Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 4, 1926 — page 151: what you’re looking at

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

THE DEVIL’S SADDLE. body, terrified her. She jumped up and backed away. “Water!” he cried exultantly. ‘‘ Where did you get that?” He looked down at the canteen in his hand as if he believed that too was a vision that would vanish into air like the mirage he had been fol- lowing. ‘“ You had it all along, eh? Is that it? You double-crossing, murderous little bat! Or is it copper water?” He threw the canteen down and leaped to his feet. She was dumfounded at the way that liquid had taken fire in him. He leaped at her like a reptile that has been lying dormant and sluggish, rising to strike. His fingers were on her throat. ‘‘ Poisoning me, that’s what! First you poison my horse, then you bring me down here into hell’s fire, and watch me burn awhile; then you poison me! That’s the game, is it? Well, P’ll show you who’s winning this game. I'll show you what real torture feels like!” He hurled her bodily to the ground. She lay there against a rock slab, bruised, stunned, horrified at this precipitous turn of fate. With a little drink of water she had brought a raving, murderous maniac back to life. Ladley reeled off toward a clump of chaparral and ripped off a branch. “Tl whip you to death, that’s what!” he screamed, his mouth flecked with white bubbles. ‘And if this won’t work, I'll stone you—like the cat you are!” He lifted his trembling hand. And she took the first blow, too weak, too terrified to so much as murmur. CHAPTER XXIX. MIRAGE AND REALITY. HEY had come to the base of that cliff, enticed there by the lagoon of silvery water. Neither had thought of the possibility of any one hiding in the draws that broke the mesa rim. They were both long past that fear or that hope. The girl had had a certain faint intimation that on the top of the little mesa there was a horseman riding madly. She had heard a 461 rhythm that vibrated through her nerve- tortured body with a strange ecstasy. It continued, remote and barely audibie, as an undertone to Ladley’s incoherent cries. She had told him that she heard the sound of falling water. Perhaps he had heard it too. At any rate he believed what she said; there was the sound, the rhythm of falling water in the air. But as they had approached the cliff the sound ceased. Concha believed it was another figment of her brain, an illusion to her ears as the mirage was to her eyes, But that rhythmic beat of horse’s hoofs had actually drifted down from the mesa- top. If Concha and Ladley had been in their right senses they would both have detected it. A man was up there, gallop- ing his horse across the hard-packed ground of the plain on top of the little plateau. He had sighted the two desert wanderers some time before. For hours he had been trailing them, but now that he came upon them so abruptly something caused him to rein in and watch. They were riding north, instead of south, which according to the tracks in the sand had been their di- rection for many miles. The rider dismounted and crawled to the edge of the cliff. te was a tall, gaunt man with a hawklike nose and sharp glittering eyes. His right arm was bandaged; in his left he held a rifle. When he saw that they were heading toward his mesa he crawled along the cliff- edge to the spot they were approaching. Then when they came within half a mile he assured himself that they were the two riders he wanted. Presently he saw the man down there dismount and stagger along on foot lead- ing the white bronc, and the girl still seated in the saddle. He lifted his rifle, steadying it on the edge of a bowlder, and brought the sights upon that reeling, shuffling figure in the lead. But as he squinted at his target he paused a moment before firing, and said to himself: “That hombre’s dying, if I know any- thing. He’s either drunk on sajuara sap or COPMICGLOOOKS (©)