Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 4, 1926 — page 141: what you’re looking at

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

THE DEVIL’S SADDLE. rays of the sunset lighted the snow-white mane of hair; they lighted the eagle eyes, making a picture there of a ragged, proud giant that no man of that big posse would ever forget. The chief looked down at the group of respectful faces. The air was cool, dread- fully silent. He did not have to speak loudly; he spoke as if addressing himself only to Big Larabee, who was standing by his side, Big Larabee on whose bearskin vest that rusty star gleamed in the sunset. “T want to make a statement to you- all,” the chief began. “To you, Larabee, as sheriff, and to you men as representin’ the range and its law. It’s a statement which concerns only me, who you-all have called your sheriff and your chief for thirty year. It’s time you knew it. And when I tell you it ‘I! clear up a lot of questions that must of come into your minds. I mean questions concernin’ why I give up my sheriff's star—and why my son Harry wasn’t lynched.” “We understand that well enough, chief,” Larabee said. “ It was because you couldn’t go on with your duty. No man could lynch his own son. We got that plain enough.” “Then you got it all wrong,” the chief said. “ I could of gone through with it easy enough. Would I of showed yaller then? No, by God, you men hear me! Id have hanged him. I’d have hanged him even if he was my own son, so help me God. Just because I was his father—that weren’t the reason I had to quit. There was another reason, something not one of you hombres knows about.” He looked with fierce burning eyes at each one of them. “Now, you men get this,’ he said. ‘‘ When I was tryin’ my son for killin’ a Injun I knew that I myself was guilty. Yes, much guiltier than him. I myself am a killer. Now stare, and gape, and whistle; but it’s the truth.” “Who did you kill?” one of the posse asked. “T reckon you mean the men you’ve lynched in the past,” Grannas interposed. “ Ves—we-all understood that.” “T don’t mean that. T killed two men— and with a six-gun.” 451 ‘““ Maybe so,” Simpson the elder put in. “ But it must of been done in justice. We- all know you, chief.” “Wait until I tell you,” the old white- maned giant said. “It’s a story that none of you men know—maybe you heard about it a long time past, but you've forgot it by now. Every one’s forgot it. “Might some of you oldest muckers were in the country at the time—thirty year ago —and might you heard of a raid on a Mor- rel outfit in which the owner, my brother, was killed, his stock all rustled, his house burned down about his haid? No, £ reckon it was too long ago.” “Too long,” Simpson the elder admitted. ‘“ And they was lots of raidin’ in those days afore you was sheriff.” Morrel continued: “The two men as did this wasn’t rus- tlers. They did it in spite. A fist fight started it. My brother got the best of ’em. They came back at him later and finished him. And when I came over from Texas for to kill ’em both, they snuck off fer Mexico. “ But I got the description of ’em pretty accurate from a barkeep and a _ herder. And I kep’ that description in my brain like a man will keep a ole photograph next to his heart. Further and more, I kep’ my revenge locked up here right under where for thirty year I wore a sheriff’s star.” “You mean you found ’em after these thirty years, chief?” Swig said. “ And killed the stinkin’ coyotes? Well, we’re right glad to hear it.” “Who was they?” a voice from the crowd called. 6 “Now, wait. I’ve got lots more to tell first. Years went by, and then LE. found ’em in a saloon on the desert’s edge. I went under the fool notion that. they wouldn’t know me. I got ’em in a game—thinkin’ when. the crowd cleared out of the saloon (Vd kill ’em both. “You see, I was the sheriff then, had been for many a year, and the range trust- ed me, looked up to me, made me judge over ’em all. And one of the main things I did in this range was to stop all feuds, and hang any man that killed another— Icomicboo = Eom