Arizona Round-Up — page 34: what you’re looking at

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

82 WILLIAM HOPSON mud of the pits still upon his boots and the grime from the day’s work still evident upon his face and hands. He stood with a bottle of whiskey in one hand, very drunk, and the table in front of him was piled high with chips which the croupier had pushed over. The miner, who was having a tremendous run of luck, was too drunk to stack his own chips. He was fumbling piles of them out on every bet and he couldn't seem to lose. “If he stays with the wheel long enough,” Bud Bailey said, “they'll get it all back and the rest of his poke. You go over and give Newt a couple of hundred and tell him I said to start buck- ing that wheel. Act drunk. Start a fight and then bust that big miner. Knock him down with a gun barrel. While I stop it, you help thet gent cash in an’ then take him out to bandage up his head. Get back pronto so’s to be in the clear. The boys will take over from there.” “Same split?” demanded Charley, low-voiced. “Same split. So Lily Owens thinks she’s got me workin’ hevc. doin’ her dirty jobs of chasin’ gents outa town, all fer small change, eh?” he sneered. “And the Deacon figgers he’s so smart checking up on all the boys winnings,’ Charley grunted. “They'll find out. That re- minds me—you got a job in the mornin’. The two big boys down at Pearson's. I hear she wants em outa town on the stage.” “Yeah?” asked Bailey narrowly. “I hear other things myself. Burnett's playin’ with em up in the Pound’s big game room.” “I saw Frenchy little while ago,’ Charley replied. “He was up there. Tex is in for seven thousand so far.” Bailey was amazed, “That kind of money?” Charley grinned at him. “That kind of money. I never saw Tex in the old days when he didn’t have fifteen or twenty thou- sand on him.” He held up his hand with the missing thumb and forefinger. “I’ve got a score to settle with that hombre.” “How come?” “It happened,” Three-Finger Charley replied softly, “one night fifteen years ago when I tried to take part of that fifteen or twen- ty thousand off him. He shot this hand away across the table. | told the Deacon I was goin’ to square up, and him and Lily raised holy heck. Laid down the law to me and all that stuff. And they was fools enough to think I'd let °em stop me.” comicbooks.com