Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 3 — page 70: what you’re looking at

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

444 nothing and they let him go along pound- ing ’em on the back. He ordered up drinks for the crowd and everybody accepted but Goggles. Nobody ever included him in any- thing. He was just part of the landscape like one of them hills over there. He was there, but he didn’t mean nothing; but Mort seen him and he got mad. He goes up and says: ‘ Partner, whisky wasn’t never meant to be spoiled by mixing with water.’ “Then he grabs Goggles’s high glass and spills the mixture out on the floor. “ “Hey, Pete,’ he says to the bartender, ‘give this feller Goggles a man-sized drink of man-sized booze.’ “Everybody laughed. They was all tickled at the thought of Goggles drinking straight red-eye. Pete put up a whisky- glass filled to the brim. ‘Goggles was standing there pretty quiet. He just fixed the glasses different on his nose and stands there staring at Mort. The whisky has splashed pretty liberal across them fine riding-boots of his, but he didn’t make an ugly move. © “He says: ‘ Mr. Lauriston, I’m sure that you have carried your little game far . enough. You certainly don’t intend to make me drink that glass of vile bar- whisky.’ “<TDon’t I?’ says Mort, and the rest of us laughed. ‘ Bud, you're going to drink every drop of it!’ “ Goggles takes off his glasses and wipes them careful on his handkerchief, puts them back, and studies Mort like a rock-hound looking at a new kind of ore. \ “He says in that soft, low voice of his: ‘You are apparently very drunk, Mr. Laur- iston.. What if I liquor ?’ ‘Out comes Mort with two big gats. He shoves them under the nose of Goggles. “¢ Drink, you damned foreign English dude!’ he says. ‘«<« Sir,’ says Goggles, ‘ I’m' going to drink this under compulsion, not because I fear you, but because I don’t want to harm a drunken man. But the next time we meet, Mr. Lauriston, I’m going to kill you.’ “ With that he picks up the glass of booze careful, without spilling a drop, and says: ‘Here is to our early meeting, sir.’ And refuse to ; drink this. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. he drinks the glass down. without batting an eye, bows to Mort, and walks out of the saloon. ‘ ““Well, Ill be damned,’ says Mort ‘What d’you think of that?’ _ “ Herb Fisher speaks up and says: ‘I dunno how you figure it, Mort, but if I was you I’d keep my guns ready for a fast draw the next fime I seen Goggles. He don’t look none too dangerous, but looks is deceiving.’ “ Mort, he took that to heart. He left town pretty hurried: and it was about ten days before he come back. At least, he started back, and afterward they found his - body on the road near Eagles. He’d been shot fair and square between the eyes and his guns was lying near him with a bullet fired out of each of them, showing that he’d had a chance to fight for his life. He wasn’t shot down from no ambush. “Of course they arrested Goggles. The sheriff took half a dozen deputies along to help out in case of a muss, but Goggles didn’t turn a hair. He walked right into the jail, give a big bond, and never made a move to get away before the trial. “ At the trial he didn’t have a chance, it looked like. Everybody knew that Mort was a harmless, noisy sort of gent. Maybe he done wrong in making Goggles drink, but there wasn’t no call for any gun-play. That was what the district attorney kept pumping into the jury all through the trial and they were all set to hang Goggles. Everybody knew that. But when the last day of the trial came along, right when the district attorney was making his last big spiel, a little piece of paper comes flutter- ing like a white bird through the window right behind Goggles, and over his shoulder, and into the lap of one of the gents in the jury-box. ee CHAPTER IIT. THE PASSING OF KENNEDY. ‘¢ E unfolded it sort of absent-minded and read what was on it, and then he stood up slow, like he was being pulled up by the hair of the head. And he says: ‘God!’ just once, soft and easy, EGOHMIGOOOKSHEO