Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

864 Inside, people were waiting in line with paper plates or sitting around on rudely con- structed wooden benches, munching strips of gray meat and raw cabbage. A grizzled man near the door leered up at Ellen. “Let’s get out of here!” Sewall’s voice was harsh. “Yes, let’s,” Ellen agreed. hunery.” They followed the crowd pressing around the barrier which confined the wild Western mustang. Within, three men were making a great show of holding a very small and very tired looking bronco. One held a piece of gunny sacking over the bronco’s eyes; another clung around his neck; the third was tightening a bucking strap, pulling with his entire weight, one foot braced against the bronco’s all-too-apparent ribs. And all three were yelling. : “ We're not “Whoa! Whoa, there! Hold him! Don’t let him kick you. Whoa, there— hold still!” At last they were ready. The “ cowboy,” in a costume that would have done credit to a fashionable charity bazaar, strolled jauntily over from the barrier. The an- nouncer stepped forward. “ Ladies and gents, ‘low me t’interduce Buck Bradley. Buck Bradley, of Butte, Montana, will now ride Broken Blossoms. This mustang has never been rode before! Watch him!” Buck sprang to the saddle; the attendants sprang away from Broken Blossoms’s head and heels! Buck’s training had not been on the great cattle ranges; his only claim to the plains lay in a boyhood spent in White Plains, New Jersey. But considerable skill may be acquired “on location ” around Culver City, and Buck had made the most of his opportunities. No doubt he could have per- formed his part with skill. Unfortunately Broken Blossoms refused to buck. The at- tendants scampered about yelling like Comanches; the announcer swore; Buck plied his whip and raked her sides with cruel spurs; but Broken Blossoms, after two feeble, stiff-legged jumps, stood dogged- ly affixed to the landscape. She was a conscientious little thing, but she had been bucking for oil suckers for six days now, and she simply didn’t have a buck left. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. What’s more, she wanted to lie down. And Buck, sensing this, slipped to the ground. Ellen and Sewall turned away—sickened. They strolled silently from the rest of the crowd over to a sharp rise in the brown fields. What a relief to be alone! Over beyond and high above a wind break of lacey eucalyptus trees, the twilight was fad- ing from violet to deep purple on the Sierra Madre range. “ How beautiful!” Ellen whispered. “Yes. Seems to me they look like the mountains at home,” answered Sewall. “ Of course.” And there they stood, hand in hand, loving these hills because to them they looked like Maine. “Hi, there! What’s the idea?” The youth of the megaphone came panting up behind them. He had sold no units and his naturally sour disposition had been bit- terly tried in rounding up his passengers for the return trip. “What the hell d’you think we’re run- nin’? A honeymoon club for deadbeats?” And right then that young man made the mistake of his career. Advancing irritably, he laid a hand on Ellen’s arm. The next instant he was flat on his back, gazing with unseeing eyes into the sunset skies of California. And over him bent the clenched fists and white face of Sewall Wright. Several men emptied out of the bus and came running across the field. But their as- sistance was not needed. Sewell jerked the youth to his feet and started him vigorously on his way. And, dazed as that individual was, he seemed to realize that he was headed in the proper direction and kept right on go- ing. There was a final slamming of doors on the bus, a roar from the engine, and the bright orange horror lumbered off in a brown cloud of dust. Then, at last, Sewall turned to Ellen. Her face was as white as his had been and her eyes looked impossibly large in this dusky light. She was trembling! Sewall did the only thing he could think of doing at the moment—he gathered her into his arms and carried her down to the boxlike real estate office, where a light shone through the sin- ele window. | “T was afraid you’d killed him!” 4A COMmiclOoks She (C@