Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 1, 1922 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

S10 some of the boys down to the Benoist water-hole. ‘We are having trouble enough with the calves. Don’t tell them anything else is m the wind. Give them the word not to let any ome through. Make Skip the straw boss down there. I rather fancy him. We can go that far without a hitch. If Bo- dine turns the water you run a drift fence ajong our line across the valley. Straight east and west with those dead trees is near enough. We've got the wire and posts. Most of the boys will be back from the north to-morrow. You can get that fence wp in a hurry if you have to.” “You leave that to me,” Cash cut im. ‘Soon as the fence ts up I'll drive enough stock into the valley to make that fence look on the square. Say, sounds like old times, getting ready for a war tke this. How your pa enjoyed #. But, honest, I hate to see Old Irensides get it in the neck. Old José is such a white Basque. But as your pa used to say, ‘ Business is like marriage. You got to take the bitter with the sweet.’ ” Acklin turned back to his desk when Mor- row had left. He pursed his lips as he thought of José and Mercedes. Tf this deal went through—and with his money and po- lttical power, it wouki—well, ‘she’d be his to a certainty. Paradise Valley would be his. He'd be its feudal lord even as he was the lord now of a domain larger than the Balkans. The thought brought the perspiratton to his brow. He was about to steal from her; but he stole as did the robber barons of old, from the many, that he might have riches to pour mto the lap of his favorite one. But all his musmg carried one reserva- taon; he remained the lord! CHAPTER IV. “ STICK ’EM UP!” EN days later a stranger crossed the desert from Gelconda. He headed due north for the Benoist water-hole. He knew he was entering Paradise Valley by forbidden ways. The hint that he take the south road had reached him a day back. Rumor said the Double A was losmg un- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. Double A country without the official Ackilin “OQ, K.” was not bemg done. Henry Adams and old man Ackiin had been mon- archs of more than they surveyed, both fipuratively and actually, for so long that no one questioned any right the Double A arrogated to itself. | They had tearned early in life that though It is weH to know the law, it és even better to know the judge. Other cow outfits had disappeared, but the mighty Double A em- pire bad servived, proving that the younger Ackiin had Jearned his lesson weil. it was not the stranger’s whim to oppose him. By the merest chance he kad taken the north fork at Wyand’s. The wilkws ahead of him, he surmised, marked the weater-hole. North, over the rise, he would He sent his horse ahead at a hard gallop. He found that the spring had made a smail pool m the witows. He swumg to the ground and toosened the cinches, bat almost instantly the amimal lifted his dripping muz- zie and turned an mquiring eye behind hin. The stranger followed suit. In the shadow of the trees two men sat. The cider of the two, a black-wisaged fellow, speke: “ Howdy, stranger!” it was Skip Lavelle, Acklin’s straw boss. “ Howdy!” Kildare responded in the same fiat, tell-nothing tone in which he had been accosted. His keen eyes took in the riffes reposme so oonvemently in their laps, the soiled cards, and the interrupted ganse of monte. The man whe had addressed him got to his feet. “ What's your name, stranger?” “ Kiidare—Blaze Kildare. ” “Veh ain’t aimin’ to Hinger around here be yah?” Blaze eyed him thoughtfully as he drawied his reply: “ Why, that all depends, don’t wt?” He turned and started to lift the saddle off his horse. “No use takin’ that down, mister; nary nit! PP) For answer Kildare pulled it to the “Now listen to me, mwuchacho,” he comicloool C©