Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 5, 1928 — page 114: what you’re looking at

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

680 to us; he don’t owe my pal or me nothin’. We jest decides to be reg’lar and report the find. We could ’a’ kept our mouths shut. As it is, I’m done answering any silly questions.”’ He hitched his belt forward. As I tells you before, meek as a lamb with a pal, Shorty can be a horned toad on a holiday with strangers. “T sent Burke out with the buck- board to bring in the body,” interrupts Martin, as Renwood’s men don’t like Shorty’s attitude none, and it looks like trouble. “How does you connect the dead man with Leary?” continues Renwood with narrowed eyes. “Mr. Flint,” replies Martin, plumb polite, “notices the stiff wears bat chaps, and has a wooden butt to his eun, which he is still clutching. Leary affects chaps on this line—and is the only one that does—and also has a home-made handle to his six-gun.” Renwood grunted. “ Well, we'll have to wait until Burke returns.” I could see the cattleman was wor- ried, but he tried to throw it off. He turned to us with a fake smile and an expression that he attempted to make agreeable. Having a mouth that is a thin slit in a dark, glowering face, the edges of the lips did not turn up, and his sardonic grin wouldn’t have fooled a lost puppy eager for a home. ** Gents, I wants to apologize for my overeager display of interest in a done departed foreman, but Leary was my right-hand man. It ain’t,” he went on, “that I don’t rejoice at the rescue of my daughter, Mary, and I want to thank you gents proper for saving her life.” He offers his hand and I was forced to shake it, or explain why not. You can imagine it shorely goes ag’in the grain. But I had a further aim than merely blotting Renwood out—either him or the chief I’d yet to meet—Boss Deveture; my revenge calls for a high and complete finish. Eight men was cramped in that card ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. room, and the game of draw poker was at an end complete. The pack of cards was strewn over the table, some of them had fallen to the floor. One upturned—the ace of spades, the death card—I spurned with my feet. “T want you gents to have a drink with me,” said Renwood. “ Let’s mosey out to the bar. It’s stuffy in here.” We stomps out in single file over to the bottle emporium, and we must have loomed up as a hard-appearing crew; anyway we has a space to ourselves. While we libates Renwood questions me polite about the Injun fight, and was surprised that we went to the trouble of bringing the dead feller back to the ranch. “T couldn’t leave him there to be scalped, Mr. Renwood,” I counters, “as well as mutilated the way them savages hanker after.” “Humph; well, he’s cashed in his chips and I’ll plant him reg’lar. But he had a fitting end to his c’reer.” Renwood, unlike Leary; doesn’t ask how far away we find Mary and her swain crowded by the redskins, so I refrains from making excuses as to our being bad judges of distance. I can see that the cattleman is wor- ried, under the surface, by what seems to be right news of the death of his foreman, and is wondering deeply who perforated him, when, and how. And was it coming from the ranch that Leary bites gravel? Not that he actually doubts our story —not yet. But, taken by and large, crooked gents jest seep suspicion from their pores; they are chuck full of it, and Renwood was no exception. Be- sides, if his right-hand man was picked for a secret homicide, might not he be the next on the list? e Follering nacheral reasoning, I could. almost read his mind. It waren’t any friendship or devotion to Leary that was bothering Renwood, or starting tear ducts. He was thinking of his own precious hide. ECOPNICLOOOKS (C@)