The Argosy, Vol. 82 No. 2 — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

THE OLD WEST until Ma Bobbett and Ezra gave me a home and called me Liddy Ann! Oh, I had to tell you, I had to!” And she turned from him with tears in her eyes. He leaned over the counter and, almost roughly, drew her about until she faced him again. “The Bobbetts are not your parents?” he demanded. ING." “T understand, then, why you are so dif- ferent. That has puzzled me for some time. What do you know about yourself, Lady Ann?” “Nothing at all, Marty.” He laughed softly. ‘‘And you can think that makes a particle of difference?” he asked. “‘Why, to me the dearest girl in the world has brown hair and hazel eyes and a sweetness and charm all her own. She used to ride in the old stage coach when it was held up by Perdue, and now she’s clerking at the Bazar in Nugget Notch. She isn’t a Bobbett, and her name isn’t Liddy Ann, but she is Lady to me, and has been and will be to the end of time. Remember that always.” Thereupon he took her face in his hands and kissed her quivering lips and looked _ straight into her startled eyes. “Very pretty,” drawled a voice from the door, “but I don’t think bazars dealt in that sort of thing in the sixties and seventies. Anyhow, this one won’t, while I’m around. Reeves, you had better take a tumble to yourself.’ The Tenderfoot whirled to confront Jim Rayner. ‘What business is this of yours?” he flung at the gambler hotly. “Tf you can’t guess, my son, then you'll never know. Come in here and buy what you want; then, when you have paid for it, take a slant for out-of-doors. I don’t be- lieve you’re so thick.” The velvet softness of Rayner’s blue eyes had changed into polished flint. “Vou get me, all right,” he added, “‘so enough said.” With that he walked on to the counter. Reeves’s temper was on edge and it was with difficulty that he restrained himself. “Neither you, nor your friend the don, is going to interfere with me,’ he said, his voice low but seething with determination. “T’ll look out for Miss Bobbett, Rayner, and before any of your schemes can reach her they will first have to pass Martin Reeves.” PER CONTRACT. 297 Gentleman Jim paid no attention. ‘Let me look at your pipes, Lady Ann,” said he. “Billy Vince knocked my meer- schaum off a table at the Rio Rey. Some- thing in a good briar, if you have it.” The girl’s face was pallid. She cast an appealing glance at Reeves; and, obedient to the mute request, he quietly turned and left the store. Just outside, sitting on a bench, smoking a cigarette and leaning carelessly against the mud wall, he saw Don Quesada. The don it was who lent color and dash to Castle’s ’49 Camp. He was the rider, the swaggerer; graceful in movement as a leopard, he was endowed also with the slink- ing qualities of that four-footed hunter of prey; but he was a silent man, spectacu- lar in action but never in speech. His hat was a bell-crowned affair, richly embroidered with gold cord and having jingling coins hung to its brim. For coat he wore a short red velvet jacket, gay with polished silver buttons. His trousers, tight to the knee, flared wide at the bottoms, slashed at the outer seams and laced with gold braid. A crimson sash girdled his waist. Don Quesada was young and delicately featured as a woman. He was as hand- some as a man may be, and he could ride like a centaur and dance beautifully with the senorita. Yet it was evident that there was a mixed strain in him and that he was not wholly Spanish. Reeves and the don had been ordered by Castle to keep away from each other. In Los Angeles the Tenderfoot had bumped the don’s head against the stockade wall of the Camp, wrested a dirk from his slim fingers and then bumped his head again— all because he had annoyed Lady Ann. After that, Reeves had warned Don Quesada, and the don had breathed dark threats in choice Castilian; all of which impelled Castle to show his authority. Reeves halted in the road and gave the don a sharp sizing up. The don puffed a wisp of white smoke into the air and looked through it mockingly. Reeves whirled on his heel and crossed the street to the hotel. He and Rayner, he thought as he took a chair in the shade, knew where they stood now. They were against each other be- cause of Lady Ann. That was the sur- face reason, but the real cause underlying the difference was obscure. Reeves had now two avowed enemies in CORMMICLOOOKS (C (C@)