Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 189, No. 4 — page 117: what you’re looking at

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

DRY would start kicking over the traces before I got my hands on that first ninety and beat it out of town. It took most all my nerve to drag myself down to the express office the next morning. It was just alongside the little railroad sta- tion of the single track branch that ran in- to Redbug, and over which only one mixed train came and went each day. I found the sheriff waiting for me, his face all flushed up and his breath a little strong. He showed me all about getting shipments in and out of the car, weighing packages, figuring the charges from the charts, and making out waybills and re- ceipts. Then he took me over to a corner where a brand new safe was standing. ‘“‘ This here safe is the finest in the whole State of Arizona!” he says, proudlike. “ It’s one of them newfangled kind—man-man- genmen steel, they calls ’em. Guaranteed absolutely burglar-proof! I had a hell of a time in getting the company to give it to me. It’s only because the Bright Lode’s pay roll kept getting so big and we’ve got to keep it here over night, that they lis- tened. There’s no telling when the Red Handkerchief might try a raid—he’s got nerve enough to try anything!’ The Red Handkerchief again! Couldn’t I ever get him off of my mind! This ex- press job seemed almost as bad as the dep- uty’s. ‘ But—but do you think he’d ever try it in the daytime?” I stammered. The sheriff shook his head. ‘‘ Nope— not on your life! He’d have his hands full enough in the night, let alone when it was light and everybody about.” That made me feel a little better. I was to stay with the sheriff. And his house was at the other end of the town. “Tl show you the combination,” the sheriff went on, bending over the knob. ‘““And don’t forget to be sure she’s locked up tight every night when you leave!” I nodded and watched him open the safe, keeping the numbers and twists well in mind, A few minutes later, the sheriff mentioned something about having to go up the street. Scared all the while that he meant to get drunk, leaving the law in my hands if any- 587 thing turned up, I tried to point out to him how it was bad to drink much liquor while it was so hot. I kind of smoothed things up by saying how I’d noticed that his veins didn’t look quite right, and I didn’t want to see any- thing happen to him, ’cause I had a friend back East that kept on drinking when his veins got like that, and he cashed in in less than a month. -The sheriff acted kind of surprised—said no one had ever mentioned it before, but he’d watch out. Then he walked out of the office, staring at the veins in his hands. The gag worked fine for more than two weeks, the sheriff staying as sober as a judge. During this time, Vd got the run of the express business down pat. The sheriff would drop into the office only about twice a day, and not for more than a few minutes at a time. He stuck to that sheriff job tight. Things didn’t seem so bad after all! So when one morning he rushed in, all excited like and holding a letter in his hand, I was curious to know what was up. He flopped down on a chair and started to cuss. It seemed he’d got orders from the ex- press boss at the other end of the line to place our new safe in the branch’s only ex- press car—an ordinary freight car painted dark green without a window cut in any- wheres—they were hard up for equipment in them days. We were to have the old safe that was now in the car, one that was ‘way out of date and not much good. The Big Boss had got a tip that the Red Handkerchief was hanging around the lower part of the branch, and he figured we could protect the old-fashioned car safe better in a town like Redbug than they could on the road. So he’d given the sheriff orders to switch the safes. The sheriff didn’t like it at all. He was stuck on that new safe. And that was what was making him cuss. But he knew it’d be no use to chew the rag about the matter. Orders were orders. So when the express car came in—that af- ternoon, we got a lot of fellows to help us and changed the safes about. I could never quite figure whether it was AIR. Gomichbooks (E@)