Avon Fantasy Reader No. 7 — page 130: what you’re looking at

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

ee FRANK ee veER “Don’t you know?” Howard exclaimed. “I’m the original owner of that gun. I’'m...Jesse James!” “But ae said your name was Howard.” “Of course. It’s the name I always used. I couldn’t go around telling people I was Jesse James, could 1? A hundred Pinkerton men were looking for me, a thousand sheriffs, twenty thousand Federal soldiers. And none of them got me. No man ever got me as long as I had that gun on me. And then—then I put it down one day. I stepped up on a chair to straighten a picture and Bob Ford killed me. Shot me from behind, the dirty little coward. They wrote a song about it: “<The. dirty little coward Who shot Mr. Howard— ” : The roaring was in John Parker’s ears again. He was slipping down—down. “Jesse James,” he said. “The gun of Jesse James. So that’s why—” “Of course, of course!” said Jesse James, impatiently. “The gun’s cursed. Every man who owns it is cursed. That's why, I have to get it. I—I can’t rest until I get the gun. Give it to me, Parker. Give it to me—and die!” There was an ounce of strength still in John Parker's body. An ounce of strength and a grain of will poner. He co-ordinated the two and brought up the Navy Colt. | “Take itl” he said, and died. Statement by Amos Willoughby ~ “IT knew he was batty when he started bidding for the gun. It was a piece of junk, worth maybe ten or twelve dollars as a museum piece. He said a dollar, then before I could say a word he raised the price to ten dollars. From then on he kept raising himself until he got up to fifty-one dollars, when I knocked the gun down to him. Can you imagine a guy bidding against him- self? Sure, he was batty. Every time he made a dollar bid he squirmed around like he was looking at another bidder. And no one else made a bid against him!” — Connielooolks. conn