Arizona Round-Up — page 72: what you’re looking at

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

70 WILLIAM HOPSON “Up at the Pheasant,” the Deacon replied, his eyes on the crowd. “Come on, Lily Owens said to Sellers and his crew. Bessie came down the stairs, heading toward her mistress. She was frightened at the noise below. Lily Owens stood looking at them quarreling with her tinhorns in the Pheasant’s gaming room, cold contempt in her clear eyes. “So that’s it? Running like cowards. Switching to Pearson.” “They sorta got their shirt tails out in the wind, gittin’ ready fer a fast dash, Ah reckon,” grinned the Wild Cat. Deacon Sellers shrugged his shoulders, bony and sloping be- neath the black coat. “Call names if you wish, Lil. But youre in our game and you oughta know that we try to play ’em safe all the time. We got everything to lose—and everything to gain by the switch. So we're switching.” “Not me,” Wild Cat Cresty put in. “Thet’s too far fer me to walk. Ah’m a lazy man. So Ah‘reckon Ah'll stay up here in the Pheasant an’ play ’em. Save me the trouble makin’ the rounds nights—an’ anyhow Ah kin make more money by myself.” “Youll go with us,” Sellers warned him coldly. “You think Ah will?” Cresty said, the good humor gone from his face. “Any time you got some more ideas like thet just spout em, Deacon. An’ Charley, maybe you better git that nasty look offen yore face before I jest naturally bust it in with a gun barrel.” “Let him stay,” Charley sneered to the Deacon and the others. “This place is through—wiped out. There won't be a dozen cus- tomers a night come in here.” “In which case,” chuckled Cresty, restored to good humor as quickly as he had been angered, “Ah’ll come down an’ play against you bunch o thieves.” He was directly back of the Deacon now, his hand inside his shirt. “Leave him stay,” growled Black Jack savagely. “He'll wake up some mornin’ with a vigilante noose in his face an’ there'll be one less to help split the profits.” “Very well,” Lily Owens replied. “T'll settle up with you right now. Then I want the lot of you to get out and stay out.” She sent her manager upstairs to get the cash and within a few minutes they were paid off from the profits of the night comicbooks.com