Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 119: what you’re looking at

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

See =< raged one by her laughing and made the other think he could win her. Fear was crowded out. ; “Tm willin’,” Parson said with consid- erable dignity. ‘ We’ll make it a duel—as between two gentlemen, sir.” “Oh for hell’s sake!”” McCorkle snorted. “Between me and a rotten octoroon! That’s the kind of a duel we’ll have!” ““Don’t be shootin’ each other up, chief!’’ Wing pleaded. ‘“‘ We’ve got a good job on our hands. Don’t hash it just be- cause you run afoul of a woman! Git her out’n the way, and we'll collect our swag!” “Let ’em go to it—the two balmies!” Dorset tittered out of the side of his gray lips. “Let ’em do each other in—all the more in it for you and me!” This was just the answer to Wing’s ob- jection. Very. well then, let the chief and the half-breed have it out. One less to divide the loot! “Tf you're goin’ to settle your bally troubles, do it quick!” Dorset advised. ‘“‘ Here I am guardin’ your prisoners for you —which I’ve arf a mind to chuck the job. _ Standin’ here ready to be knifed any minute while you two swell around like two lords— orl for the sake of that spunky little bag- gage! ’Op to it, I says!” ‘Sure, hop to it! Them’s my senti- ments!”? McCorkle cried. “ Win the lady by fair means—that’s my way. Steal her? No, sir! Not me! Win her like a gentle- man—?”’ “ VYes—like a gentleman!” the octoroon said dramatically. ‘‘Who the hell said you were a gentle- man!” the other snorted. ‘‘ They’s only one Creole in this here dool! Come on! All hands stand by! Wing, you watch this here sea-cook, that he don’t jump us when we turn our backs to him.” He lurched out to the center of the floor. Parson saw that the hulking bully was half seas under. A gun duel, properly regulated, could scarcely be fatal to a sober man. “Tm ready, sir,” the octoroon said pom- - pously. : “Oh, you’re ready are you? Ready for hell—that’s the right way to put it. Come on! Back up sternwise. Keep your hand away from the holster till you take ten BUCCANEER BLOOD. 275 paces, come about and then—if you ain’t already luffed up into hell, you can fire!” McCorkle’s commands were obeyed; in fact the duel materialized almost to the ex- tent of that final implication. The girl, following his order dropped 2 napkin. Cam- eron stood bound on one side of the stair- case, the boy on the other. Wing watched with his white head nodding like the pendu- lum of a clock in time to their steps. Dor- set’s eyes shone with an unhealthy and ghastly pleasure. He hated and feared and was bullied by both men. What a triumph to see them eager to kill each other! Which- ever one fell, Dorset was glad. Whichever one fell—it was the girl’s victory! ‘Ten steps.” McCorkle himself had made that stipulation. The gentleman half- breed had agreed to everything. A high- born lady was to be his prize if he won. He was fighting an intoxicated man—that in itself a coward’s move. It seemed like a certain, and glorious victory. It might have been a victory for the octo- roon if McCorkle had made it an affair of honor instead of a murderous farce. When the chief had covered half the distance, walking with a dramatic stagger toward the grinning Dorset, he turned. It might have been Dorset’s grin that made him mad. Yet this is to be doubted. It was more probable that he had planned the whole miserable travesty of honor from the first. He took five steps, wheeled suddenly, and with a drunken reel fired. Jacqueline suppressed a scream. Cam- eron leaned forward straining at the straps which were holding him back. He would have torn the hulking bully to pieces; and yet it was his sustained conviction that everything must take its course. He knew enough to stay out of this fight. Like every one else there, he had nothing to lose, and much that might be gained. The victim—the ‘‘ Creole gentleman ” who had aspired to the hand of a Creole lady and lost—staggered as if he himself had drunk too much of the chatelaine’s hot liqueurs. His gun dropped. He gripped his shoulder. His arm flickered like a broken wing as he reached to grasp the out- stretched arm of an inscrutable and ghostly personality—a suit of pay! 9 McCor'sle pg