Arizona Round-Up — page 42: what you’re looking at

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

Chapter Vine N THE Pound Harlan Pearson was still in the room with Gardner the gambler. Massey’s body had been removed by the two marshals, and the Pound’s owner was careful to keep his eyes away from the red stains on the floor. Pearson was a pretty cold- nerved man, but the lightning extinction of Massey had left him visibly shaken—and very uneasy. He poured a drink from a brandy bottle a bartender had thoughtfully brought up and nodded for Gardner to take one. “I didn’t intend for this to happen, Luke,” he said. “I wouldn't have had it happen for anything in the world. I never dreamed it would.” Gardner poured, his chiseled features still as expressionless as when he had been stacking chips into the pots. He sipped slowly. “All in the game, Harlan. Mass spent his life taking chances. The wrong card came up tonight. That’s all. Pll split his pile with you. The big question now is: What tomorrow morning?” “I've been thinking very hard about that. Lily told me tonight . that she was having you sent out on the stage. I brought you boys in here to clean the tinhorn crew she has working for her. . . .” “And to make all the money you could,” cut in the other, irony in his voice. “Strange how things work out sometimes, Harlan. You and I went to school together. We saw the South torn to pieces by war and fire, our families’ slaves taken away, our cot- ton markets smashed. You saw us reduced to little more than starving Southern aristocracy. Beggars with nothing but tradition and a fierce pride in our heritage left to carry us through. Some of us didn’t have the backbone to get up and start fighting again; others went the easy way of the carpet bagger, the licker of Yankee boots for a Yankee dollar; and there were men like you and myself who fought back as hard and as mercilessly as the two armies fought. You came West, I took to the card tables on Mississippi steamboats. And now were here.” AO Comicloooks.com