Arizona Round-Up — page 88: what you’re looking at

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

86 WILLIAM HOPSON flat, expressionless; deadly. Both hands were below the bar now, his fingers curled around the smooth butts of the worn guns. The Deacon cleared his throat. Charley stirred and was care- ful to scratch his chin with the little finger of the hand Tex had maimed fifteen or so years before. Black Jack pared his finger- nails with a small jackknife, a ring similar to the one Deacon Sellers wore gleaming from a finger. “You should have put up your guns before you came out,” Tex went on in that flat, emotionless voice. “But you had to make sure. I'm making sure now. It’s chips out because Cres told me of the two thousand pool for the one of you who put one through my back. P’'m squaring accounts.” “Now wait a minute, Tex—” began Black Jack hoarsely. “Tl have to clear the bar with my guns. There are three of you. Throw ’em!” Two miners burst through the doors and by doing so averted tragedy. They came up to the bar, their guns clattering on top. “If youre the barkeep, give us a drink,” one of them demanded pantingly. “We run out of cartridges an’ had to come fer more. We got ‘em ringed, their hosses down an’ gone. We're goin’ to close in an’ me an’ Joe here want in on the finish. Hurry it up. This is only the beginning’. The boys all say as how while they're makin’ a cleanup it might as well be a good ‘un! Everybody who _ ain't makin’ a’ honest livin’ goes.” Tex set out the bottle and glasses. He used his left hand. His eyes were on the three tinhorns and there was a faint smile on his lips. “That include the crooked tinhorn gamblers too?” he asked. “Tl say!” answered one of them vehemently. “Them in par- ticular. Every one we kin find.” “In that case,” Tex Burnett laughed softly, “you’ve found three right here. Look them over, boys. Deacon Sellers. Three-Finger Charley. Black Jack Smith. Look ’em over.” The miners looked them over, quiet and narrow-eyed. Charley sneered. “He’s lyin’. Look him over. That's Tex Bur- nett who killed that miner Doolin last night—” “And was proven innocent this morning, Lily Owens cut in. “He’s also the man who stopped the stage holdup this morning by killing Newt Thurby, one of Bailey's men. The marshals have comicbooks.com