Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

h a Pa ia N fy f yA =a % o ‘a . by fs Nei N ae Hit “\ek = ,¢ : \ ~~ —— \ \ 4 an Oe — } = . amy! Thole By LAURIE YORK ERSKINE Author of *‘ The River Trail,’’ *‘ Renfrew of the Royal Mounted,’’ ete. CHAPTER XXXII. RIDING SIGNS, F Staff Sergeant MacQuillan had visited | a familiar ranch house and been told that his host was not at home but “somewhere about the place,” he would have known immediately where the employ- ment of the moment had led the man he sought, and followed him there. And, so familiar was he with the ranch life of his district, he could have followed him there in the dark. To the same extent Smiling Billy Argent was familiar with the type of Samuel K. Menzies; and to Billy the open range was as a farm yard. Along the Rio Grande, cattle rustlers-were neither rare nor ex- clusive; you had them for neighbors. Their ways were your ways, and it was as easy for a good range man to find the man who took his cattle as it is for a small boy to find the gang who has preceded him to the swimming hole. Finding the cattle, of course, was another matter. MacQuillan had never come to speaking terms with Menzies, because the sergeant wore scarlet and looked for evidence. Billy, desiring conversation with the cattle thief, merely went into his quarry’s stamping ground and “ rode signs.” He first exam- ined the abandoned ranch house where he had met Mr. Menzies and his satellites. Here he discovered from such obvious advertisements as the stove contained, and the disposition of the furniture provided, that no human being had occupied the place since the departure of Sergeant Mac- Quillan the week before. But outside the ranch house Billy derived information of the highest importance. For instance, he was able to study the hoof prints of the animals which Menzies and his men had ridden on the night he met them first. Having himself taken those animals away from the cattle thieves, Billy This story began in the Argosy-Allstory Weekly for October 20. 898 EComicvook (S@)