Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 5, 1921 — page 141: what you’re looking at

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

THE BUSTER. “ All right,” said he. “I'll have to tie you.” Holding her hands fast in one of his, he snapped off a pair of her own saddle-strings and bound her hands behind her back. Then, seizing her by the collar and the belt, he swung her up and astride the horse. With solicitude he tucked her feet into the .hooded stirrups, and with expert ease ,he ‘evaded the kicks she aimed at him with each foot in turn. ~ “ Kick away,” he told her. advise you to keep your feet on the treacls. You might fall off. Guess I’d better tie the stirrups together and your ankles to the leathers. Then there can’t be an acci- dent.” These things he did. - ‘“What are you going to do with me?” she asked in a small voice when they were proceeding toward the hill. ‘““ Marry you,” was the succinct reply. ‘Marry me!”’ He nodded without looking up. rT But—” “But you don’t love me. Is that it? Well, I love you. I’ve loved you from the day T met you there at my ranch. But under the circumstances I’ve not had the opportunity of coming and telling you properly. I—TI’ve been pretty busy. But I always intended to come to you as soon as the rush of my affairs slackened a trifle.”’ “Why—why not have told me at my home?” ‘You haven’t heard?” “Heard what?” ‘“ Anything about me?” ‘“T know quite sufficient about vou with- out hearing anything further.” “It doesn’t matter anyway. The thing is I’ve got you, and the truth is, I was on my way to your ranch to risk speech with you when I saw you coming along the trail. You’ve saved me a lot of trouble.” ‘But where are you taking me?” ‘“T don’t know,” he replied truthfully. ‘‘ Away somewhere—a town where we can be married.” ‘‘T’ll never marry you,” she said thinly. ‘We'll see.” “But look here—’’ she began desper- ately. “ But Id: 427 ‘“'There’s no use talking,” he said de- cisively. ‘I’ve thought it all out. After we've been married a while you’ll get used to me. You'll even feel affection for me. And let me tell you you’d better feel it. You'll find life easier.” They rounded the little hill, he always leading her horse, and came to his horse where it stood dozing three-cornered, rope- tied to a pine-tree. Swing Kyler, his captive’s bridle over his arm, laid hands on the rope. His fingers were busy with the knot when a man rose out of a willow-bush at his back and shot him through the head. Miss Rowland’s startled horse plunged and reared. If it had not been for the sad- dle-strings that bound her to the saddle she might have been unseated. The bridle- reins, under the continued pulling of the horse, were slipping from Swing Kyler’s dead arm when the murderer seized them and yanked the horse up short. The murderer was Squinteye Maginn. Of course Miss Rowland did not know who he was. What she saw was simply a Heaven-sent rescuer with a smoking Colt in his right hand. Squinteye favored Miss Rowland with a smile that was intended to be reassuring. She required no reassurance. She beamed upon him. ‘Please untie me,” she said. ‘“‘ My hands hurt so.” “Not Just now,” Squinteye told her, and his smile became a leer. Her eyebrows drew together in a puzzled frown. But her tremendous relief at being rescued from Swing Kyler still maintained her emotional pendulum at the top of its arc. ‘I don’t understand,” she saif# ‘““You—haven’t you rescued me _ from him?” Squinteye’s little cross-eyes devoured her. ‘“Oh, yeah, shore, I’ve rescued you from him all right,” he chuckled coarsely, then laughed with an abandon that revealed the interior of his mouth to the palate. ‘“That’s rich, that is. Now I dunno what he was gonna do with yuh, but I know what I’m gonna do, an’ that ‘ll be a plenty.” Here he laughed again, andi bolstered: cy