Western Story Magazine, May 12, 1934 — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

- now. The Barking Dog other. He had, Jerry saw, been cleaning his gun. Very likely he had been thinking of the murder of his father. He would associate the cleaning of a gun with that murder. His hope would be that he would be able to use the gun for the one special purpose before long. Jerry had another moment of gratitude. He saw Mrs. Tyson’s eyes grow sad as she looked at the gun. She was worried because her husband was constantly dwelling upon his ex- pected use of it, looking about for the exact man to use it on. “Tyson, come outside with me,” Jerry said. E spoke to Tyson, but he was looking at Mrs. Tyson. He saw Mrs. Tyson take hold of herself. She might worry about her husband’s longing to meet his father’s slayer, but she would inter- pose no objection to whatever he decided to do. However, Jerry saw that she was constantly afraid that the next moment would be the dire one. She seemed to be so afraid “Just a minute,” Tyson said. Jerry knew that he was going into the next room to slip cartridges into that cleaned gun. Jerry had tried to be wholly calm, but, with recol- lection of that young man in his mind, he had not succeeded. A note a little higher than the rest had humped itself up in the middle of a sentence meant to be even. ~ “You won't need your gun,” Jerry said. Mrs, Tyson gave Jerry a wide- eyed, glad look. Jerry wanted to take Tyson to the dying man and let him, afterwards, tell his wife what had happened. As Tyson started for the door, however, Eliza- beth walked swiftly up to Jerry and laid a hand on his arm. 105 “What is it, Jerry?” she asked. “Tell me.’ She was the girl she had been in the draw, not the girl she had been in town. J erry looked down into her soft eyes. She was asking a favor of him. ; “Why,” he said, “there’s a dyin’ man outside.” He hesitated. “He’s the man that killed Tyson’s father. No, Tyson, you won’t need a gun. This fella has gone beyond you. He’s that sick man that we caught up at the mountains. When you take one look at him, you'll see that you can’t use a gun on him.” ._ For a moment, Tyson stood with bent head, a frown between his eyes, those eyes on the floor. Then he slowly walked over to the table and placed his gun on it. “Come on,” he said in a thick voice. He moved quickly toward the door, opened it, and stood there, waiting for Jerry. Elizabeth and Mrs. Tyson also went to the door. “No!” Jerry said sharply. “You two women stay here. That man’s terrible sick. He may die any minute. It may be a terrible death. Parks is out there. Us three can handle the matter.” “A man dying on my ranch and I mustn’t go to him, Jerry?” Elizabeth asked.. “That isn’t reasonable. Also Mrs. Tyson wants to go with her husband.” Jerry argued no further. The four went to the shed and entered it. The man’s too-bright eyes were on the ceiling. Parks had been stand- ing beside him, but as the others - came in, he stood aside. Tyson immediately walked up to the cot. His hands were clasped in front of him. He was pulling at his fingers, and in the sudden silence the sound his knuckles madezayes d3vsa\es eo