Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 129: what you’re looking at

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

— ~~ > re A ~~ more. THE SELF-ASSASSINATION OF ANGEL, _— It began to look as if it would end in mutual cancellation. At this stage, Old Bob made another catapultic assault. That time, Angel did not pass entirely over, instead he zoomed unexpectedly and came down astride Old Bob’s back. He cinch-locked his spurs into Old Bob’s feather encrusted hide, just back of the brisket; his bill closed over Old Bob’s left ear and he began to chew. Old Bob spit and swore, end-flopped and sunfished and raked Angel’s .drum-sticks fore and ait with his hind claws, but Angel was a rough-riding rooster with a diploma for stick-on-it-iveness and he declined to — dismount. All of which caused a sudden wave oi nostalgia to sweep over Old Bob. He re- membered it had been days since he had seen Mother Skillern, or the dear familiar old lounging place under the office table in Red Bluff’s two story frame hotel. He cecided to take whatever was riding him home and show it to Mother Skilern. To that end, Old Bob hit the breeze and hit it with all four spark plugs clicking in unison. The sharp turn at the door of Saloon Number Four caused him to skid, and he did a multiple scoot and somersault. Angel, as a result, was totally unseated. Old Bob didn’t wait. Angel had just straightened up, wiped the sweat from his eyes, and released one crow when Mother Skillern, at practically the other end of the street, saw something shoot onto the porch of the hotel, ricochet through the door—fortunately open—slide across the dining room and come to a stop under the sideboard in the corner next to the drummer’s table. “My Gawd!” Mother Skillern exclaimed. Whatever it was she had seen loked like an excited sofa cushion, without any cover on it, which was in the last stages of dis- reputable moulting; but it had four legs, was shaped like a cat, turned around when it was safely under the china cabinet and humbly said: Later, Mother Skillern gave Old Bob | Next Week: “EDITH” IN THE SEVENTH CASIS | (S@) = 759 bath, hand-picked him, plucked him, cut his hair and eliminated most of the feathers ‘Wong Gee missed from his pillow that night. She also made soine remarks about the male population of Red Bluff. Angel? It is sad, but the record must be pre- served. Angel paused in front of Saloon Number Four, announced that he had but recently licked all the roosters and cats in creation; also, he was still desirous of committing a few more murders. Pedro pushed an extra large timber against the teeth of the buzz-saw down at the prop factory, adjacent to the black- smith shop. The buzz-saw swore at a knot in the timber in the high treble piccolo accents buzz-saws affect. Angel cocked his head to one side and listened. It sounded to him as if another fool rooster was challenging to mortal com- bat! Maybe, after all, one had been left out of the combination he had just annihilated. Very well, Angel would go see! The buzz-saw shrieked wickedly at an- other large knot as Angel arrived at the open air shed of the prop mill. Angel re- plied with a torrent of defiant abuse; squinted his eyes at the thing spinning so dizzily, like a blur, before him; admitted that this stranger-rooster was something un- usual when it came to action, but decided to. tackle him anyhow. Game chicken was well splattered over Pedro’s hands, face and clothing, before he threw the switch and stopped the buzz- saw. “My Gawd, Angel has self-assassinated himself!” Dirty Shirt handed a portion of Angel to Wong Gee and said, in a voice that trembled with emotion: “Too much mirijuana! When will we have th’ funeral?” “* Funelalr’ ” Wong Gee repeated. “ No ‘funelal!’ Chlicken flicassee—plenty nice Angel flicassee to-mollow fo’ dinner!” oO GOMIchoo KS