Argosy All-Story Weekly, August 9, 1924 — page 111: what you’re looking at

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

CHANNING COMES THROUGH. Also, something new had come into his heart. A strange yearning had gripped him; a savage intolerance, a will to do vio- lence. All his life he had kept control of himself. He had sternly repressed the ma- licious and vindictive impulses that he had felt stirring within him; he had managed to keep an even temper in times of great stress. He had schooled himself to delibera- tion of thought and movement, well know- ing the danger of yielding to his passions. Never yet had he let himself go. But as he rode he was conscious of a grim, saturnine humor, a cold definiteness of pur- pose which had not the slightest thought of mercy in it. He had become a killer, and he knew that if the time ever came when his guns would roar death to the murderers of Ned Vallon he would feel not a twinge of remorse or regret. Shortly before midnight he was riding a long ridge at a distance of perhaps twelve miles from the Circle B ranch house. He halted his horse on a bare spot on the ridge and turned in the saddle to gaze backward. The trail had led gradually upward, and when he looked back he saw a big basin basking in the moonlight, silent, deserted, slumberous. He could detect a pinpoint of light glimmering faintly in the distance, against- a long, low black line which he knew was the timber that flanked the ranch house. The light, he was certain, came from the ranch house windows, and for an instant his thoughts dwelt upon Warren and Betty. They’d be gone when he returned. For he had talked ‘ pretty plain” to Warren, in a language that the other was sure to understand. Warren would take Betty away. For despite his warning to Warren he had no expectation that the latter would return to Eve. Warren’s love for Betty was real, he felt. Eve was definitely out of it. She’d not have Warren anyway, after discovering that he had other preferences. Eve was not the kind to play second fiddle! Eve had spirit. She’d leave at ten o’clock in the morning, as she said she would. And with Eve gone; Warren and Betty disappearing to pursue their clandestine courtship; and Ned Vallon dead, what would there be left at the Circle B for him? 261 Nothing. Dismal recollections of the past and a blank, cheerless, hopeless future. He’d never go back, of course. There would be no need, no advantage. And yet he had found much joy there. Even in his defeats there had been joy. For he had watched Eve grow. He had taught her many things; he had enjoyed her mo- ments of happiness; and even when she had suffered sorrow there had been the solemn satisfaction of being able to console her. His lips were set tightly as he rode down the slope of the ridge. He looked back again as the horse under him descended, for he knew this would be the last time he would see the basin which had been his home for so many years: Once it was defi- nitely out of his vision he did not look back again. He rode through a little flat where tall saccaton grass clutched at his stirrups; he rode the horse up a bench where some manzanita bushes grew against an overhang. He followed a dim trail downward, into a gorge filled with scrub trees and a dense, wild growth. He knew where a stream of water trickled between some rocks and formed a smooth, clear pool in a hollow surrounded by a grassy level, and he urged the horse through some brush toward it. Near here was a nester’s shack; a struc- ture of adobe inhabited by a slim, scare- crow sort of a man the Circle B outfit knew as Abe Catherson. Catherson had drifted in some years before. There was a story that he had had a daughter’ who had mar- ried and gone East, and that Catherson pre- ferred to live alone, not liking his son-in- law. The Circle B had not been curious about Catherson. He seemed honest, and the Cir- cle B had suffered no inconvenience be- cause of his presence. Channing rode into the little level sur- rounding the water and slipped from the saddle. A shaft of moonlight filtered down through the leaves of the scrub trees and made a silvery flash upon the smooth sur- face of the pool. Channing knelt at the edge and drank. His horse slaked his thirst with steady, audible seeps and a muffled clanking of the steel bit against his teeth. At last both Channing and the horse GOMIIGIOO S CO