The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 132: what you’re looking at

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

834 “It’s him!” Gill exclaimed as his eyes fell on the man sitting with his head in his hands. Radford leaped up and faced the owner of the Double X. ‘So this is some of your work, is it?’ he cried in a voice that showed something of the rage that burned in him. It all looked plain to him. Gill was still after the deed, and had somehow found out enough about him to use the suspicious circumstances of his connec- tion with Bullen’s death to get the sheriff to arrest and hold him. But Ted lost interest to whatever response Gill might make to his accu- sation. He looked at the man ‘who ‘entered the dusky room just behind the ranch-owner. For an instant he was puzzled. Then everything cleared. He remembered the picture of the “three disgraces”’ that Natalie had shown him. This man was the un- known third. “ It’s you at the bottom of all this!” he exclaimed, seeing the meaning of Gill's activity in the man who stood near the door. “Well — what if it is?” the man said with a voice of gruff and throaty timbre that harmonized with his look of strength, with the heavy black beard, with the lurking shadows of the room and his dragged-down felt hat, which partly concealed his face. “You’re Al Watson! I[ know you! You want the deed to the Cochinino Mine!” , The man by the door took a long breath suddenly; his big chest seemed to expand under the flannel shirt. Gill cast a quick look at him, and an ex- pression of approval with the way things were going settled on his tanned face. “T jes’ do,’ Watson replied. “T guess you'll want a_ while longer!” Ted retorted, stirred by a curious antipathy for the man. ‘“Hev ye searched him?” Watson asked the sheriff. The sheriff looked a bit surprised. THE ARGOSY. ‘“ Didn’t see no use uv that! He looks so eggsacly like the wire—” ‘*“ Ye’d better do it,’ Watson inter- rupted. Ted recognized that the sheriff thought the establishing of his identity as the murderer was the object of the search he undertook. But he watched the countenance of Gill and tried to read the shadowed face of Watson as the examination proceeded. “He ain’t even got a cigarette on him. I got his gun when I brung him in!” the sheriff exclaimed. as if he were somewhat pleased by the failure to locate anything that would show he should have taken the precaution be- fore. Watson came forward a step, then seemed to pull himself up with a jerk. Gill ran up and began investigations on his own account. “They ain’t nuthin’-—’ he almost gasped when he had slapped and felt about through the limited garments of a puncher. Nothing in the pouchy flannel shirt. Nothing in the pockets of the corduroy trousers. Nothing besides himself in the legs. “Take off yer boots!’’ Watson or-_ dered. “'Who’s bossing this job?” Ted asked, unable to keep the shine from his blue eyes. Watson seemed to read his amuse- ment at their discomfiture. He clenched his hands as if he fought hard with a desire to take the young man by the throat and beat him against the ‘ stone wall. ““Whut ye done with it?” he shouted. ; The sheriff turned and stared at him in sheer amazement at the repressed fury in the words. “Tt’s where you won’t get it, Mr. Watson,” Ted asserted positively. For a moment Watson and Gill were silent. Ted read the pause as an ad- mission that they had trusted to the fact that there were no banks or safe- deposits about, and had believed they. CO PMICLOOOKS (E@)