Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 12, 1927 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

SOMEWHERE For maybe thirty seconds their glances held and interlocked; and glances can say a lot in thirty seconds, when they are the glances of young people of twenty-two. Then the girl, with visibly heightened color —not necessarily a sign of resentment— wrenched her eyes away and did not look at Mickey again. But she was not the only one who had noted that washed face, or suspected the reason for it. The sheriff scowled slightly as he ob- served that interchange of glances; and during a brief pause while the singer con- sulted with her accompanist, he circled swiftly around behind Mickey, and tapped him on the shoulder. “ Easterner, ain’t you?” he drawled. “ What do you think?” Mickey looked up with a laugh. “ J’ll bet you on it, and lay odds either way.” The sheriff frowned at the flippancy of the response, and somewhat ostentatiously displayed his badge. ‘“* Mebbe you don’t know that I’m sheriff here, responsible for law an’ order. And when I ask a straight question, I expect a straight answer.” “ But that wasn’t a straight question, old dear,” Mickey instructed him kindly. “Your syntax was faulty, don’t you see? It was like one of those trick questions the lawyers ask sometimes, which may be an- swered either yes or no. If you really wanted information, a more correct form, I think, would have been: Are you an East- erner?” ‘Well, I ain’t no college perfessor; I’m a sheriff,” growled Daggett, ‘“and you knew what I meant all right. I guess, too, you have answered me without knowin’ it. No- body but an Easterner ’d sling all that lan- guage for nothin’. I call the turn on you for a fresh guy from New York.” “ And if I am ”’—there was an edge to Mickey’s voice—‘ what about it?” “ Nothin’.” The sheriff eyed him dark- ly. “ That is, nothin’ now. But you watch your step, young feller, and don’t try to pull nothing around here. Pm going to keep an eye on you.” “That makes it even then,” Mickey shrugged; “‘ for I am going to keep an eye IN NEVADA. 485 on you. Listen!” He tapped the silver star on the other’s breast with his fore- © finger. “I have yet to learn that this gives you any privilege to browbeat or threaten a citizen peaceably attending to his own business.” “Citizen? Huh!” The sheriff snorted. “ Just that. As much a citizen of Ne- vada as you are.” And Mickey was, too, by reason of his six months residence. “And as such you are merely my servant. So run along and roll your hoop ”—he gave a careless gesture of dismissal—* and thank your luck that I’m not taking the matter seriously this time. No, not an- other word. The lady is going to sing, and I want to hear her.” The sheriff glared and hesitated, chew- ing savagely on the end of his cigar. His inclination was all to grab this impudent stranger by the scruff of the neck and boot him out of camp. But Mickey’s cool arrogance gave him pause. In a promiscuous mob like this, you couldn’t tell just who you might be stacking up against; and perhaps this was somebody who had the ear of the Gov- ernor. Also, the smart Aleck unfortunate- ly had the right of the argument. Better go a little slow, the sheriff de- cided. If it was merely a bluff the fellow was putting up, there would be other times and less dubious opportunities to call it. So, swallowing his umbrage and with such an assumption of nonchalance as he could © command, he moved away. Meanwhile, the girl having ended the discussion with her accompanist, was pre- paring to sing. Mickey clenched his fist, and made up his mind to take a slam at the first man who laughed. It was impossible, of course, that any one so gifted with looks could have even a halfway decent voice. The best he hoped was that she might get by; but judging from Billy Jenks and the other per- formers he had seen, he expected less even than mediocrity. And then he got the surprise of his life; for with the closing bars of the introduc- tion she broke into a simple Western bal- lad, and sang it so truly, and with’ such feeling and quality, that he realized he COMIC OOO KS (E)