Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 7, 1928 — page 146: what you’re looking at

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

136 Seeing Jessup, Tex Shepherd pulled up his ill-cared-for pony—he had just ridden in from the general direction of the Circle J—and blinked at the editor through red-lidded eyes. “ Shore is too bad about Dad Skin- ner,” he began. Jessup noted that his hands trembled violently as he rolled a cigarette. “I reckon it was that devil of a chink that did it. Chinks are bad medicine. And then they found that long pipe of his right near where the safe was robbed. Say, Jin- gling, can yuh loan me a dollar? [’m plumb broke, an’ I shore need a jolt mighty bad.” Not without distaste for the man, but with characteristic generosity, Jingling Jessup slowly reached and handed the shaking Shepherd the asked-for amount. “Where you been, Tex?” he in- quired mildly. “Me? Oh, jest ramblin’ around over Coyote Cafion way. Was huntin’ another job, but got all swacked up again. Met some waddies on the way back an’ they told me ’bout the mur- der. Shore was tough.” “There was money taken?” “Veh. ‘Two-three thousand the old than had to buy cattle with, I hear. Them chinks are shore hell after gold. Welt, thanks, Jingling—I’m goin’ to beat it fer that drink. Ill pay yuh back goon’s I get to work.” Jingling Jessup watched Tex Shep- herd as he rode up the street, hurriedly leaped from his horse, and dashed into the nearest bar. Jessup knew that many crimes are committed by drunken men who do not even remember what occurred. He wondered. Here, he told himself, was a real mystery. A rancher shot down and killed, his money stolen, and a Chinese cook gone. That seemed _ simple enough. Deputy Sheriff Hank Style, he decided, would call it an open and shut case. He tried to recall the cook on the Circle J. A mild little Celestial, he re- ‘against the ranch. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, membered, who had been with Dad Skinner for many years. Mild, but like most Chinese, subtle and _ still- mouthed. An inveterate gambler, too. Aloud he said: “ Well, where there’s gold, the trail shouldn’t long stay cold,” and he turned his steps first to the main gambling hall. From there, after a few inquiries, he went to the town bank where he spent an hour in discuss- ing the murder with the banker, an old friend of Dad Skinner’s. The banker, he found, was disturbed by the killing. Bankerlike, however, he seemed much excited by the theft, Jes- sup noted, after he had told him that the slayer had robbed the old man. “Such a robbery causes complica- tions in an estate,’ the banker ex- plained. ‘ Dad Skinner, though pros- perous, was like most ranchers here- abouts, heavily in debt to the bank from time to time. Business is business, and I shall be forced to put in a claim I only trust that people in the town will not think me grasping in making such a claim.” Jingling Jessup grinned. “Well, no matter what you do, most folks figure a banker’s made out of flint,’ he told him. ‘“ Me—sometimes I wish I had a little harder heart. I expect I could collect money of some description for every paper subscrip- tion.” The banker, with rather a forced smile at Jessup’s quaintness of com- ment—he privately had always consid- ered the editor a kind of “nut ”— promised Jessup that he would keep him informed. Emerging from the bank, Jessup sensed more than heard, the btizz of fresh excitement. Some of those that had visited the scene of the murder had returned. Groups were seen here and there. Nearing these knots, he heard their voices raised. A posse was forming. “We'll need a rope for the damn chink,” he heard some one say. “What about young Skinner?” (€(0) .OOKS mie (EO)