Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

812 daughter. The malady, he affirmed, was beyond his administering. ‘“ But will we—she and I—see the spring together?” the woman asked in a dull, mat- ter-of-fact voice, that belied the yearning fire of her eyes. Old Winkler was about to say that the daughter would see the ocotillo bloom, but that the mother would not. A touch of sentimentality complicated his loud, harsh tones, however, and he said: ‘‘ We’ll hope so, ma’am, That thar’s a promisin’ bunch of beef critters you-all got, ma’am, if I know a thing or two. Of course, you got to watch out for the murrain. It ‘Il cut a herd to pieces worse’n a gang of Mex rustlers.” “Ves, it ‘Il be a good round-up,” the woman said. She did not send for her daughter imme- diately. She had news that the girl was starting to make money at the very peculiar occupation of selling phonograph records. It was best that she—the widow—let things eo for a while. Then came a certain afternoon when she lay in her bed watching through the screened window the quiet, almost forsaken, corrals. There were visible, the outlaw, useless horse; a mozo content to remain with the outfit as long as alkali whisky drugged his ambition; and a third figure, the faithful Phil Wyndham. He was a medium sized youth with a serious and stolid face which at times broke into a boyish grin. He wore a lop-brimmed sombrero so large as to make him resemble a mushroom. A beaded vest, black flannel shirt, leather cuffs studded with brass, a pair of baggy cord trousers tucked into oiled boots, failed to differentiate him from the usual ranch hand, auto stage driver or baggage man one might see hanging about any Santa Fe station. At the present moment he was engaged, as the Widow Crockett observed with a win- some smile, in attempting to break the out- law cayuse. This feat he consistently at- tempted whenever, after using up the saddle horses, he needed a fresh mount for night herding. Thus far, the Widow Crockett recalled, he had been thrown every time in almost the precise spot—a patch of rattleweed in the ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. south corner of the corral. So certain was she of the landing place that she ordered one of her mozos to cover it with straw the next time Wyndham indulged his weakness for bronc peeling. But now as she saw the mozo carrying an armful of straw from the barn she real- ized that it was the last time she would ever witness the slick heel and high diving contest of Phil Wyndham versus Cactus Anne. Skeptical as she had always been before—and if the truth must be told, rather proud of the buck jumping propensities of her gray mare—she actually found herself for some inexplicable reason praying now that her foreman would win. ‘““Tt’s the last time I’ll see him scratch- ing that old skyscraper,” she said to her- self, ‘I’m prayin’ that this once he sticks on.” A random phrase or two from the Bible she had heard in the days before her life with Dan Crockett came to her. It was about a man who wanted to do a great thing, but had no strength. ‘ Remember him, God! This once—strengthen him!” There was a reason why the Widow Crockett now, virtually on her death bed, was wishing that her famous old outlaw should be broken. She did not fully un- derstand her feelings at that moment while watching the contest, but when the fight was over she knew why that strange prayer had welled up in her memory. Phil Wyndham had mounted. The mozo —a little rat of a man with shreds of black hair hanging over red eyes—evinced no ex- citement because of his absolute assurance of the usual outcome. He held the outlaw bridle, in which he had methodically tucked a gunnysack. The bucker, for a moment blindfolded and puzzled, stopped her paw- ing and rearing. ‘“* Lock your spurs, senor!” the mozo ad- vised. ‘‘ Unless the spurs are stuck in the cinch no man can ride this cayuse!”’ Phil Wyndham tucked a rolled cigarette in the corner of his mouth. From the other corner he said: ‘‘ That’s barred in bucking contests, hombre, so it’s barred here. The old lady and I are going to give a regular exhibition. No pulling leather, no choking the biscuit?” The Mexican shrugged his shoulders and COMiIcloOoe (©