Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 28, 1928 — page 49: what you’re looking at

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

ROPE NECKTIES. “ Railroad going in there soon?” I queries. “Yeah, near there now. Got to Fort Pearson, twenty miles east.” “Nice town?” ** All depends what you are looking for.” “We figures some of the ranches thereabouts would want some A-I help,” Shorty puts in. “Humph! They wants men handy with their shooting irons as well as lariats, and if you is desp’rate charac- ters all the better.” Mr. Murray appears to try to throw a scare into us. Scaring is something Shorty and I is not up on, fail complete; I guess at school we never did no home work on the subject. “We never lets no hostile varmints crowd us none; we is plumb p’isonous when riled,’’ opines Shorty, looking as meek as a lamb, if it weren’t for a cold little glitter in those cold eyes of his. “Oh, the country up thataway is all right,” counters Mr. Douglas, “ only there is so much gold flowing into a couple of counties that it makes folks greedy. * And, as usual, on the frontier law and order allus lags a couple of years behind; the votes is against it, so to ~ speak.” “ Virtue does seem kind of unappre- ciated when things is booming,” I agreed. “ Mr. Murray, will you be so kind as to fill °em up again?” The bottle went bowing around to each in turn. “Cattle is high in price up North?” I questions. * Ten—fifteen—sometimes twenty dollars a head,” the saloonkeeper an- swers. “ They runs ’em to a slaughter pen and to the railroad fast as they come in.” I commenced to understand how the local herds of longhorns had become exhausted, and with an armed gang on each ranch, they reached far south for 479 wholesale murder and rustling. Far as the ranch where they’d killed my pore father and brother, and stole our hosses and herd. A. tiny pulse began to beat like a hammer on my temple, at the right side, and I had that restless feeling of one who has lost time. But only cold and deliberate would I have my re- venge. But I believed I had asked ’nough questions without overjumping the bounds of good taste. Confirmed ques- tion putters never become popular in the West. Those several hours we stays in Hopetown, Shorty and me handles our likker quiet, like gents should, letting it lay where it belongs along the belt line, and not going wild to the head. Things was pleasant all around; we replenishes Mr. Murray’s cash box with a few gold coins, and gives back several more to Mr. Douglas for some new food supplies. On fruit, put up in jars, Shorty and I are both particu- lar gluttons. We rides away with cordial greet- ings to and fro, and handshakes mu- tual. It is a pleasure to meet and do business with gents like these who meets you halfway. When we are out of sight of Hope- town—which came into temporary fame the following month—I divides a hundred dollars in gold with Shorty. “It does not seem right, taking money for them dirty hides,” he sighs, gleeful. “Don’t worry, kid, when they are sewed into buffalo robes old Douglas will make plenty. They didn’t give the stock of buffaloes time to breed, and it is running low on the plains.” Shorty nodded. The gold made him cheerful; like most cow-punchers, he could not imagine it none, he had to feel it. “From now on, Harry,” he tell me, “T leave any financial motion you make as already passed. ‘This is the first time [ ever rides into a strange \OOKS COWMUC (C@