Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 2 — page 112: what you’re looking at

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

294 you see you’re not taking any chance? I'll be unarmed, with my hands above my head, and you'll have the drop on me, and the door covered. Will you do it?” Again there was silence. Then: ‘“‘ T’ll be damned if I can figure you, Tur- ner; but I’m willin’, I guess. Any dirty work by that crowd of rubes out there, an’ you know where you'll go to! I'l unlock th’ door, but don’t try to come in till I tell you. Ill get back behind my little trench b’fore that door is opened.” “The rest of the crowd are down the hall,” said Turner. ‘‘ Let’s go.’’ There was a sound of advancing foot- steps within, the scraping of a lock, and the retreat of the footsteps again. Then: “All right, Turner,” called Paprika. ‘“* Mind you have your hands up! ‘I'll have you covered.” “Tl be holding a pocket flashlight in my hand,” said Turner. ‘“ Don’t think it’s @ gun, and fire.” “All right,” replied Paprika. mind you hold it up.” Turner laid his revolver on the floor, and with a smile for the men who watched him breathlessly he raised one hand above his head and with the other turned the knob. The next moment he was inside the room, and the door had closed behind him. “ But CHAPTER XV. TURNER’S METHOD. IS hands stretched high above his head, the upraised flashlight painting a luminous disk on the ceiling above him, Turner slammed shut the door with a backward kick of his foot and stood back against the panels, staring sightlessly ahead into the darkness. ‘Well, Blake,” he said evenly, “‘ suppose you give me the once-over and satisfy your- self that I have no gun, so that I can put — down my hands?” “Lock that door again,” came Paprika’s voice in reply. “ Then stand back th’ way you are.” Turner complied; and Paprika came for- ward, running his hand carefully across the person of his visitor. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “You're all right,” he said finally, re- moving the muzzle of his revolver from against Turner’s ribs. “‘ You can drop your hands, Turner.” | Turner swept the spot of light about the room, picking out a white iron bed, a bu- reau, some chairs piled up in a sort of bar- ricade, a window with a dark-green shade | drawn down to its length, and, finally, Paprika’s grinning face. “How do you like my lodgin’s?” said Paprika. ‘“ Th’ service in this hotel is. great.” ‘I wish we had a light in here,’ said Turner. | “I brought up a candle from down- Stairs,” said Paprika, “‘ but I ain’t got no matches. Have you?” ‘“‘ Here’s a boxful,” Turner replied, draw- ing them from his pocket. “You fix it,” said Paprika. ‘I got to keep my trigger-hand’ free, y’know. Th’ candle’s layin’ there on the dresser.” — Turner found out the candle with his flashlight, dnd touched a match to it, wax- ‘ing it upright upon tHe bureau-top. ‘In the weak, yellow glow the men faced each other, Paprika still agrin, as if he sensed humor in the very desperation of his plight. Tur- ner was the first to speak. , “You're in a pretty pickle now, Blake,”’ he said gravely. ‘“ What in the devil did you try to do a stunt like that for? Didn’t - you promise me that if I let you alone, you wouldn’t try any rough stuff? Look what a mess you’ve got yourself into! If those rubes out there get you, they’ll string you up on the first tree.” Paprika wiped the grin from his face and passed his tongue across his swollen lips. Turner noticed, for the first time, how sorely battered was the man’s face: the half-closed, discolored eye, the puffed, split lips, the great gash that ripped the skin of his left cheek-bone. __ “ Gad!” said he. “ You let that kid give you a lacing, didn’t you?” Paprika grunted. “ That kid’s a wild- cat, whoever he is! He’d ’a’ laid me out if he had a real punch. But he didn’t have, an’ I like to killed him when that rube sheriff came in an’—” “Do you know who that kid was?” COLM Goo - COlini