Action-Packed Western Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 2 — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

No strangers were allowed on the great Fox range, and no one __ knew very much about this man who also owned most of the town _— except that he had a large crew of gunmen. Bart Lyons learned that much the night he drifted in — and also learned something — else important: that there was a lovely girl virtually a prisoner at the ranch house, and that whatever Fox did do, he didn’t raise eattle! Nowel of Sinister Schomes ‘by ELTON WEBSTER HE BIG puncher reined the ~ pinto in and twisted his muscu- lar body around in saddle to listen curiously. That popping of brush and thudding of hooves up on the hill- side might mean nothing in particular— or anything. Anyway, when a traveler rides a lonesome. foothills trail in a country of rough range and rougher men, he likes to know what is going on around him. : , ~The sounds receded up the rugged hillside for a little way, then swung nearer as the puncher started the pert little horse on. He halted again when, upon reaching the upper level, he found that he was riding away from whatever was being chased and whoever was* doing the chasing. ‘Cut across our trail, Pete,” he deduced, then turned and rode slowly back down the meandering bridle path, keeping his keen steel-blue eyes on the ground. On the sandy floor of a dry branch he had crossed a minute - before the sign lay clear. “Huh,” he - grunted, “feller on a long-stridin’ hoss _ fannin’ it after a cow critter like hell heatin’ tanbark. “Vm wonderin’ —” Somewhere down on the brushy flat that separated the big hill from a big- ger one to eastward, a shot had sound- ed, followed by the agonized bawl of a stricken beast. Another shot ripped out, then silence. - “Well now, 1 am wonderin’!” Twist- ing the mincing little pinto around, the puncher sent him rocketing back up the white trail. At the crest of the hill, he drew rein and stood up in stirrups to look the flat over. - Waving sage brush lay golden-green . in the warm fall sunshine that bathed the slope. Below, a willow clump, in- dicating water, formed an oasis of green centering a small desert of barren limestone, with here and there a scrub cedar or a sentinel cottonwood. No sign of life showed anywhere; not a sound drifted up. The puncher tilted back the brim of his big pearl hat and scratched his curly blond thatch thoughtfully. Of course, an owner sometimes went out and shot his beef that way. Sometimes, understand. More frequently when a (E@) comicbooks