Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 3, 1924 — page 94: what you’re looking at

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

884 “Wait!” Professor Hellbender called, stepping quickly back to the starting point. ““They’re too close together; they're liable to collide in the get-awav! Please move Edith, as you call him.” ‘** Her!” Solemn grunted. ‘Please move him this way a couple of inches,’ the professor requested; “ just here where my hand is resting!” Solemn slid Edith to the spot indicated and pressed her gently but firmly down on the bar. Edith shrugged her shoulders and squirmed. ‘Hold still, Edith!” Solemn scolded, bearing a trifle harder on her back, as Professor Hellbender returned to his .place at Dirty Shirt’s side. “ One!”’ Solemn counted again. ““Two!’’? Chuck Roden exclaimed. “Qh, Magic Instantaneous Invisible Fixer,” Pyof. Hellbender breathed silently to himself, “If you ever—” ‘“*Scat!”? Colonel Spilkins, the official starter, shouted. Brigham XVII sprang forward. Edith remained on the spot to which Solemn had pressed her; her little feet flew back and forth, but Edith stayed where she was! A groan went up from the crowd: “My Gawd, she has balked! Her wheels are spinnin’!” Dirty Shirt moaned. ‘“* Scat, Edith, damn you, hurry and scat!”’ Solemn pleaded. Edith tried her best, but she couldn’t. She was helpless to ‘scat’ worth a cent. Brigham XVII sauntered carelessly on- ward, pausing occasionally to sniff at traces of beer still on the track over which he was supposed to be racing. Ultimately, he tumbled lazily into Professor Hellbender’s hand, winner by the length of the bar of the greatest horntoad classic ever run in the annals of Red Bluff. Dirty Shirt’s fury was boundless. “Solemn!” he yelled, ‘“ Knock that damned Edith into the middle of next week!”’ “Don't!” Professor Hellbender inter- posed, quickly, “ Don’t condemn Edith! He is—”’ “She is!” Dirty Shirt mumbled. ‘simply too strongly batrachian ” the professor continued hastily. ‘‘ You remem- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ber, I warned you he’d balk—Just let him sit still till he unbalks! That will cure him! “If you move him he’s rufned. In an hour or so he’ll repent and never get the habit again! He’s too valuable a horntoad to spoil. Just let him sit still!” ‘* Let her alone, then,” Dirty Shirt called to Solemn; “just let her stay right there til she petrifies!” Dirty Shirt turned to Professor Hell- bender: ‘““You’re whiter than I thought you was, professor,” he said, his voice husky with feeling, ‘It’s blamed square of you to teach me the remedy for balky horntoads! I'd like to shake hands with you.”’ With one hand Professor Hellbender reached for the wad of bills Ed Slocum, the stake-holder, extended toward him; with the other he grasped the sun-burned fingers of Dirty Shirt Smith. For a while, the professor stood silent, evidently deeply touched by the tribute; a smile spread slowly over his features. Then he dropped Brigham XVII in his pocket, thrust the bills into his wallet, moved quickly to the front door of the Seventh Oasis, paused, glanced back and said: “Gentlemen, a balky horntoad’s a hell of a thing! Adios!” For two hours the crowd stood guard over Edith, wishing each moment she would decide to unbalk. Nothing happened. Personally, Edith resolved that if ever she got the chance she’d do some of the most complete running a horntoad could nego- tiate. She longed for the gentle slopes of Dead Angel Mountain once more, out near Hellfire Basin, where she had spent the days of her childhood. If she got loose she intended to go there. “Move her over a notch!” Ed Slocum told Solemn, as he wiped the bar with a towel; ‘some beer has run under her!” Solemn started to comply. He grasped Edith firmly by the edges and lifted up- ward. Edith refused to lift! She stretched a trifle, it is true, something after the manner of an ex-inner tube, or at most a fragment COMIC oool (©