Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 28, 1928 — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

FIRED AND HIRED. cheap hootch, and trimmed out of his worldly possessions by a bunch of bar- room bums, all in one short day. I was holding a pretty cheap opinion of myself just then, Pm telling you. Then, of a sudden, I thought I de- tected a movement behind a pile of ties over across the tracks. | watched sharp and in a minute I saw it again. There was somebody over there, which wasn’t natural this time of night. I started to hitch my gun around where it would be handy, only to remember that I did not own one any more. In a minute this party steps out from behind the pile of ties and starts to- ward me. The moon comes out from behind a cloud just then, and by its light I see that it is a young lady. She was wearing a short skirt and a jacket and a tam-o’-shanter hat, and carried a suitcase. Even by the moonlight I could see the yellow curls busting out from un- der her hat. She knew I was there; she probably saw the gleam of my ciga- rette. “ Hello,” says she, stopping right in front of me. “ Good evening, ma’am,” I answers, wondering what it was all about. “ Have you got a match?” she asks, peering at me through the gloom. I handed her one, and she lit it, and by the light looked me over from boots to hat. “Oh,” she says in a relieved tone. “You're a cowboy, aren’t you?” “That’s what I work at, ma’am,” I answers. “ What’s the big idea of a young lady, like you, wandering around the right of way this time of night?” “T got off that train that just went through,” she informs me. “T didn’t see you get off.” ‘No. I bribed the porter to let me off on the other side, and then hid be- hind that pile of ties until I was sure the coast was clear,” she elucidates. “Why all the caution, ma’am?” I asks. ‘Somebody chasing you?” 459 The girl hesitated, sort of studying me over for a minute, and then sud- denly she leaned forward, putting her mouth close to my ear and speaking fast and low. = ose “Yes, [ am being chased,” she in- formed me. “I am in great trouble. You look like a nice, honest young man, and I am going to ask you to help me. I will gladly pay you well for your trouble.” “Why, sure, ma’am, [ll be glad to do anything I can,” I assured her, “That is, of course, if it’s on the square. I wouldn’t want to get mixed up in anything crooked.” 7 “Oh, it’s nothing like that,” she told me earnestly. “It’s an awfully long story, and I can tell you only part of it, because we’ve got to get away from here or we'll be caught. — “ Now, listen. ’'m Sadie McHugh, from St. Louis, and I’m an orphan and an heiress. ’lf have twenty million dol- lars from my father’s estate when I turn twenty-one. “My guardian is a mean, nasty old lawyer named Bisbie. He is trying to take my fortune away from me by forcing me to marry his nephew, who is a half cooked, pimply-faced dumb- bell. They had the wedding all set for last night, but I ran away yesterday morning. ‘They are both hot on my trail, and if they catch me I will have to go back and marry that dirty little mutt. I just can’t bear the thought! Please help me! Hide me some place!” Now, wasn’t that a swell little fairy, tale to spring on me? Sounded like something out of a _ paper-covered book. “ Young lady,” thinks I to myself, “that sounds like a plain, unvarnished falsehood, made up on the impulse of the moment. Still, you being a wom- an, I’m forced to give you the benefit of the doubt.” | “ Shucks, ma’am,”’ says I aloud, “they can’t force you to marry a man against your will in this day and age.” “Oh, but they can,” she assured me COMICGLOOOKS (E@)