The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 67: what you’re looking at

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

MESQUITE RANCH. gittin’ in some good licks for Gill!” Red observed to Sykes. “Whut’s that to you?” Sykes re- turned. | ‘What are the ‘ good licks’ you name?’ Natalie asked quickly. She faced Radford, but he hesitated about an answer. Sykes looked like a very decent chap. His sense of justice would not let him cast aspersions on the attentions he might have paid Mlle. le Fevre. : Indeed, he was so much less a cow- man, and so far short of loyalty to “the ranch” than Big Red that he could not think of Sykes being agree- able to the little lady for Gill’s sake rather than her own. He found it em- barrassing to answer her, but Natalie’s eyes persistently demanded a reply. ‘““T guess Red thinks that Mr. Sykes has tried to make some deal with you for the use of the water by the Double X cattle exclusively,” he said. “M. Sykes does not own the Double X. Eet ees a M. Gill who would make the good licks.” ‘There was something so bewitching about her quick assumption of the slangy phrases and turning them to dainty means of expression that Rad- ford laughed aloud. “You laugh at me!” she said. Radford literally broke up the meet- ing. Negotiations ended, Mlle. le Fevre whirled around and ran up the trail. Sykes followed her without a word to his enemies, the Mesquiters, Natalie paused on the platform above where she had sought shelter and found Ted. ‘““Eef there is a wish to make the good licks for the Mesquite Ranch, M. Frederick Radford must not come. I weel speak only to the “ boss,’ not any small potatoes! ” She flitted off up the trail. The last stinging echoes of her peppery fare- well died away. She had used a favo- rite expression of her Uncle Phillipe with telling force. Ted no longer laughed at her slang; he felt it too deeply. 4 A 769 He remembered how she had re- sented being taken for a child before. Now he had laughed like an idiot and given her the idea that he was still re- garding her as a youngster. He re- flected bitterly that he was probably unlucky to have changed his point of view. She was a woman to him now. He suspected, because his mind and body were filled with a thousand subtle im- pulses and sensations he had never felt - betore, that she was the one woman. This ranch-feud, too, appeared to offer chances for him to get so much farther into her disfavor that he could have groaned aloud. But Big Red’s growling rather diverted him from sel- fish interests. The foreman was muttering things about Gill and his paper-collar coming over to negotiate with Frenchy Fill- up’s niece. Sykes clearly had a stand- in. He railed at Radford for not ma- king the best of his own chances, and Radford meekly accepted the re- proaches. ‘They seemed so tame com- pared with his own. Big Red intimated that Silsby would not take his own part in fighting for a girl’s favor in order to secure the use of the spring. He was not the kind of a, man to knuckle to a girl and crawl round to ask her to give his cows a drink. 3 Suddenly Red’s ramblings took more serious form. He was thunder- ing out his belief that Silsby would run Frenchy Fill-up’s niece out of the country just as the cow-men had run out Frenchy himself. They could make life seven different kinds of hell for the girl, and she would be glad to hit the trail eastward. Radford tried to object. If Mlle. le Fevre owned the spring she ought to be allowed to dictate about its use. “Frenchy let us both, us an’ the Double X, use that thar spring,’ Red said as they rode off toward the ranch. “Did you pay anything for the privilege?’ Ted asked. “Pay! Frenchy Fill-up never COPMICLOOKS ~ (S@