Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

inded upon it with the dipper. ely men sat up, sleepy-eyed and emanding to know the cause of The girl that writes letters!” Babe ed. “ They’ve got her in the Lone and they won’t let her out. They’re in’ her drink, makin’ her dance! For he love o’ Gawd, get her out, men; get r out!” A man jumped out of his bunk and dived to his clothes with no more regard for gabe’s presence than if she were a wooden - post. _ “Come on, boys!” he cried. “ We'll _ show that joint what’s what. We'll clean em out! Are you with me?” Every man in the bunkhouse was. They flung into necessary garments, shot out the door, and set off for town on the run. Babe trailed along far behind. ere, <“ XI. ALIcr’s joy when she beheld her husband that evening for the first time in many months had been great, but not so great as was her joy now at the sight of Jim Harper in the doorway of the Lone Star. Two seconds before he appeared she was in the worst panic of her life. Fear had almost paralyzed her. Vicious eyes were gleaming up at her from ail sides, hands were reaching up and grasping at her an- __kles and skirts. In another moment she _ would have been pulled down from the table to a fate that she dared not guess at. But now Jim Harper had arrived! In- stantly her peril seemed to dissipate. True, he was badly done up, but what of that? » sight of his broad shoulders, his de- mined features, his glinting eyes, was e sight of water to a traveler crazed irst. For the first time she realized x all the days she had been in ‘a prop upon which she had ed. He was the law! The > had just now mocked led against. What a h the storm that | At its ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. f- Then she saw it was no menace. But the damage was done, the storm unleashed, and the mere fact that she wished order restored did not necessari] mean that it would be restored. With a fresh chill of apprehension, she realized that Harper was only one man against fifty or sixty—an exhausted man at that. At first sight of the sheriff the mob that surrounded her had momentarily ceased its tumult; but now, as the men realized the sheriff's spent condition and recollected that they had, as they thought, run him out of town, the spirit of disorder inspired them afresh, and they let loose a pandemonium of yells and cries of what they would do to him if he tried to interfere. Harper regarded them for a moment in silence. His strength was going fast, but this was the supreme moment of his life. The woman he loved was in peril—deadly peril. In their present drunken and in- flamed state, the brutes who surrounded her would stop at nothing. He drew his pistol and summoned every ounce of his remain- ing strength. This, the biggest effort of his life, must not fail. He held his pistol by his side and ad- vanced to within three or four feet of the edge of the crowd. Every eye was upon him. ‘““A passage!” he demanded. ‘“ Open it, or Ill shoot it open!” His gun pointed toward the table. The man immediately in front of it edged to one side, then the next did likewise. This left a third man directly in front of the pistol. Evidently he meant to stand his ground. But Harper’s glinting eyes were upon him, and so was the sinister black muzzle of the gun, so he, too, edged out of the line of fire. In thirty seconds there was a clear pathway between Alice’s table and the sheriff. She leaped down, dashed along it, and stood panting beside her rescuer. Together they backed toward the door, the mob inching forward as the two retreat- ed, but held at bay, despite its overwhelm- ing numbers, by the gleam in Harper's eye and the threat of the pistol in his band. Yells sounded outside, and Alice wheeled in alarm to face this fresh menace. It was me comicbooks.com o