they met Cline Wymer. His boots gleamed in the sunset light and his hat was tilt- ed to just the proper stockman’s an- gle. He seemed oddly aloof, now that he was alone, and made no hostile move. 7 “Cooled down on that hangin’ idee?” old Jump demanded bitingly. “I never was much for it,” Wymer said. “That Indian—” He shook his head. “I don’t hold with mob action. It's strictly between you and him now.” “Obliged,” Jed said dryly. “Maybe you don’t hold with woman-stealin’ either.” Wymer scowled. mean by that?” “I mean you might even want to give us a hand. They’ve taken Lucy from Tatum’s place. By force.” Wymer shook his head. “I don’t believe Sawdey would do a thing like. “What do you that. Like I -said, I’m out of this-— ee He lifted his reins. But Jed reached out a _ hand. “There's another thing, neighbor. We took a ride and found out that Eli Denn sold that beef, giving Tatum’s name.” Wymer looked up quickly. “Why, Eli was the one who brought in word of it. What are you trying to pull off, Rocklin? You'll need more than a tall story to rope me in.” “Forget that I mentioned it,’ Jed said angrily. EOPMICLOOOKS (©)