Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 18, 1928 — page 5: what you’re looking at

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

BLUE STEEL, one into its proper cubbyhole in the rack behind them. Dave occasionally peered at the postmarks on the envelopes, and in the case of postal cards often turned them over to read the text, Mrs. Dave never failed to do so. “Nope, they ain’t nothin’ here for you, Billy Perkins,” the old man told an anxious-looking young puncher who had been waiting impatiently while the post- master completed his scrutiny of the mail. *“T reckon thet thar gal you met while you was ridin’ in the rodeo back in Noo York has plumb forgot you, Billy.” The young man flushed and drifted out, and Dibble looked over his spectacles at the others who were gathered there. ‘““Cain’t do nothin’ for you to-night, Mrs. Hansen,” he told a little old lady. ‘“ Thet thar mail-order catalogue had ought to be in any time now, but it ain’t here yet.” Thus old Dave went the rounds, with a . not unimportant air, disbursing conversa- tion and in some instances mail, until only his wife and himself were left in the dimly lighted store. “Did you notice, maw,” the old man then said, “ thet a letter come for ol’ man Steele? It come from somewhar over yon- der in South Dakoty, an’ by the han’- writin’ on it I reckon thet it was sent to him by Ballou.” Mrs. Dave had not failed to notice it. “The postmark was a little blurred,” she said. “I couldn’t see nohow what town it was mailed at, an’ course it’s from a different place if Ballou Steele sent it.” “ Fust letter he sent the ol’ man in nigh a year, maw. I reckon ol’ Steele ’ll be tickled to git it.” “Tt’s a downright shame, the way thet Ballou Steele acts!” snapped the old lady, clicking her teeth and her thin lips to- gether like the jaws of a trap. ‘“ He’s been gallivantin’ aroun’ ever since he was knee- high to a grasshopper, a-raisin’ ructions from Mexico to Canady. He don’t pay no more attention to his pore ol’ father than if he was a stranger. Never comes to see him, or hardly never writes to him or nothin’. “Tf I was a man,” she continued, “Td fork a horse an’ go lookin’ for thet good- 803 for-nothin’ loafer an’ give him a piece o’ my mind, I would. It’s a caution, the way he’s bringin’ sorrow to his paw thataway.” ‘If you was a man,” replied the old postmaster rather dryly, you’d think different about forkin’ a hoss an’ settin’ out after Ballou Steele. “He ain’t no feller to trifle with—thet hombre! Why, what do they call him, from Montany right down into Texas? Blue Steel, thet’s what they call him! Jes’ plain Blue Steel, like six-guns is made out of. ‘An’ why do they call him thet?” asked Dave, somewhat dramatically, well know- ing that he was going to answer his own question. “‘’Cause he’s hard, ’cause he’s fast, an’ when he speaks it means some- thin’. | ‘“ An’ yet,” he mused, “ they say as how he’s right tender-hearted, thet he ain’t never killed a man yet. Not even a nester, an’ not a Mex, even. I reckon thet people as knows him ain’t very quick to rile him up.” “Huh!” breathed Maw Dibble scorn- fully. “If he’s so brave, an’ everybody’s so skeered of him, he oughta be back here a-helpin’ out his pore ol’ father. Things are gittin’ mighty strained between the Wagon Wheel an’ the Lazy S, an’ mark my words, Davy Dibble, somethin’s goin’ to happen hereabouts pretty soon.” A shadow fell over the face of Dibble and he nodded his gray head slowly. “T reckon you’re right, maw,” he con- ceded. “ Jerry Steele an’ Tom Tolliver ain’t never been friends. They both come from some place back in Kaintucky when they was young, an’ they brought a feud out here with ’em. “But up to a couple years ago they didn’t bother each other none. Then they kinda started bickerin’ an’ warrin’, an’ now— Dave paused a moment and ran his fingers over his thinning hair. ‘“ An’ yet I wouldn’t thought that either of ’em would — have got so ornery as to pizen water holes an’ cut fences an’ such like. can never tell,” he sighed. “TI like both Jerry Steele an’ Tom Tolliver, an’ I hope thet somehow hs make up their differ- ences.” | = Ss 200 “IT reckon thet Well, you — com com ~~