Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 7, 1922 — page 62: what you’re looking at

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

208 being, and I’ve seen ’em both in action. Slim hits with anything from a paving stone to a lamp post, and he hits first and asks questions afterward. And he has an eye for ’em—better’n mine, and I saw through you. You sure have a front, though, and if it hadn’t been for all that kit you would have fooled me. Not Slim, though. He’d have known you.” The name of Slim McCabe had sent a cold thrill through the wanderer, and pru- dence whispered to him to run down that alley as fast as he could go, and get out of Slim McCabe’s town. All over the coun- try that constable was known as being “ hard-boiled,” but that hardly expressed it. He was parboiled. Tramps talked about him with bated breaths in hangouts that stretched from San Diego to Bangor and from Key West to Puget Sound. They told bloody stories of his manhan- dling, and when they went through Slim McCabe’s town, no matter in what force, they went with numbed virility, in the mid- dle of the night. “Gosh!” said Springtime. “I’ve got to get a big feed somewhere. I’d sure like to have one good meal before I'm done for. To-morrow there may not be enough left of me to make any difference, and, man, when I saw those pies on the window sill, something told me that just about three- quarters of one of them was mine.” “‘'What’s up?” said the old man, sitting bolt upright. “Are you going to fight somewhere around here?” “ Tl tell a man!” Springtime shook his head. “ Maybe you're going to wrestle that big fellow at the fair. He’d tear you limb from limb.” “No bulletins,” said Springtime, shaking his head again. ‘It’s going to be a stand- up and -knock-down fight, with nothing barred.” “‘ Well,” said the stableman, as he rasped a hand across his chin, ‘‘ there’s no harm in trying, and maybe you have a gag that will work. But don’t go to the back door, what- ever you do—walk right up to the front as if you were mayor of the town or a vis- iting minister, and brace her. If you go ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. to the back door you’re done for; and if you get away with this you'll have some- thing to brag about the rest of your days. Here, I have the hunch. “Tom Osborne is away for the rest of the day, and he has a lot of queer pals that his wife has never seen. Tell her you have an appointment to see him, and she’ ask you to wait, of course, but watch your table manners. She’ll ask you to stay to dinner, and once you have the grub I leave the rest to you.” Springtime looked for a long minute into the small brown eyes, but they were bland and honest, and he felt that the man wished him well. . “You're sure,” he said, “ that the man won’t come back? It would be hell if he should drop in while I was at the table, wouldn’t it?” “Oh, he won’t be back. You won’t take a chance on that.” “Thanks,” said Springtime, drawing a long breath. “ That’s better.” He walked along the alley until he came to the neat gate that led into the yard. Before opening it he had a momentary qualm, but once inside that disappeared, and he stepped across the lawn with perfect assurance. Some people have a sensitive area be- tween the shoulder blades which announces forthcoming changes in weather, and Springtime had such an area in his mind. That sixth sense had often told him that things apparently serene contained the seed of future troubles, and more than once that instinct had saved him, but as he walked across the lawn he was sure that all was as it should be. “Good morning, Mrs. Osborne,” he said as he rounded the syringa clump, and took off his cap; but the ffSure that stepped out into the opening was not the one he had been constructing in his mind. It was young, slim, and the eyes, instead of being light blue, were a curious deep reddish brown, with tiny flecks of lighter color m them. It wore sport shoes of white buck- skin, foxed and saddled in brown, white stockings over slim ankles, a white skirt of some coarsely woven white material, a gold- en colored sweater. At the open throat comicboooks C©