Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 4, 1922 — page 63: what you’re looking at

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

FEUD FOR to find Bill. which I didn’t mind, although I put up a kick about it, and rode off. From her looks and the way she carried that rifle of hers I knew Bill would get his if she found him. But I couldn’t do anything, ’cause he had told me to stay with the cattle. And, any- way, I wanted to see how long his grin would last. Maybe it wouldn’t last so long without my assistance. By the time Rose got to the Haskell ranch-house the doctor had been and gone, havin’ patched up Molly and made her comfortable. Of course maybe it wasn’t conventional-like for Bill to be there all alone with the girl, but in this desert it ain’t always convenient to telephone for a nurse or call an ambulance. Proper or not, it didn’t seem to make either of em unhappy, from what I learned a little later. Molly was sleepin’ easy, with her shoulder bandaged, and her yellow hair loose on . a pillow, and Bill was sittin’ beside her, just gazin’ at her and hopin’ she’d be all well in an hour or two, and worshipin’ her in general. The Haskell house, which old Steve built, is like a lot of others down here on the desert—rambling and Spanish, with a ve- randa goin’ all around and doors and win- dows openin’ off it. Old Rose got there when the sun was doin’ magic tricks with the desert. In the mornin’ and evenin’ there ain’t no prettier place anywhere. She got off our horse and left it out at the corral, and walked up to the house like an Indian on the trail. And she didn’t forget her rifle, believe that. She was out to kill, Old Rose, and she was goin’ to end, once and for all, the Rose- Haskell feud. She got around to an open door on the veranda and looked in. Maybe what she saw would have made anybody mad, but Old Rose didn’t have to be made mad— she was born that way. She saw Molly’s yellow hair on the pillow in a bedroom in Bill Haskell’s house-_that was bad enough. . But aiso, just at that minute, she saw, Bill Haskell bend over and kiss Molly on the forehead. Of course Rose didn’t know he worshiped the girl, and she didn’t know She took one of our horses, - THOUGHT, 373 that Molly was moaning in pain, and Bill tryin’ to soothe her. All she knew was that Bill Haskell, the worst of a bad lot, had taken her Molly away. She raised her rifle and leveled it direct- ly at Bill’s back. If she hadn’t been shak- in’ with anger and righteous indignation and all that she sure would have hit him, too, but as it was the bullet lodged in the wall a couple of feet over his head. He turned around and jumped up. Molly woke and saw Rose pointing the rifle at the man she loved. Bill lifted his hands, grinnin’ as always, and waited for Rose to shoot. “Mother Rose! Mother Rose!” cried Molly. ‘He saved my life! You shot me—I know it was an accident. But you shot me by mistake, and I would have died if he hadn’t brought me here and called a doctor!” Plainly, Rose didn’t believe it—at first. Her rifle didn’t waver from Bill, and Bill just kept on grinnin’ with his hands over his head. Old Rose looked from one to the other, doubtin’ ’em both. Molly tried to get up, tried to put her- self between Rose and Bill, but she wasn’t strong enough to make it. She fell back, crying to Rose, and as the old girl looked at her again she saw that the bandage over her shoulder was gettin’ dark with blood. . She dropped her rifle without payin’ any attention to Bill, and ran to Molly. “Oh, my baby! My baby!” she cried out in anguish, holding the yellow head in her arms, Bill turned back to the bed. He fixed the pillow, gentlelike, for Molly, and took her brown little hand in his. Then him and Rose looked at each other across the bed. Bill was still grinnin’, and from what he told me afterward Old Rose began to grin, too. ‘“'You Haskells has always been good enemies,” she told him, puttin’ out her hand, ‘“‘ an’ I guess you can be good friends, too.” Which goes to show that not even Old Rose knew how to run a feud. Only her. and I keep up our own private feud, and enjoy it a lot, so I guess we’ll both live a long time yet. COmicCclbooks.Com