Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 1, 1922 — page 142: what you’re looking at

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

D2 ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. The girl pointed to the upper end of the canon, where Cal and his captors had rid- den. They were within a hundred yards of the granite gate, and as Nan pointed a small band of riders came out of the gate to meet him. ‘““Saul, that is the answer to my ques- tion,” Nan said. ‘‘ You are a coward. You sent Cal Triggers straight into the hands of a lynching party. And that’s the bid you’ve made—that’s the way you show how brave a man you are.” Meakin compressed his voice into a low, rapid flow of oaths. ‘‘ How the hell should I know that the sheriff was there?” he cried. “Must you insist with your damned wo- man’s logic that everything points to my weakness—and everything to that hell-ben- der’s strength! I'll tell you, then, Cal Trig- gers is going to be hanged, and he’ll not come between us again. You are mine now —and without this damned gunfighter to protect you. You’re mine and I'll have you without fear!” Meakin’s hand closed about the girl’s wrist and he swung her roughly into his arms. As she struggled he kissed her many times on the mouth and on the cheeks and where the disheveled red hair fell down over her temples and the side of her face— all this before she was able to beat herself clear. Then she saw his handsome face, which had flushed red. It frightened her, and she thought the tenseness of his shoul- ders bent toward her was the tenseness of an animal about to spring. She turned and fled into the little hut, slamming the door and throwing the cross bar into place. The vision she had had of Saul Meakin, ‘transformed into a beast, was a vision of the truth. Meakin, fired by the violent tussle he had had with the girl, rushed to the door, ‘banged upon it with his fists, and failing to open it, took up a short sycamore log and beat on the pine boards, caving them partially in and splintering the two-by-four crosspiece. The loud banging of the log against the door reverberated in the deathlike stillness between the canon walls. The echo of it—a small, sharp, unknown sound coming back from every direction—was what started the first movement in the herd. One steer, panic-stricken, bolted; four thousand fol. lowed in a stampede. CHAPTER XXV. THE DEATH-MILL. CRUB HAZEN for the space of at least ten minutes had considered the stam- pede a foregone conclusion. When he heard the distant echo of the banging on the hut up in the center of the cafon, he detected a curious, noiseless movement which went across the sea of backs like a small ripple. It was like the movement of waves just before the breaking of a typhoon —a movement caused by no apparent wind —hbut by some inexplicable undercurernt. And then the “ typhoon ” struck. The big mass Of cow-brutes did not bolt forward all at once as Scrub, judging from their tense, lowered necks, had expected. In- stead, the beginning of the stampede was exactly like the beginning of a great storm. The ripple of tossing heads which crossed the whole expanse, reached the further end, and then a cloud of dust arose. The mass simmered like boiling water, whirled, and then a small group of steers rolled almost like a separate wave upward into the cafion. Another wave followed and then another. There was as yet no single movement of the mass—but an undulating like breakers of a stormy ocean on a shore. The crests of the breakers were steers that buck- jumped, or else piled up on those that had stumbled before them. Scrub Hazen knew that the ultimate disaster had come. Neither he nor any of his herders could Stop the panic of that mass of cow-brutes any more than a crew of sailors could abate a sea by yelling. In order to save his life Scrub dug his heels into his pinto’s flanks and tore for the sides of the cafion as fast as his horse would carry him. He reached the bluffs just as the flood of maddened steers spread out. Lashing his horse into a breakneck gallop he reached safety—the open plain and his herders. Nan Harvess had her first intimation of the stampede when Meakin, his face now paled from the livid color of eager love to comicloool C©