The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 111: what you’re looking at

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

MESQUITE RANCH. All that worries me the hed kilt Bullen! is that mebbe he ain’t dead!” ranchman growled. Alice looked at him for a startled in- stant. He was a conscienceless crea- ture outside the pale of her understand- ing; but she proceeded to convince him that Dr. Stratton had seen and known enough of his own patient to be able to identify him when he saw him dead. “Well, ef they found him dead— him ur any other man—right next to the front porch, why in thunder didn’t they git busy ketchin’ the murderer? ”’ he demanded, as if what He uttered was a kind of proof that even a man witha gun could not exterminate the incar- nate devil, Nick Bullen, and certainly no short fall and shallow pool, even with Ted Radford to help, could drown him.” “Maybe some day you'll realize how these rich folks can shut up what they don’t want known!” Alice retort- ed. “ He’s engaged toa rich and beau- tiful girl that’s in the newspapers every other Sunday. His mother’s the leader in a certain fashionable set. Naturally they’re not crazy about having it knewn that disgrace and wickedness is right in their midst! You can’t blame them! That poor dumb man—” “Dumb man? Who's he?”’ “Nick Bullen. The one who was killed.” “’Twasn’t Nick Bullen ef he wuz dumb. Nick Bullen could talk the paint off uv a wooden Indian an’ the blanket off a sure one! I guess I know how he could talk, dern him!” Silsby asserted, all the wrong he had suffered from Bullen pushing to expression in his hard voice. “ He'd been hurt. Dr. Stratton said he had had some awful blow that para- lyzed his tongue,” she explained. “By heck, he needed it!” Silsby exulted. Alice looked at him again. He was irredeemably in league with anything or anybody who had helped to give Nick Bullen any hurt. She turned to her little patient, determined to let the ‘who has hurt him! 813 barbarian beside her go his own God- forsaken way. That way appeared to lead directly to Pifion. But Natalie was less will- ing to let him be off. As he started to go she struggled up from the pillow. “M. Seelsby, eet ees Tom Sykes He may be lying dead among the rocks! M. Seelsby, you—you weel find him?” _ Silsby turned suddenly and recrossed the room. He grabbed the trembling hands reached toward him imploring- ly. He shook them till the little form on the bed trembled more. “You bet I'll find him—ef I have ta go to hell to do it!” The intense expression served its purpose. Natalie sank back, sobbing. Something in her had let go; and the awful horror and despair of a moment before which had stricken her was dis- sipated by a gleam of-hope. “You do not theenk he is dead, monsteur? ”’ she asked—almost plead- ed that his answer be “ No.” Silsby stood looking down into her face for a while, almost forgetting her in his concentration on the thought her question had wakened. “They won’t kill him till they git his written agreement to-that thar deed. ’*TIwon’t be much good ’less they’se somethin’ to show that he turned over his share. Ye see, he’s got a mother; an’ this hyah deed come to him through his father so his mother’d be his heir. Ef he wuz dead she’d git it. They won’t be a killin’ him jes’ to hurry up her a gittin’ hold of the Cochinino.”’ “But they—they might force him to sign—to save hees life!’’ Natalie _cried, repossessed by fear. Silsby was silent. He knew Gill would stop at nothing if there was great gain in it. “But, monsieur, eef they force heem, they know that we—” She buried her head in the pillow. But Silsby and Alice caught sight of the anguished horror that convulsed her face before it was hidden. S Eomichoo (C@)