Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 85: what you’re looking at

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

> 714 the dusk, that they were playing some kind of a new game, and me being fond of sports and wanting to learn all I could about this here game of “ put ’em up and drop it,” I eased through the thicket, jumped. Old Betsy out of her mother-hubbard, and calls out in my hog-farm tenor: ‘“ All together now! Up with ’em!” Up they went, the sawed-off shadow holding a likely looking gun in his left hand. ~ “Just let that shooting iron loose!” I ordered, and after my request had cour- teously been complied with I asked: “Now, what do we do next? I ain’t never played this game just this way be- fore, and you fellows will have to coach me. a little. Jim, you know more about the game than I do—just tip me off to what _I do next.” tt lence. where he can’t speak out in meeting about. ‘What do you generally do when you catch up with cattle rustlers?” Jim’s voice still was as calm as if he were asking for a dollar’s worth of white chips. : “ First, I'd gather up all the artillery,” I says. ‘ Jim, me having lumbago from tiding that Napoleon horse, won’t you just gather up those perfectly good guns?” Jim accommodated me. He was like that; a friend couldn’t ask too much of a favor from. Barber. “ Now you'll find my cayuse back there in the brush and a perfectly good rope. hanging on the saddle. If it ain't asking too much of you, will you get the rope?” Jim put off through the brush to fetch the rope, and seeing as how I seemed to hold all the aces in the deck, I moved a step nearer the two side-winders. ““ Seems like we’ve met before,” I said. “Vou ain’t got nothin’ on us,” says the short one with the voice like a bellows. “Tm going to have a rope on you poco pronto,” I said. ‘ What happens to you after that depends on how I’m feeling when we come up. with the first pinyon tree. What’s the game, anyway?” “That’s plumb interesting,” I said when both of them made a noise like a long si- “ When a fellow gets to the place his business, he’s in a bad way. Where did you get the woollies?”’ “a hands. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, Nothing but considerable stillness, “J don’t blame you. If-I was.caught trailing a bunch of those wet-nosed ba-bas I wouldn't ‘want to talk about it either. But haw come the cattle?” T’ve heard Rip Jaimson say there. is an animal in the deserts of Egypt called a _ Spink, the which never says nothing. Com- pared to these two Hombres, that Egyptian spink would sound like an.auctioneer. I didn’t feel that it was quite polite for me to monopolize the conversation, so I shut up, and gave them a chance-to open up on some subject more to their liking. They didn’t seem to know enough about anything to start a conversation, to say nothing of finishing it, and by the time Jim came up with my rope there had been nothing of what Rip Jaimson calls persiflage. With Jim again on my side of the house, I permitted the two men to lower their I had Jim tie the big fellow’s claws behind him, then take a half hitch around this neck. Running the rope back to the runt, Jim took a half hitch about shorty’s neck, and then tied his hands behind him. Si either of. them got to cutting up, the other one got it in the neck. “ How far is it to a tree that’s tall and strong enough to take care of these two | coyotes?” I asked of Jim. “Too far to try to make it at this time of day,” Jim replied. “‘ Better drag it for my shack. I think it might be interesting to entertain these boys for the evening.” ‘““ Maybe so,” I admitted,. “ although, if J know anything, the which may be open to argument, it’s the fact that a rattlesnake isn’t safe company until it’s dead.. Where is your horse?” 7 | “At the place; I’ve been trailing the tall boy on foot.” - ““Where’s their horses?” Jim shrugged his shoulders. “ He was walking when I first sighted him.” | “Then welll hoof it for your place, if “ you'll just ride fence on them until I get old Napoleon out of the brush.” It was getting on toward dark by the time I came up with Napoleon, and when it gets dark that old horse hate: to be alone; so I didn’t. have to waste any time getting hold of him. EO 1NOO