Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 4, 1922 — page 138: what you’re looking at

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

448 _ “Get me the blood bay!” Taurog. or- dered. “T’ll catch ’em. Tm goin’ to kill em both.” - “The blood bay was one of the mounts they took, chief. The hell-bender himself is ridin’ it!” ‘Then the roan—the gal’s roan. I'll ride it. I'll catch up to ’em if I have to kill the horse doin’ it! They’re both goin’ to stretch. Horse-stealin’-—and the gal’s double-crossed me. T’l]—” “The gal herself took the red roan, chief—” Taurog ripped the air with his oaths as the crowd melted away. He rushed down to the stable, followed by’ Trilles and Juan Scaly, Jude Silent, and the rest of his gunmen. For a moment the huge, battered giant was in a quandary, his only thought being to plunge out on the trail after the two fugitives. He ordered the saddle-horses brought out, and as the men scurried fran- tically for surcingles, saddles and bridles, he took Trilles’s whisky-flask from which he ‘gulped big swigs. He wiped his face of its blood and sweat, rubbed his eyes, and doused himself with the liquor. This calmed him. He came to himself with a big shrug of the shoulders and then looked around at his men. His voice suddenly steadied to an inexorable coolness, -“ Jude,” he said to the Dead Cow pro- prietor, “ you will follow the trail to Lava, taking with you as many men as can ride fast enough to keep up to your calico mount. You will cut off any chance of Quade and the gal’s gettin’ back to Mule City. Spread your men north and south in a long line, and give ’em orders to shoot —you can apprehend Quade for horse-steal- in’, If the gal’s shot—I won’t ax for any apology from the guy that fires the shot.” He turned to Juan Scaly. “ You'll take a bunch of men and ride south, keepin’ ’em From reachin’ the Buzzard Mountains. I’m goin’ to ride west—” “It’s there they'll be goin’,” Trilles chimed in. “You'll go with me, Trilles—you and my own posse. I'll ride till I get *em—if I have to ride out of the State—let it be through to Arizony—and out agin—T’ll git ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ’em if it’s to the end of the Rockies—or the world!” He mounted a long-bodied, rangy-looking mustang, with piebald hide of white and splotches of black. His men immediately jumped to their saddles, and in less than ten minutes the three posses were clattering into the gorge while Quade and the girl were riding out of it on the further side. CHAPTER XXII. THE MOUNTAIN TRAIL, S soon as their two horses had plunged A out of the gorge Kirbie and Jim Quade branched off from the main trail which led to Lava. Kirbie leading the way, they cut back, keeping close to the cliffs of the crater, and rounded the great Circular amphitheater of rock until they reached the plain on the western side. Here they looked down upon a long, sloping plain floored with sandstone and embossed with little mesas, colored with all the gor- — geous rock formations of the desert. Sandy shales were cross-bedded with bands of red and pink; rocks stood out grotesquely from the sand dunes. And everywhere there was the cactus with its myriad of bright red flowers like butterflies perched at the tip of each stem. Kirbie pressed her horse ‘on, giving the mare no rest from the long trotting, and swinging into a gallop at every slight rise of the trail. The roan’s hide became splotched with dark patches of sweat which soon lathered to white. “The horse won’t stand it,” Quade warned. ‘‘ These mounts are no good for rough traveling—they’ll drop.” “Taurog will follow us,” the girl replied. “And he’ll bring his best riders and best gunmen with him. He’s going to repay me for shooting his jack-dog and he will blame the theft of his two thoroughbreds on you. If he catches us he won’t delay killing us at sight.” ‘Unless this revolver you have given me gets him first.” “No,” the girl objected. “ You must not chance another fight. We must ride—ride until the horses drop. Up there in the foot- 8 A COmiCbooks.Gom