Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 34: what you’re looking at

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

ae “it gives me a right to talk freer about him,” oS she said softly. “ We never speak ill of So = Abe dead, because—fool notion that it is— = we pity “em. ae “Vi come out straight from the Sncider cause he was a ne’er-do-well. They’re al- ways easy to get along with. He was, as you say, a good iaoker. All women folk - ‘Was. crazy about him!” She changed her : = _ tone. _** And he about them!” == Phil waited during the silence which this =< ast reminiscence demanded. He saw a : a ‘winsome passion smoldering underneath the drooping lids. She smiled. Then: “Further and more,” she went on, “he ~- -was daft over the card deck. He’d stake = se S anything—fortune and family—on drawin’ to a bobtailed straight. Dll see the old boy = again soon. He was wonderin’ when he | _ died if Saint Peter played stud! The or- “nery kid!” = She caught herself in a reverie, lifted ae "her head, and the foreman stuffed the pil- low behind her back. Upright, she looked with a fresh momentary vigor into Phil’s Ss eyes. “Now here’s what I fear, Wynd- = = ham: The girl and Dan, her father, were — as alike im character as two peas. She’s going to follow in his ways. - and givin’ odds for this, and staking what- “ever ‘she has on a chanect. Some day she’s ~ goin’ to stake too much—and maybe lose.” al ~ She stopped to msg. over tis thayeut= Her — - head nodded. = “What was I saying? Cards? Oh, vel = Of course, it ain’t the cards ’m leary of. _ Gals don’t go in much for cards, and they — never lose nothin’ when they do, because, — S as the sayin’ goes, a gal don’t pay her poker debts when she plays poker with a -— man. But it’s her whole character which ees Dan Jeft her. She’s a devil-may-care little = - “Sage. hen, and the men find her—well, what “HE Say—easy to get along with.” = “ She sure is popular wherever she goes,” -_ Wyndham commented.- ae sats it. Just like her dad! ‘And ae she’s” bead: dstrong like hes was, ae ¥_the Widow Crockett added with a sigh of ex- treme aoe and exhaustion—* she aint ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEY — about Dan; he was a good pal, maybe be- a ways bettin’ you this and bettin’ you that, a goin’ to pat up with 1 no ae like 2 have.” Her head rede backward to the pil = Phil saw that it was time to go. “She won’t have to put up with drudg- ery,’ he assured her, “since you’re ap- pointing me sole manager of this outfit.” The old woman smiled again. Her voice became placid, suddenly and oe: Be- refit of all anxiety. — “All right, Wyndham; leave me,” she said. “Get out of here. Go on. [I feel there’s too many people in here. I can’t ‘breathe. It seems like Dan Crockett is in here. Maybe he wants for to tell me a thing or two. “Yep, it’s Dan, sayin’ not to be afraid; ne it’s easy to go from here to where he -*Yain’t hard ridin’. Good trails. Sum- mer fallow. Alfalfa turnin’ purple under ~ the sun—oh!” She came to herself suddenly. “It’s only you, Phil Wyndham. I thought you was Dan. Don’t stare at me. Vamose, now. I’m through talkin’. Git!” An old Indian servant, Lucy Montana, obeying the foreman’s beckoning call, came from the kitchen to the bedside of her mis- tress. Wyndham paused at the door before leaving. “Tl be riding up to Sun-up, ma’am,” he said. _ The Widow Crockett made no Seco He thought she might not have heard him. But, as he stood, uncertainly turning his sombrero like a potter shaping a clay brim, he heard her answer: Bring Hallie to me before morning.” CHAPTER VI. “Tt DON’T LIKE YOUR CLOTHES!” T was ten o’clock that night when Phil _ Wyndham reached Sun-up. Directed to ZS = the old den on First and Slag Streets, he ~ galloped his horse through the deserted cen- =a ter of the town. He assumed that the conmaunity 3 was eal suppressed in the moral strait- jacket of Noah Doxey’s régime, but soon he saw | —— ae — changed his mind. — = A] a: a ee comic book: