Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 3, 1924 — page 169: what you’re looking at

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

A RODEO ROMEO. he recognized the familiar aroma of horses and steers, straw bedding and hay. “I gets me a bed here and here’s where I stay from now on,” was Slim’s assertion. “Yuh boys kin have your New York. I'll bed me down with my hoss and send out for my meals. When the rodeo’s over with and we is all ready to hit the trail, Tex, yuh just lead me to the station and if yuh blindfold me I won’t care arap. Yes, suh, if any Brooklyn Bridges or electric Flat- iron buildings want to be looked at yuh’ll have to bring ’em up here. [I'll be in to New Yawk all week.” Sending a war whoop echoing through the building’s vast cellar into which they had descended, Slim took a running dive into a mound of loose hay and buried him- self with gusto. He was true to his promise. He did not venture out of Madison Square Garden until the last day of the rodeo. Thousands of weil laundered Easterners who hung about the exits of New York’s great show house anxious for a close up of the long legged cowboy who bulldogged steers with such aggravating ease, and in whose hands a lariat became a graceful undulating, snake- like thing of beauty; and who sat on the buckingest outlaw horse as easy as a frog on a slimy log—these admirers were disap- pointed. Slim posed for no close-ups. He hankered for the roar of no L trains; ig- nored the lights of Broadway. At matinées he worked; evenings he worked. Between times he smoked and mooned. But on the last day he succumbed. The matinée rodeo performance had been over ten minutes—when Slim slipped out of the Garden headed for West Street and the down town water front to prove to him- self that, the Garden press agent, was a sober faced prevaricator in insisting for a full week running that such a thing existed as a steamship bigger than the huge Garden. It was five o’clock when Slim left the Gar- den, murmuring over and over the direc- tions he was to take. At five fifty o’clock an ambulance was racing through New York streets with his unconscious form. At seven o’clock he returned to conscious- ness, to suffer such mortifications, he threat- 959 ened to set fire to hospital pillows with his flaming cheeks. At seven twenty, Shorty Allen was at his bedside. ‘What happened?” He knelt holding Slim’s big hands in his own. The patient looked past his interrogator and focused a vacant stare on the wall. ‘Don’t ask me, please,’ he murmured in a shaking voice. ‘I can’t tell you.” He withdrew a hand and pressed it to his bandaged head. “* Can’t tell me?” cried Shorty, astounded. Slim shook his head. “You don’t mean, May didn’t write and —and—and you tried to, to commit sui—”’ “Do I look crazy?” asked the patient, endeavoring to sit up but dropping back with a groan. “There, there,” said Shorty, “I didn’t mean that, but, well, New York drives some guys crazy, yuh know.” Slim sighed and covered his face with his hands. “Well, if it wasn’t that what was it?” persisted Shorty. ‘Somebody stick yuh up?” iT Nope.” ‘Fall off the Woolworth Building? ““ Nope, it wasn’t that,” said Slim. Shorty gazed frantically about the room, then his eyes came to rest on a vase of roses. They were three days old a gift to a previous patient. He looked from the flowers to Slim’s flushed face. A nurse entered. Shorty faced her abruptly. ““ 'What’s the matter with him?” he asked, and pointed to the bed. ** Don’t you tell him,” growled Slim. Shorty winked. ‘ What happened to him?” he coaxed. The nurse _ hesitated. Slim made violent signs to her. Shorty winked again, then gazed down at a pocket from which there peeped coyly a five dollar bill. “Why, all we know,” replied the nurse, “is that he was kicked by a horse and trampled on.” Shorty gazed at Slim’s red cheeks, then at the roses. Slim groaned. ‘ There’s been a lady here to see him?” he asked. Slim looked amazed, then nodded vio- lently to the nurse. DOO CO) (©