Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 4, 1926 — page 147: what you’re looking at

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

THE DEVIL’S SADDLE. Concha was fully aware that her captor had an intuitive trust for his gun. His vigilance over that precious thing could not be lessened or confused by any kind of tor- ture, or fever, or delirium. He was the kind of man who would have clung to it even when hopelessly drunk. He would cling to it in sickness, in madness. And what’s more, it was the first thing he would use when he was cornered, no matter what it was that cornered him, whether a fictitious buzzard, or a posse of riders, or a weak little girl. They passed on, Concha wondering just what the end would be. Each hour they got farther and farther away from the country she knew, from the chance of meet- ing a wandering mucker or Indian. She began to reflect just how much chance there was of some one following. What if several days elapsed before any one happened to pass her ranch where she had left that message on the door? There was, of course, the chance that old Morrel might tell his son what had happened. There was also the chance that Harry upon being freed, would immediately return to her cabin. She rather banked on that. But what if old Morrel had not reached that lynch gang down in Trade Rat Gulch before Harry was hanged? It was, after all, a pretty slim hope. She began to think that that little white bronc of hers would carry them both to Mexico. After a cold night Ladley would be resuscitated; he would think more clear- ly. He would take chances, and start in hunting for water. The end must come while that afternoon sun was still on her side. As they rode she noticed that Ladley was not very certain about guiding the horse. He urged it on at its laborious trot, but he was not too particular about the direction. Evidently be was only heading south by one method of direction, the sun. There were no points on the horizon by which to orient himself. The Sangre de Cristo range in Mexico was wrapped in a confusing haze of blue mirages. The girl was keen-eyed enough to notice that Lad- ley was not shaping his course by any par- ticular peak of that range. A5T He was just going doggedly now south- east, now south, now southwest, threading the mesquite patches, rounding small pica- chos of red rock, following the shallow dry river washes. She noticed that he paid no attention to the mirages. They lay on all sides now, long narrow strips of pale blue, simmering in the heat, accentuating the stark crimson of the rocks and earth. At times when they came to flat spaces, the whole surface of the ground seemed to undulate with a play of colors now like the path of a sunset on a sea, then as the riders approached, they seemed like the variegated colors of a gaso- line flame. To Ladley the Indian phrase “ laughing water ”’ took on a new significance. ‘This was the real laughing water. It mocked and laughed with a soundless demoniac laugh turning from the cool enticing blue of water to the blue of burning gas, Concha noticed that the mirages were be- ginning to get on his nerves. No, he did not ride toward them to prove that they did not exist. He began to thread his way over the plain, actually avoiding them. Perhaps this was due to a perversity in his nature: his pride still rode him. He wanted to show the girl. that he was one man—who, although tortured with the fear of dying with thirst—could not be fooled by a mir- age. Their course took them into a_ wide bowlder wash, which, although at first shal- low enough to seem part of the level plain, gradually deepened to a canyon. Far off to the right and left were low adobe banks, perhaps the height of a man. Presently these deepened, and became dotted with clumps of mesquite, and crucifixion thorn. The floor of the canyon itself was as flat as a plain, and dead ahead was an arc of the horizon. They rode on, Ladley keeping to the center of the river bed; for he wanted a lot of space on either side of him. The girl did not know the country. They were nearing the border, and the chances of be- ing found now were getting slimmer and slimmer. But at the same time Ladley was get- ting more and more befuddled, crazed with CORNICE OO KS Eom