Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 4, 1926 — page 152: what you’re looking at

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

A462 gyp water—or just plain croaking with thirst.” He watched the strange actions of the fugitive a moment more. It was a dimin- utive figure at that distance, a little ant casting a long, grotesque shadow on the white sand. The man with the rifle—who, needless to say, was Harry Morrel—put down the weapon a moment. “Not much fun bumping off that hom- bre while he’s croaking. And on the other hand it won’t be much fun going back and telling my dad that I just found a dead carcass down here. I’ve got to sign my name on him first—before he croaks—that is all there is to to.” | He took a good gulp from the flask little Swig Moran had given him. Then once again he brought the sights on the little ant down there in the dunes. The liquor steadied his hand and cleared his eye. But the range was far. “Tve got to make a good, clean shot of this,’ Morrel said to himself. “ One shot —that’s my name. No use signing all over his carcass. The dotted line is right across his forehead. That’s where PH sign.” They were much closer now, right under the cliffs, and Morrel could hear a strange cry drifting up from the depths. “ Dying—that’s the word—no doubt about that. Dying of thirst. _Hulloa! There he goes tumbling to his hands and knees—pounding on a rock. Thirst—I know. The buzzard up there knows, too.” Yes, there was a real buzzard up in the sky—a buzzard that had an uncanny savvy concerning the difference between a man on a horse and a man on the ground. In that part of the country a man on the eround meant a meal. A man on a horse— well, that meant a little delay, perhaps. It was then that the girl knelt down be- side her tortured enemy, and gave him that drink. “T]1 be damned!’’ Harry Morrel cried. “Saving his life, is she? Just like a wom- an!” An oath escaped his lips. He saw something happen that was very hard to. believe. The ‘“ dying ” man had staggered to his feet again. He had in the blink of ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. an eye turned upon the girl. What did he think he was going to do? Kiss her? Choke her? Beat her? The sights were focused upon him, nor was there the slightest tremor of the gun- metal. A scientist twisting the screws of a diamond lens could not have brought a tiny mote of life more clearly into his vision. Morrel saw one brilliant dot of white light —the victim’s forehead—tike a pin hole ad- mitting the sun into a dark room. Morrel squeezed the trigger. Concha was staring up at the demon who stood before her, a stick in his hand, oaths foaming at his blistered lips. But before he brought that whip down a second time he sank abruntly to his knees. Concha had a confused impression that on his dust-whitened forehead she had seen a mark. Some unknown power had thrust out the finger of death, and touched him there. And in the twinkling of an eye he had fallen forward, his face in the sand. She lay there, a little away from the body of “Gentle” Ladley. She was prostrate in the hot sand, her head throbbing, her back aching as if to break, her arm stinging where she had been struck. It flittered across her consciousness that she had heard the report of a gun. But it was so infinite- ly remote, like some one hunting game in the distant sierras of the horizon, that she could not be quite sure. As she lay there, her face turned upward toward the red cliffs, she saw a figure tear- ing down through the chaparral toward her. It was a figure bathed in the radiance of the western light, a form so dazzling that all else was dark in comparison. She knew who it was. Her heart beat fiercely. She tossed in her bed of sand as if in a raging fever. She tried to arise to go and meet him, but a black pall settled over her, and she sank back again. The next moment she felt a strong arm about her. Her head was pillowed on a shoulder that seemed soft and cool. A can- teen of water was at her lips. “ Dear God in heaven,” she murmured, “how merciful you are—to give me water and—this boy!” THE END COMIC OO KS (E@)