Action-Packed Western Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 2 — page 41: what you’re looking at

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

THE SECRET OF FOX RANGE quarry. For a time, he could hear them coursing about, shouting to each other. Once he heard the ranch owner’s boom- ing voice roaring out an order to “Stay right after him until you get him!” “Yeah,” the puncher grated, shaking his fist in the direction of the shadow- shrouded hillside, “Until you get me. An’ when you do, YH try to let you know that you got somebody!” The sounds of the hunt faded grad- ~ ually. Pete threaded his way through the clutter of trees and rocks, slid into a sandpocket on his haunches, scram- bled up on the other side, then slowed his pace, mincing forward stiff-leggedly and snorting suspiciously. “Steady boy,” the puncher cautioned, then sud- denly slid out of his saddle and dropped the rein. They had rounded a big granite boulder the far side of which bore a _pand of light along its fissured base. A glance showed Lyons that a fire was burning between it and another boulder fifty feet beyond it. Squatting by the leaping flames, a long, lean man with a drooping sandy mustache was in the act of dumping ground coffee into a sooty-bellied pot. Nearby, a gaunt, white horse was munching oats frem a depression in a flat rock. Roofed by a slant of the boulder, the camper’s saddle-gear and bedding lay snug and dry, back of the fire. The camper wore a single-holstered belt, and a long rifle lay within easy reach on his right. Bart patted Pete’s steaming neck re- -assuringly. “I see cats an’ smell hot beef an’ taters, Ol’ Timer. We git warm an’ we eat, regardless.” HE PUNCHER hitched his right holster forward a little and stepped boldly into the circle of light. “Evenin’, stranger. We just dropped by to ask - ourselves to gobble chuck with you. Not wishin’ to keep anything back from you, Tm statin’ plumb emphatic that we ain’t waitin’ for an invitation, an’ —ain’t ’spectin’ any, an’ ain’t needin’ - any. Do I make myself understood?” “Plumb lucid,” the camper answered, without turning his shaggy head. “If you wanta wash, they’s rainwater in a holler spot in that rock back of you. — _ You'll find a bottle of forty-red nose _ paint in that bedroll. Don’t drink all of — it. They’s a shirt-tailful of oats in a sack underneath my saddle. Don’t take all of ’em. . “While 'm wranglin’ this chuck, you might hustle a little heavy wood for a after-supper fire, if you ain’t too much fagged out. Don’t fetch cedar, though. It smells nice, but th’ smell carries too cussed far—might bring in more com- pany.” “Well now, that’s right friendly- like,” Lyons enthused, stumping to- ward the fire. “Just to insure that ever’thing’s gonna be plumb congenial, though, maybe I better assemble all our hardware an’ keep a eye on it to keep anybody from comin’ along an’ steahin’ it.” : Bart hfted the other man’s sixgun out of its holster and picked up the ri- fle. Without looking at his visitor, the camper finished bedding the coffeepot down, then slapped a big round of beef — into a fryingpan and salted and pep- perized it judiciously as it commenced to sizzle. Facing him now, Bart saw that he had wisely wrinkled eyes set under faded brown brows, and that his face and hands were adorned with massed freckles that were the largest and deepest colored the puncher ever had seen. His hickory shirt and denim. overalls were faded and patched, but reasonably clean. “Th’ name’s Lyons—Bart Lyons,” | the puncher announced politely, then waited. = “Mine’s Kinney—Esau Kinney,” the other said. He turned his eyes on Bart for the first time, and the puncher not- ed that a glint of merriment showed in them as he went on soberly: “I don’t use my full handle much though. It’s a funny thing that, everywhere I go people gits to callin’ me Speck. I ain’t got no idee what makes em do 3