Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 5, 1921 — page 76: what you’re looking at

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

362 friends like we always was. 1 don't be- lieve I could hate a woman, anyways. Don’t flare up an’ get mad, now. One part of this trouble is that you've got to thinkin’ of yourself as havin’ a right to wear them pants, an’ fight an’ cuss same as if you was a real person. Then the virl side of you takes a hand and you scratch like your natural sex. Between these two you’ve lost yourself somewheres, and I’m wantin’ to help you find the way back. It’s come time to lay your cards down, face up, Britches. My own hand’s waitin’, We'll shuffle the ‘old deck an’ take a new deal—what say?” CHAPTER AVIII. REVELATIONS. HE listened with her face turned away, but to find kindness when she had expected blame touched her, and presently she answered in a voice that was husky enough to threaten tears not jar away. ‘All right, Billie, PN tel! you anything you want to know.” ‘ How long since you mixed in with cattle rustlers, Britches?” ‘‘J_T—it sounds pretty bad when somebody else says it—but you got a right to know. I—it’s been since that first bunch was run off from the Circle O—” ‘You begun to wear them fancy new bvots about that time,” said Billie thoughtfully. ‘Who give ‘em to you, Bnitches?”’ “Not any man,” she cried with sudden passion. ‘I never took nothin’ from a man, I’M swear! Every one of ‘em knows I’d put lead through him if he looked crossways at me. It was a woman, Bil- tie-- Oh, hell, to make myself right with you, I’ve got to put the old man in wrong—but IT know you'll understand it ain’t because I’m yellow. If he was here where the law could put a finger on him you could tear me to pieces an’ T wouldn’t tell. But he’s on his way to the Border by this time. They’!] never catch him, an’ maybe they won't try. He'll never come back—he likes the greasers, so it w ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. can’t be much“harm--- You won't think I'm a squealer, Billie?” He shook his head gravely. ‘'I won’t think any ill of you T don’t have to, Britches.” “The old man—we didn’t have any way to live when he wouldn’t work. When the State went dry he got to peddlin’ booze—it was an easy way to make money. He always had a bottle stowed away somewheres, and a few folks knew about it. He was mighty careful— Most of the boys who stopped in here of nights came from the other side of the range—-” ‘“’ Camberwell’s! ”’ “You said it--and a few from the Circle O. That’s how we knew where their bunch was pasturin’, and what the boys planned on doing from day to day. It was easy. 1 wasn’t around the house much when they was here. I always took Dude an’ went off on the range. Lots of nights | slept out there without a blan- ket. Then one day poppy sent me over the other side to Cambertwell’s with some word he was passin’ on to the old man. It didn’t amount to much, an’ after I talked to Camberwell, he took me in the house where some folks was settin’ around enjoyin’ themselves like» there wasn’t no work in the world, but only good times. It’s a different kind of house an’ a differ- ent way of livin’ from the kind we know, Billie, an’ it sort of knocked me out. There was a woman there. She was smi- in’ an’ kind to me, and she wore pretty clothes—the wimmin sort of clothes. We talked about ’em, Billie. It seemed awful queer. I never talked to a woman about clothes in my life before, an’ I didn’t know what to say. TI felt like a fool. “She must’ve noticed it, for presently she started in sayin’ I looked all right in what I had on an’ wishin’ she could look the same an’ a Jot of that sort of stuff. Then she went an’ got the boots an’ showed ’em to me, actin’ al! the time like she wanted me to have ’em, hut somethin’ held her back—. ‘Pretty soon ] found out what it was, Old Camberwell wanted some wire cut on the range of the Circle O, and he thought I could do it hetter than: ebookeice