Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 7, 1928 — page 129: what you’re looking at

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

RESTLESS GUNS. “ Th’ mine’s blew up!’’ yelled Seth Corwin as he and the other persons in the jail room felt the shock and stared at one another in fright. Henry Spindell’s horse reared in ter- ror, almost unseating the elderly man. But the rider sat fast, put his spurs to use, and galloped hard toward the scene of the explosion. In a moment the street before the jail and around the bonfire was cleared, and the people were dashing after Spin- dell in eagerness to learn the extent of the wreck and ruin. The sheriff and the marshal hurried out and joined the rush, and for half an hour the prisoners and their guards were left alone. Then Kemp and Bux- ton came back in hot haste, just ahead of the mob that was returning to the jail bent on its destruction. The sheriff and the marshal were thoroughly alarmed. The mine and the mill had been blown up with a tremendous charge of high explosives, by unknown persons. Spindell and his executives and foreman were leading the mine operatives in fighting the flames that enveloped the wooden struc- tures still left standing. The towns- people and cowboys refused to join in the work, and Red Jukes haranged his followers and incited them to re- turn to the jail and tear it down, if there were no other way of gaining possession of the prisoners. “Take off these fellers’ leg irons,” Kemp directed Seth Corwin, “and if. things get bad turn ’em loose. I won’t be party to a lynching if I can help it, and hell’s going to be popping here pretty soon.” “Tf these fellers do get away,” said Rance Buxton grumpily, “it’s up to you, sheriff. I wouldn’t let a murderer get off, lynching or no lynching.” In the street the bonfire was bright- ened with fresh fuel, and the mob, now inflamed with drinking and the general excitement, seethed about the jail, threatening at every moment to carry it by a concerted rush. 119 A wave of men surged suddenly to- ward the building. Kemp’s guards in the lower story fired a volley over their heads. It checked them, but aggravated their insane condition. Suddenly there was a noticeable lull in the tempest. A voice could be heard by the anxious men in the building, a clear, oratorical voice addressing the mob, and Eben Hoskins reported that the speaker was under the canopy of the hotel porch. The men in the upper room listened curiously, and were vaguely disturbed by the unfamiliarity of the voice. The newcomer was not a spellbinder of Red Jukes’s class. He spoke clearly, in good English, with an impressive enuncia- tion. And, to their greater surprise, he was not seeking to pacify and conciliate the mob; he urged it to greater rash- ness and positive anarchy. “Assert your just rights as men,” they heard him say. “ Tear down this squalid, blighted town—burn it, lay it in ashes!. Bring justice to your corrupt and slave-driving politicians—and that means, kill them! Hang them on these trees, and watch them dance in the light of the burning town. “We've given the millionaires at the mine their medicine. Now, go and get Spindell. Show him how much power he has, when honest men wake up. ~ “Those prisoners in the jail are gentlemen from New York. They are privileged to commit crimes—murder. They're Spindell’s kind. See how they have won over your sheriff and your town marshal. “Kemp and Buxton are up there protecting them; they expect to be well paid for it. Are you going to submit tamely to such oppression, brothers? “What’s Rance Buxton to you? What does he pay you? Beggars’, wages! Show him how you can rope a man—brand him! He’s only a hog, but you can make meat of him.” Rance Buxton turned pale, but was able to curse the speaker eloquently from the security of the upper room. Comicbooks 7GO