Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

VALOR. “ An’ Preest got away!’’ It was an ex- clamation full of bitterness. Suddenly Par- melee straightened convulsively in his chair. ‘“ Get ’em!” he roared with extraor- dinary passion. “ Bring in that boy to me, an’ Jl] snake whip him! I'll thrash the hide orf his body.” At that moment Aleck Sheffield entered the room, and the old man _ sprang to his feet and stood quivering to greet his bodyguard. ‘‘ Where is he?” he screamed. “ Tell me that!” Aleck gazed upon. him with a. frown. “Yo’-all ’re takin’ big chances, Bart, raisin’ up thataway,” he drawled. “ Best sit yo’self back an’ don’t get all stam- _ peded.” _ Glaring at him with unquenchable sus- picion, Parmelee relaxed into his chair again. Sheffield turned his attention to the oth- ers. ‘‘ All fixed up pretty?” he said gently. Parmelee broke in upon him, snarling with rage, his voice harsh with menace: “You double-crossed me!” “T stood by Dave,” Aleck corrected him. “Stood by a yellow kid who didn’t even have the guts to see through his spite on his own father!” the old man charged vin- dictively. Aleck’s eyes flashed keenly over the two informers, then turned, warm with enthu- silasm, on Old Man Parmelee. “Tf you’d seen him, you’d talk differ- ent,” he explained softly. “Ves, I’d talk with a rawhide whip!” spat forth Parmelee. ‘‘ That’s how I’d talk to him. Don’t lie for him, Aleck. I know how he went in spite te humiliate me, an’ how he backed down an’ cringed when he found men to deal with. Oh, God, what a thing to have for a son! A dishrag!”’ ‘Which yo’re ridin’ the wrong pony every time,” quoth Aleck. ‘“ Dave he didn’t cringe none at that party, ‘less it’s cringin’ when a man holds back a locoed catamount with nothin’ to fight with but his eyes an’ his everlastin’ grit!” He flung his words directly in Dasent’s face. ‘‘ Jud Dasent, here, bein’ the catamount,” he finished easily. : : “You—” Dasent’s resentful voice trailed off into silence as.Aleck, hand. on hip, smiled genially upon him. Parmelee gazed about upon. them all un- easily. first sense of panic he had ever felt. His body was urgently insisting to his mind that he was old, old, and that his hold upon these men was no longer strong. He was surrounded by wolves whom he had broken to the traces, and, uneasily, it was in his mind that they did not respond as usual to the crack of his whip. ‘‘ What is it, Aleck?” he cried with sud- den petulance. been with him more than any other. mad? What is it?” Aleck gazed down upon him seriously. “ Tt’s something you ain’t never known about, Bart,” he answered. “ You’ve run this range like a top rider runs a rodeo. You treat men the same like they was ani- mals. You break the bad ones, and those you can’t break you kill. “ Well, this kid of yours is the first man you’ve met that ain’t in no degree an ani- mal. He’s a man all through, and you, God help you, don’t know it. You call him a woman when he shrinks from the wran- glin’, fightin’ herd; you talk yore sneerin’ insults to him when he puts in his voice against gun-play. e But. it’s justice he’s got in his mind. It’s a clear, high-up spirit he’s got in his heart that’s so far above the mind of you an’ me that we can’t rightly understand it. But you! You talk of whippin’ him for it. You talk of breakin’ him like a beast to run with the rest of the herd. Shucks! “Can a man who would take that treat- ment do what he did to-night? I tell you he walked into that slather of man-killin’ cow-punchers like a young god walks in amongst lions! He carried yore gun in his hand. But did he use it? No! I tell you he didn’t ever have any intentions of usin’ it!” ‘No! What then did he pack it for?” Dasent’s thin voice cut into Aleck’s recital with a sneer. “Til tell you why he packed it)” cried Aleck, turning upon him. “ He told me as we rode together into a place we know “For God’s sake, what’s got into the boy. You know him. You Is he In his heart was arising then the — of. He packed that gun. so that voy would