Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

LORETTA BRODELL. Anyway, I’m through arguing.” He turned to call forward: ‘“* All aboard!” “Hold on now! Hold on!” the servant of the law cried distractedly. ‘‘ We aren’t _leaving this spot, conductor until some- thing’s done! There’s a reward for that man—ten thousand.” He explained to Pas- qual: ‘ Killed a rich clubman back east— New York City, you know. T/at’s what you can telegraph, conductor. And maybe this'll interest you, Mr. Pasqual, since you’re the only man around here that can ride through this desert: The fellow pulled the cord, stopped the train, dropped off. One of the brakemen said he saw him run- ning off down there into the brush. It’s daylight. You ought to get him. He’s not even armed.” “All aboard!”’ again. “Wait a minute, conductor,” Pasqual himself said quietly. He turned again to the servant of the law: ‘‘ Can I ask your name, mister?” “ Thorpe,” the other answered through his teeth. “‘ What’s that got to do with it?” ‘“What’s your business—if I may ask a question which we don’t consider over- polite in these here parts?” ‘I’m a member of the New York police. They set me shadowing this bird. He kept dropping off at little jerkwater stations and taking locals to every corner of the United States. Hell of.a time I had keeping his tracks, too. I'll tell you. I made up my mind I’d nab him here in the middle of the desert, so’s he couldn’t give me the slip. There’s the whole story. Now let’s see you go after that ten thousand.” “Tf it’s all the same to you, Mr. Cow- boy,” the conductor said ironically, “ I'd like to start my train.’ “ Wait ’til I tell you, hombre, wait ’til 1 tell you!” Pasqual objected. “I ain’t ready for no train to be pulled out vet.” Again he turned to the other: ‘ Can you put that in writin’—that thar point about the ten thousand?”’ ““T sure can,” the detective said. He tore out a leaf from his notebook after writing: If the bearer, who calls himself Pasqual, delivers to me the person of, or offers in- the conductor yelled 333 formation leading to the arrest of James Chilton, of New York, wanted for the mur- der of Darril Morduant, I will pay to the said Pasqual a reward of ten thousand dol- lars. Pasqual smiled. It was a smile that no one understood. He himself was wanted for several murders, and there was a price of ten thousand on his own head.—He ac- cepted the paper and tucked it into his hip pocket. ‘Do you mind if I start the train now, Mr. Pasqual?” the conductor asked with biting sarcasm. “T sure do!” the other answered. ‘““ And who the hell may you be—to give me such orders?”’ “Nobody ’cept that I know something you don’t,” Pasqual rejoined suavely. ‘All aboard!” the conductor yelled hoarsely. “Let ’em go aboard, but don’t start the train,” Pasqual said quietly. The conductor looked up at the taunting smile on Pasqual’s mouth. ‘ Just what is it you know?” he asked uneasily as the passengers were clambering back to the train. Pasqual lit a cigarette. ‘‘ While I was trailin’ along on the nearest way to Mes- quite I had to crost the tracks. They was a ditch on the other side so’s I had to walk my hoss on the ties for a spell, which I did, leadin’ him by the bridle this-away. Then of a suddint I seen your headlights glarin’ down sharp on the tracks. If it weren’t for that I wouldn’t have saw what I saw. The spikes of some of them rails a mile up the road thar has been loosed and likewise the fishplates.” ‘“B’God! That means we’d have been wrecked!” the conductor exclaimed. © The smooth voiced Pasqual waved his lighted cigarette up the tracks: ‘““T reckon they’s been road agents up that-away, gents. You don’t find these cow-brutes or wild hoss cavies knocking out spikes and fishplates!”’ The conductor, engineer, fireman and brakemen looked at one another mutely, then at the stranger. “Lucky you happened to be riding along, Mr. Cowpuncher!”’ the conductor cried. 2 oO Comichooksico