Arizona Round-Up — page 73: what you’re looking at

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

ARIZONA ROUNDUP 71 before. Deacon Sellers was the last to get his money. He straight- ened from the table, started to tuck in the gold coins, and a strangled squawk broke from him. “My pet rattlesnake,” bawled Wild Cat Cresty. “I had him in my on an damned if he didn’t slide down the back of yore nec His hand went out and down in a hard smacking sound, hard against Bessie’s buttocks. She screamed, and the Wild Cat broke for the front door, his roars of coarse laughter filling the Pheas- ant’s big, deserted room. Deacon Sellers had slung off his coat and, like the marshal the night before, jerked out his shirt tail. The lizard thudded to the floor and streaked across the room. Sellers’ eyes blazed and his hand flashed beneath his shirt. His gun and Three-Finger Charley’s came out simultaneously, Charley’s in his left hand. Two shots roared out. The swinging doors split and a body rolled out and curled up on the boardwalk. | Wild Cat Cresty had played his last joke. Sellers and Charley followed him out and stood there, guns still in their hands. Over across the street Bothwell and Howard, struggling with a second pair of prisoners, didn’t notice. Charley looked down at the still body and a sneer crossed his hard, shifty face. “Why don't you laugh?” he jeered down. “Go ahead—ain’t it funny? Me—I'm dyin’ a-laughin’. I’m hollerin’ till my sides hurt. Haw-haw-haw!” he grunted savagely. “I got a hunch how come it was that Tex Burnett got warned about the vigilantes and lit a shuck,” Sellers said to him. “I got another hunch says he knows we were out to get him. Cresty. Cresty every time! He allus liked Tex. Tex was his friend. But, he won't play no more jokes on me.” “Haw-haw-hawl” Charley sneered down at the body again. “Why don’t you go tell yore friend Burnett about this?” Had Charley happened to look up toward where the two marshals were still pushing and fighting their four struggling prisoners, Three-Finger Charley would have found that was un- necessary. Tex Burnett, leaning against a corner of the combination jail and marshal’s office had witnessed it all. comicbooks.com