Argosy All-Story Weekly — "The Purple Limited" — page 111: what you’re looking at

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

THE STRAY-MAN. ‘ and still. believed, that it had been her man- ner which had brought him to ask the ques- tion of the stars. She had seemed to be filled with a grave simcerity—as though back of what she had said was authority complete and convincing, in which she be- ~ lieved. And she had brought upon him the mighty indecision that now afflicted him. He had thought that night that his par- tial surrender to the merciful impulses which had seized him was due to his weakness—a weakness which had accentuated the effect of her words, and which had caused him to respond to.an emotion which he would have. ignored at other times. ; But he was not certain. The girl had said enough to him to brig doubt ito his mind, and he now kept seemg Larry as he had seen him often in life, reading, and seeming to exalt in it. Undecided, continually debating the ques- . tion with a Sersistence which had brought furrows into his forehead, he endured the days of his convalescence with stoic calm- nets, and with taciturnity—especially when wm the presence of Brail Kelton—that was commented upon by Lefty Knable. “ Shucks! ” the latter said to him one day. “T reckon—if I didn’t know you—I’d think you was an ungrateful cuss. I showed maore thanks over them ham an’ aigs than you're 'showin’ the boss for: furnishin’ you chuck for more’n two weeks.” Shorty grinned at him. ‘‘ Knable,” he said; “ you run a heap long on talk. I’m savin’ my breath until I get strong on my legs again. Then I’m goin’ to say things to you about what you told Helen Kelton about a thing that happened in Loma.” “Se she told you that, eh?” grinned Knable. “Well, she was curious, an’ I told her. Shucks! I was thinkin’ to make you solid. An? now you’re blamin’ me. I reckon there ain’t no way to anticipate your trail.” _ He narrowed his eyes at Shorty. ‘“‘ Meb- be you don’t know, an’ mebbe you do. But that girl’s likin’ you a heap, Shorty. When ¥ was tellin’ her I'd seen you in Loma she . asked me kind of breathless: ‘ Did he leave . town?’ An’ when I put off answerin’ her until I liked to bust my neck tryin’ to keep ia what I knowed about the way she felt about you, she looked as though she’d like «677 to guzzle me for losin’ my voice. If yon’ve got amy sense—” He dodged a branch of chaparral that Shorty hurled at him, grinning hugely as he went to the corral to rope his horse. Shorty was spending much of his time out of doors, sitting on a bench in the shade of the bunk-house a goodly portion of his time; for the wound, though healing rapid- ly, was not to be strained by excessive movements. He had been forbidden to ride by the Dry Bottom doctor who had visited him twice since the day of his restoration to consciousness, ane (eee) 20) Bite was) 2 succession of lazy, endless days. However, Helen Kelton had placed a big chair at the base of a smail juniper tree near the rear door of the ranch-house, and in this, during the heat of the long days he spent much time. Since the night she had talked with him about Larry the girl had not questioned yhim regarding the killing of his friend. However, she had looked at him oddly many times, as though she meditated renewing the talk; and several times when she had been with him in the shade of the juniper tree she had been on the point of speaking about Larry. She had finished her work on this morn- ing—a little more than two weeks follow- ing the conversation—and had come out a few minutes before, dressed as she had been on the day Shorty had first opened his eyes to see ‘her near the bed. He got up when he saw her approaching and smilingly waved her to the chair in which he had been sitting. When she refused the lightly: ‘‘T’ve been settin’ in that chair so long that I’m scared it 11 get the notion I'm imposin’ on it. I reckon when I get over this I’ll never want to see a chair again.” She dropped into the seat and he stood chair he said ‘back from it a little, frankly admiring her. She made a picture that brought a dull ache into his chest—an ache not caused by the wound he had received that night on the plains. For he realized that arch as he longed for her, she was not to be his—that he was not even to consider he was entitled to think of her in those terms until he mG (C(O) 6) O 16 S