Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 4, 1922 — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

TWO-GUN SUE. elongated shadows cast by the low scrub she saw that just beyond them there loomed a darker form, as though something were crouched or lying motionless. Without a word the girl handed one of her pistols to her companion and then stooping low start- ed to creep toward it, but Briggs placed himself before her. “No, ma’am,” he whispered determined- ly. ‘I’m going first!” Cautiously, crouching almost to the ground, he circled about the clump with the girl following closely after until they came upon the body of a man. He was lying upon his back with an arm thrown across his face and one leg doubled oddly beneath him, and at the first glimpse of the still figure the girl gave a little sobbing cry and darted forward to fall upon her knees be- side it. Gently lifting the limp arm she drew it down to the side of. the unconscious form and raised the head to cradle it against her knee. The face so revealed was that of a very young man, scarcely more than a boy, and its resemblance to her own was ‘unmistakable, even though cast in a heavier, masculine mold. His hair, however, was yellow save where an ugly crimson streak matted it dangerously close to the temple, and the lashes which swept the cheeks, un- naturally pallid now beneath their tan, glinted like gold. “Ts it him?” Briggs asked superfluously, and then laid a practiced thumb and fore- finger upon the flaccid wrist. ‘“‘ He’s got a nasty side-swipe on the head, ma’am, and I don’t like the way that leg is crumpled up under him, but he ain’t dead, by a long shot.” She glanced up for a moment and he say to his inward felief that there were no tears in her eyes, but rather a bright, hard light and her voice was curiously even and steady as she replied: “Tt is my brother. His forehead and scalp were just grazed by a bullet, but his leg is broken, of course; I’ve seen more than one of our boys like that, and I know. We'll have to carry him back to the car.” “T forgot! I’ve got something there that ‘ll maybe do some good first.” Briggs rose and then hesitated. ‘‘ You ain’t afraid 333 of bein’ left here alone with him for a min- ute till I come back, are you?” A look was his only answer, and as she bent once more over the boy’s body he turned and sped away to where they had left the car just inside the fence. When he returned, bearing a vacuum bottle and a small black bag, he found that the girl had somehow managed to straighten her brother out upon the ground and was cutting away the stained and sodden cloth from about his knee. ‘* Gee, that’s bad!” Briggs knelt beside her. ‘‘ Got another ball through the knee- cap, didn’t he? It’s luck Mrs. Acheson was such a bug about cartin’ a first-aid kit with her; she’s got enough in here for a young hospital, and there’s hot coffee in that bottle.”’ Together they bandaged the boy’s head and shattered knee and then raising him to a half-sitting posture they forced a little of the warm coffee between his lips. He gulped and moaned faintly, but gave no further sign, and the girl looked up once more at her companion. “It will be just as well, perhaps, if he doesn’t regain consciousness until we get him back to the ranch and one of the boy’s can ride in to Dexter for the doctor,” she remarked, still in that level, unemotional tone. “ The pain is likely to be pretty bad in that knee. We can carry him between us to the car—”’ ‘“No, ma’am,” Briggs dissented once more. ‘‘ You just stand aside and I can carry him easy. Is Dexter the town you spoke about a while back to the old man— Mr. Acheson, I mean?’’ “Yes. Hadn’t you better get the car out into the road again before we put my brother into it? That hurdle over the ditch—”’ 7 “I did already, ma’am, when I went back for the kit.”” He paused and added slyly: “‘ I wouldn’t be surprised if the ranch we're headed for is the same one you direct- ed my party to.” “Tt is. It’s the Circle Six.” The girl looked somewhat doubtfulty from her brother’s recumbent form to the chauffeur. “Are you sure you can carry him alone?” ‘Watch me!” Briggs grinned, and COmiclbooks.CGom