Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 31: what you’re looking at

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

DESERT sighed lugubriously: ‘“ Bueno. I will get some more straw.” Phil grasped the halter rope without wrapping it around his hand, squirmed about in the saddle until he was satisfied he had a well balanced seat, and then: “ All right, hombre, let her dive!” The mozo removed the gunnysack and, glancing over his shoulder with a mild and gloomy interest, watched the mare start to pitch. ‘‘ A matter of time,” he said. But the Widow Crockett from behind the window of her sick room seemed to take a different view of the matter. “This time,” she said, ‘‘ he will win.” She saw the mare pause, grunting breath- lessly, furiously—more like an infuriated bear than a horse. The widow changed her tone. ‘ He better hang on to that saddle!” she said audibly. ‘“ He’ll break his breast- bone on the horn—as Pedro did last sum- mer. There she bucks again—the old man- killer.” The placid mozo—the only other witness to this scene of dust clouds, pawing hoofs and convulsive flesh—made his own com- ment: “ A very foolish hombre! The mare is possessed of seven devils! So I was told by John Moonrise, the shaman.” No sooner had these words escaped him than he shrugged his shoulders as if well satisfied with his prognostications. Phil Wyndham for no apparent reason whatever, flew from the saddle as if from a catapult. He landed in the same spot— the patch of rattleweed, now straw covered, in the south corner of the corral. When he landed Phil appeared as shapeless and still as the gunnysack which the mozo had cast to the ground. His legs and arms were sprawled in every direction and his face looked as if he had been exhumed from a grave in the sand. The mozo, puffing a ring into the quiet air, shambled across to see if the foreman was still alive. The outlaw mare stared stupidly, guilelessly, in the opposite direc- tion. Then heaving her shaggy belly from which the cinch and saddle hung askew, she emitted a doleful whistling sigh and re- signed herself to a placid reverie. No sooner had the Widow Crockett struggled out of bed with the intention of VOICES. 813 running down to the corral than she saw her foreman twist his head out of the tangle of sand and rattleweed and sit up, gazing about with a dazed grin, His face was covered with dirt, his lips bruised, his blue flannel shirt ripped, his hair touseled and falling across a cut fore- head. Both gauntlets were gone, lying at opposite sides of the corral, his sombrero was in one corner, the mare in another, and Wyndham himself in his bed of straw. It had taken that one last buck to litter the corral with disaster. ‘She sure scattered me around some,” Phil said, rubbing his head. “ But, damn it, I’ve still got my cigarette!” Most of the tobacco had fallen out of the little wisp of paper which he held clenched Qetween his teeth. He lit what was left and then, refusing the mozo’s prof- fered aid, struggled to his feet. ‘* Now, then, hombre,” he shouted to the mild and passive horsekeeper, ‘“‘ don’t stand there staring at me like a dummy. Saddle her up again. This time I’ll rake her hair off till she howls. Ill gallop her through hell and back!” The bored mozo shuffled across the cor- ral and picked up the gunnysack blindfold. He was about to obey his foreman’s order when he heard the Widow Crockett calling to him from her window. In response to the bidding from this one higher in command he shuffled doggedly toward the ranch house. The Widow Crockett spoke across the window sill. ‘You don’t mean to tell me he’s going to try again!” ‘““ He is a very peculiar man, seviora. A good vaquero, yes, but not a horseman. It is known among my people that a cayuse which, when all four feet are off the ground, twists its body, cannot be ridden. And yet this man wants to try again.” “You tell him I'll not allow him to try again,” the old ranchwoman cried testilv. ‘This hombre,” the mozo said with a shrug of his narrow shoulders, ‘‘ does not know when he is grounded.” ‘“Grounded? You mean beaten, hey?” the ranchwoman looked at the mozo with a curious lack of conviction. “Say, look COMmiiclooe S (©