Adventure, July 1, 1928 — page 125: what you’re looking at

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

= THE MAN WHO HATED HIMSELF was mellow and prone to the sentiment that has to do with white haired mothers, golden haired sweethearts and gene- rosity of dying outlaws. “Sam met his fate at Round Rock, July the twenty-first; They pierced poor Sam with rifle balls and emptied out his purse. “Jim had borrowed Sam’s good gold and didn’t want to pay, So the only shot he saw, was to give poor Sam away. He sold out Sam .. .” Buck Bell nodded at his dim reflection in the mirror above the back bar. “T usta work clost to Round Rock,” he told the man next to him. He downed his drink at one gulp and reached for the bar bottle as it came down along the line. He became more quiet, more thoughtful, as the night wore on. That haunted restlessness drove him out to the deserted street. He drifted, alone and wrapped in brooding thought, into Cavanaugh’s. The negro piano player knew the song of Sam Bass. He sang it through three times for Buck. Buck gave him ten dol- lars. Only ten more remained in his over- alls pocket. FTER many more drinks Buck Bell started for a place across the tracks. His last ten was spent. His heart was as empty as his pockets. The mournful shriek of a locomotive made him shiver as he halted in the lee of the station to light a cigaret. The train dispatcher stepped out of the lighted telegraph office, an eyeshade across his forehead, train orders in his hand. He did not see the tall form of Buck Bell leaning a little unsteadily in the darkness just to one side of the loco- motive headlight. No. 3 squealed to a halt to deposit two sleepy traveling drummers. The door of the express car opened. The armed mes- senger dropped a heavy iron box on the waiting truck alongside the car. The train dispatcher was now signing for the 119 box. The drummers hurried for the Malta House. “Payroll for the mines,” the express messenger, explained. ‘Wish I had that much. I’d quit riding these damn’ night runs. Blizzard comin’.” The door of the express car slid shut. A yellow lantern circled in the night. The train pulled out slowly and the dispatcher wheeled away the truck with its steel box. The wheels of the truck-creaked its dis- mal passage. The form of Buck Bell moved in a blackness made more opaque by the departure of the train lights. The man was pushing the truck within arm’s reach of the tall cowboy. Buck lifted his gun from its old scab- bard. He balanced its weight in his hand, moved out of his tracks. Swung the long barrel in a swift are. The man wheeling ~ the truck slumped down gently, an indis- tinct lump on the deserted platform. Buck Bell moved swiftly now. He picked the steel box up in his arms and ran down the tracks. He did not halt until he reached the stockyards, a mile or more from town. He hid the box under the loading chute, then started back. The walk in the cold air had driven the whisky fog from his brain. Buck was sober now. The sadness, the brooding restlessness; had gone and in its place came swift regrets. He fought down those regrets as best he could. He’d been a fool to do it, but he was into it now. He’d hang and rattle. Play ’er out as the cards fell and ask no man for better than even odds. He. wondered how hard he’d hit that depot feller. Can’t let a man lay out in the cold that way. Besides, there was the trains to attend to. But, as he circled the depot, he saw the sheriff and the train dispatcher talking earnestly inside the lighted telegraph and ticket office. Buck moved away, across to Dick Powell’s place. Nobody took notice of his entrance as he slipped in the back door and dropped into a chair by the stove. Then somebody called the house up for a drink and Buck joined the crowd. He had not been missed. **How’s things stackin’ up, Buck?” It > comilicloooks.com