Action-Packed Western Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 2 — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

‘Abelson’s hairy neck and writhed and jerked till the other relaxed his suffo- cating hold. Twisting to face him, Bart - jabbed his left at the eyes, then pis-— toned his right twice inte that heaving chest. _ Abelson reeled back, recovered, came boring in, his arms thrashing wildly. Bart feinted, side-stepped, then brought his arm around in a sickle-like sweep. For the second time that night, Abelson went down. Panting, the puncher turned toward the fire, only to be bowled off his feet and fairly smoth- ered under the bodies of three or four fresh adversaries. Twice the stubborn puncher won to his hands and knees and finally almost to his feet. Then the crumbling old boulder seemed to fall on him, thud- ding against his skull with all its awful weight. An excruciating pain flashed through his brain to be relayed from there to every member of his body. The brilliant lights that had been flashing before his eyes winked. out one by one and the pain left him. As on a downy couch he rested, unworried and aware of no burt. ART LYONS awoke in a dim, unreal world that seemed shrouded in dark, unfriendly mists. Someone afar off was talking, but Bart couldn’t make the words register properly. He knew = ite that he was lying on -. a pallet of some sort and that there was a roof over him and walls around him. He started to open his eyes, but found that the effort was too great. His mouth was parched. His breath- ing was heavy and jerky. He was con- -_vinced that the upper half of his skull ‘was gone and that someone was prod- THE SECRET OF FOX RANGE 43 ding the lower part of it with a red-hot | iron. The puncher Jay there for a time struggling to bring his scattered senses into harmonious action. After a while, the voice sounded nearer: “Hell of a gash... .Roll ’im over a little... "Bout. finished, now.” Bart’s nostrils: commenced to func- tion detecting mingled odors of anti- septics, whiskey. and fried onions. His ears picked up footsteps on a hard floor, the light rattle of tinware and, finally, someone’s heavy breathing in his very face. He made another effort, and, this time succeeded in opening his eyes. He discovered that a bespec- tacled man with a round, Scotch face was bending over him fussing about his _ head. The man smiled in a friendly fashion but shook his head reproving- ly when Bart sought to rise. “Lie still, Son, till you get your bearings.... Easy now, while I finish plastering you up.... Vm Dr. Kuhn.” Relaxing, Bart took surroundings and found that he was in a narrow, gloomy room and that crossed bars separated it trom a sort of corridor with little windows set high in its:stone wall. At the head of - his bunk another set of bars formed a partition between it and a second cell. Standing in the corridor, a tall, stub- by-mustached man with a star on his vest smoked a corncob pipe and watched idly as Doc finished working on the back of Lyons’ head. “Got ‘im all spliced?” he asked in a high, na- sal voice as Doc straightened and commenced wiping instruments and packing them in a. leather bag. 3 “Reasonably so,’ Doc answered, consetvatively. “He’s got a beautiful gash on top of his head... Nine stitch- es.,.Possible skull fracture...Watch it...Other wound lower down not so -bad...Painful though...Nerve cen- stock of his ter, you know...Complications, may- be.” : His tools packed, Doc snapped the grip shut and went out. The man with ee = COMIEDOOKs: (E@)