Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 5, 1921 — page 77: what you’re looking at

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

THE KNIGEIT hands. It was when you was gone after them whitefaces, an’ it just seemed like you couldn’t help noticin’ me if I had on them boots when vou came back. I cut the wire, Billie.’ One of the horses gave a low whinny and moved uneasily in its corner. The storm had quieted somewhat and settled to a steady drive, and by this time the real night had come. It had been cold, but it was colder now. Billie added wood to the fire which, burning bravely as it might, could not conquer the freezing temperature. When this was done he said slowly: -“You got men stacked up wrong, like most women. It never made any dliffer- ence to me what sort of clothes you wore, Britches, but I can see how that female could work on you an’ | guess I under- stand.” “Then when I got the boots you didn’t see ’em, except to kid me about ’em ’til I couldn’t bear to have ’em on when you was around. It sort of went on that way. They kept showin’ me things I didn’t know I wanted until I saw ’em, and then I’d do just what they asked me to. I must have been clean crazy. I even fig- ured you’d like me if I had a new saddle on Dude. But presently I found it wasn’t any use, and then I sort of turned loose of everything.” “What made you think that?” For answer she took something from her pocket, and when it was unfolded he saw the remnant of a pink cardboard box tied with a gilt string. Two memories flashed before him —-the box lying in the trail where she herself had thrown it, and the bullet-riddled target nailed to a tree stump. There was a small round hole in the piece she held in her hand. “This,” she said. Other memories came to him. Jack had said that some «lay he would hear of the candy box again and here it was; the most inconsequential object imaginable, yet fraught with a tremendous importance. He could not follow the intricacies of her mind, but he felt dimly that she must be soothed and reassured of a wrong he had not meant, a hurt so keen and vital that OF LONELY LAND, 563 only a woman's soul,’ trivial and great, could encompass it. ‘“You’ve got a wrong notion about that darned box. It ain’t worth talkin’ about,” he begun, but saw that she was not listen- ing. ‘“Tt was what proved to me I lost out for good,” she said mournfully. “ You give it to me, it was minc; the first thing you ever gave me, and then you gave it over to her. Oh, I know you can’t see it like a woman can, but it made me wild. {~--I--wanted to kill her, and—I tried, that day with T B Dam, but you came and that was another step down for me. [ knew { couldn’t stay here after that, meetin’ you an’ bein’ questioned, so I told the old man [ was goin’ an’ lit out. He was just about through here, an’ he thought I’d gone on to the Border and he’d find me when he got there. But I went to Cam- berwell’s, an’ I been there ever since.” ‘And Camberwell sent you after my cows.” “Yes. I cut your fence, but 1 turned your cows back before they could get ‘em bunched. I couldn’t see Camberwell ruin you and that was what he wanted. You shot up one of his men and he aims to drive you out of the country: -.” “Milt Holley was goin’ to inform on him, was he, and Camberwell sent some- body to plug him before he could talk? Was that it?” She nodded wearily. That phase of the ‘affair scarcely seemed to hold her atten- tion. “Milt Holley worked for Camberwell a few days. He found out about the Circle O stock. All of Camberwell’s men aren’t rustlers: he keeps enough regular hands to make his place seem sorta square; but Milt found out. He quit, and they knew he'd squeal, so the old man sent a crowd over to stop him from talkin’ an’ they sure did. They cut the horses loose and was just as Innocent as anybody in town. It was vou that spilled the beans.” She changed the subject abruptly. ‘ You wouldn’t have got your cows back if it hadn’t been for me, Billie.” Their talk wandered far afield of the vital point which had. dpsmrsaalty Side