Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 7, 1928 — page 147: what you’re looking at

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

MURDER ON somebody else asked. “He's gone, too.” “The boy never killed his paw,”’ the other returned, certainty in his voice. “T figger the chink killed the kid, too, and hid the body.” Somebody, recognizing the tall edi- tor, told him that Deputy Hank Style was back; that he was looking for Jingling in the Tidings office. Arriving there, Jessup was surprised to find Dad Skinner’s friend, Hargrove —the man who had brought the first news—had come with the deputy. The plump deputy, small eyes pop- ping with the importance of his news, started bursting into a narration of what had been found at the ranch. Har- grove, the rancher, listened with seem- ing impatience for a minute or two, then broke into Style’s description of details with a hard curtness. * Just a minute, Style,” he snapped. “ There’s no mystery about it, except the bare possibility that young Skinner might have killed his father. The boy’s crazy, and just wandered away. Find him, and you'll find he knows nothing of it. “ But it’s plain the Chinaman com- mitted the murder and the robbery. There was his pipe in the room. The money’s gone. He’s gone. I want, personally, to offer a thousand dollars for his apprehension. Put that in your paper, Mr. Jessup, and that means dead or alive!” “What about Tex Shepherd?” in- quired Jingling Jessup. Though he understood the heat ex- hibited by Dad Skinner’s next ranch neighbor, such a bar-other-theory con- clusion in any case always irritated him a bit. That was the attitude Deputy Style always took—or even Sheriff Lewis, wise as that veteran was. Only Jessup knew how many times they had guessed wrong. Hence, with- out a great deal of seriousness, he tossed in a suspicion of the discharged foreman. “ What about him?” Style asked. THE 137 The editor told him. ‘Told him how Shepherd had ridden in from the di- rection of the ranch with all the ap- pearance of a drunken debauch. How the discharged foreman had been the first to tell him the news of the robbery. And he reminded the deputy of Shep- herd’s threats after Dad Skinner had discharged him. “Nonsense,” snapped Hargrove. “The man’s just a drunken fool.” “Wal,” argued the deputy, “I reck- on I ought to make an arrest anyhow, jest on suspicion. In the meantime, mebbe the posse will find the chink. Mebbe Danny Skinner ‘Il be found. [Id like to locate him, too.” The plump officer, assuming his air of authority which somehow always seemed comical to Jingling Jessup, looked from one to the other. ‘Then he added: “Yuh know, with the law, in a case like this here, it’s so we have to sus- pect ever’body till we nab the guilty party.” Just then the door swung open. All three men leaped to their feet with sur- prise. With his shirt stained with blood, and his clothes ripped and torn, young Danny Skinner stumbled in. “Oh,” he exclaimed, and sank in a chair, holding his hand to the lump on the side of his head that the accident had caused, “I’ve got such a head- ache.” “Here,” shouted Style, violently jerking the youth upward, “‘ where was you, Danny, when yore paw was killed ?” The mad boy stared, blankness in his eyes. No trace of emotion. “Where was you?” reiterated the deputy. Danny blinked at them. “T don’t know,” he answered. MESA. IIT. A WEEK later, Jingling Jessup was coming out of the bank, a trace of ex- citement in his usually calm eyes, when Gomichooks (E@)