Argosy, Vol. 117, No. 2 — page 17: what you’re looking at

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

CROSSROADS. dred gun-fighters. But all we know is that McGurk started on the trail of Boone’s gang and that he-finished ’em all off except one young feller who beat it East and got married, amd the girl We know McGurk started on that trail with a white horse. We know the girl come down from the mountains riding that same white horse. Partner, them are the cards, and you can put ’em together any way you want.” ’ Dix Van Dyck swallowed hard and then set his teeth. It was almost more than he could understand, He had a faint suspicion that the other was amusing himself with gen- erous lies. If so, there would be an unhappy ending to the tale. He decided to draw out the man further. “Ts that,” he said, “‘ what scares ‘em away from that girl in there?s The other looked up with a scowl which changed almost at once into friendliness. “Look kere, pal,” he explained, ‘‘ you’re all due for a cold trail. Il tell you straight. When Jack Boone come down from the hills there was another with her. He was one of the last of Boone’s old gang —the best of the bad lot. All we know is what he told us. He said the girl had got hold of a little cross—this sounds funny, I know--and that the cross give her good luck, but give bad luck to every one near her—her friends, particular. He says that cross was what made her able to beat Mc- Gurk, and as long as she had it on there wasn’t any man could handle her.” ‘That sounds all pretty damned fishy to me,” grumbled Dix Van Dyck. “Don’t it?” agreed the other. “ And it sounded fishy to the lot of us. But the first thing we noticed was that this feller wanted nothing more than to get free of Jack Boone. He blew north and ain’t been heard of since. Then Bud Ganton, a dirty half-breed with a-record it took half an hour to read, made up his mind that he was going to get the loot that the girl was said to have. ‘He started out from town for her cabin where she was living up in the hills. The next day the girl come riding in to tell the deputy marshal that there was a dead man out to her house. The marshal went out and found Ganton pumped full of lead and 167 both his cwn guns out and with a bullet fired out of each. “Now there was.only one thing Ganton was any good for, and that was a gun-play, but with his sixes he was a. world-beater. I’ve seen him make a play and he could make his gun talk French, I’m here to state. Nobody knows what happened ex- actly, out there to the girl’s cabin. But it was sure plain that Ganton had time te get out his guns and make a play before he dropped. But the girl was too fast for him and drilled him clean. Now if the girl didn’t have something like that cross to help her out, how’d she ever have got away with® Ganton?”’ ‘If she was Boone’s daughter, he sure taught her how to fan a six,” answered Dix Van Dyck. ‘Sure, but that ain’t all the reason we~ got for thinking that that little cross of hers makes her safe and raises hell for her friends. ‘There was Luther Carey. He was knocked off’n his feet by Jack’s pretty face —which she’s some looker—and he said bad luck could go to the devil. He started on the trail of Jack. She warned him fair and square that it was a plumb cold trail_and that he’d get bad luck if he stuck around. ‘But Luther stayed. And about a week later he was bucked off a little tame cayuse that a boy could of rid. He was bucked oi and busted his neck when he hit ~the sand. I’m asking you, was that nacheral? No, I'll tell a man it wasn’t! ‘Then Hopkins, that Eastern dude that was a Mining engineer. He come along and seen Jack and went crazy about her. We warned him fair and square, and she warned him, too, they say. But he kept going out to see her. And then one day he dropped down a shaft in the Buckhorn mine, and they had to go down with a broom and a shovel and sweep up what was left of him. ‘There’s two things we blame to the cross Jack wears. There’s plenty of others; I could sit here all night and tell ’em to you. Take her luck for cards, for instance. You never see her lose more ’n one out of every three passes. If she wanted to, she could break every game in the State; but money don’t seem to mean nothing to her. ecomlicbool (C@