Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 189, No. 4 — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

DRY AIR. “ Gus—Gus Swailer. Or Blow ’em up Gus, as I’m most generally called,” I fills in, drawing myself up to my full height and twisting my old nickname around a bit so’s to make a better impression on the boys. “Tl be on deck at seven all right. You can depend on that.” A man walked into the bar and whispered something in the sheriff’s ear. The sheriff turned to me. “ T’ve got to be moving down the street,” he sighed, just like he didn’t want to tear himself away from me and the bunch. “Maybe I’d better swear you in as my deputy before I go so’s your pay ’ll start in right away. We won’t have much time in the morning, going over all that express business.” - “ Good idea, sheriff,” I says. “T’ll get a Bible for you, sheriff,’ the bartender, who had been earing in, cries. “ I’ve got one up in my room that my poor old dead mother gave me the day [ left Kansas. I'll have it down in a minute.” It didn’t seem to take him that long to bring down the Bible. Then the sheriff raised his hand for si- lence and swore me in. When it was all over, the crowd gave three loud cheers, and every man shook my hand. My hat began to feel a little tight on my head. | The sheriff touched my arm, bringing me back to earth. “I'll see you in the morn- ing, then! I must hustle along now—a party waiting for me down the street.” “T’ll be at the express office at seven sharp, sheriff!” I answers. “ Good-by, and much obliged for the job!” The sheriff looked at me kind of funny like, and then walked out. When he was gone, one of the boys comes to my side and takes my arm, just as a fellow does when he wants to get confi- dential. I was all puffed up by this time, thinking how I’d landed one of them po- litical jobs what don’t take any work ’cept- ing to indorse the pay checks. It seemed awfully soft, ’specially since I hadn’t been in the place a full day. You had to hand it to these Westerners for rec- ognizing a man of ability as soon as they saw him! “ Did you ever tackle one of these depu- 585 ty sheriff’s jobs before, stranger?” the fel- low asks, squinting at me, queerlike. “ There’s a lot to ’em sometimes!” ‘“Here’s a sorehead what wanted the soft snap for himself!”’ I thinks, seeing the hard look in his face. “ And there’s nothing he’d like better than for me to spill some- thing that’d give him the chance to go around and say I wasn’t fitted for the job. Not everybody would know that the sheriff wasn’t figuring on me to do any of the Jaw work, and this fellow might find lots of people who would side in with him. (ll fool him on that! J’ll lay it on thick!” “Tf you only knew of all the bad actors I’ve stacked up against, you wouldn’t ask any such question as that, my friend!” I spouted, loud enough for every one to hear. ‘“ How do you suppose I acquired my shoot- ing eye—killing sparrows? Why, if Id started to notch my gun like some of your old-timers, I’d had the grips cut clean off in less than a year!” The fellow looked kind of flabbergasted. “TY wouldn’t have mentioned it, Gus,” he choked, “only I was thinking of the Red Handkerchief. I’m not worrying much about anything else.” ** What’s the Red Handkerchief, ge asks, quicklike, ’cause I saw kind of a scared look on every one’s face at the mention of those words. The man looked at me full- -eyed. “ You don’t mean to say you’ve never heard of the Red Handkerchief?” I shook my head. © “Why, he’s the worst bandit in the whole Southwest! He and his gang are making it mighty troublesome for every sheriff and deputy from the Colorado to the Rio Grande.” ‘But why do they ‘call him the Red Handkerchief?” I asked, terested as I’d read about fellows like him in dime novels when I was a kid, “They calls him that ’cause he always wears a big, red handkerchief tied over his face. Nobody, ’cepting maybe his gang, knows just what kind of looking fellow he is. When you see him with that handker- chief hitched up to the top of his nose and his hat pulled down over his eyes, you can’t tell whether he’s twenty or sixty. -But he’s GEomichbooks getting quite in- (EO)