Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 88: what you’re looking at

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

- . MINIONS OF THE LAW, “What are you going to do with these two?” he asked. right to go away and leave my guests.” ~ +“ Got a couple of saddle horses?” “My bunch is down at the head of the canon. “ Looks like I’ll have to ask you to ride over there and bring up a couple for our guests, if they won’t be good enough to tell us where they hid out their horses.” — “You ain’t got no right to take us in,” says the short guest with the roaring voice. “You ain’t got no warrant fer us.” “Well, pard, it’s just like this. I being a minion of the law, I ain’t a free agent no more. If I didn’t have this deputy badge on me, I wouldn’t take you in. When I ‘came to this rahge, when. you caught some- body trailing a bunch of steers that didn’t belong to him, you didn’t take him in; and I’m free to say that that way of doing business rather appeals to me. But I’m a ' law minion, and I’m supposed to bring ’em _ in now, and let the law take its course. The boys never would forgive.me if I didn’t bring you in.” | “Vowre brayin’ on the wrong scent,” says the long guest, thereby proving that he hadn’t lost his voice altogether. “ We didn’t have nawthin’ to do with the shoot- in’ of the marshal.” ' “ Don’t misunderstand me,” I says. “I ain’t accusing you of having that much nerve. My notion is that anybody who will , trail a bunch of woollies—” “* Hello, there!” , That yell drifted in from the night out- side. Jim jumped up from the table and went to the door. Not knowing what might be drifting around in the moonlight, I hitched Betsy around where she would be handy if needed. “Hello yourself!” Jim answered. “ That you, Barber?” “You guessed it.” ‘Seen a stray bunch of: sheep up this way?” The voice was coming nearer all the time and I thought I heard more foot- steps than a two-legged man generally makes, “Yes, I did, Trainor. beyond Sawyer’s Flat.” “ Anybody with them?” Saw a bunch down “It wouldn’t be quite Romero holds them down there.’” 717 The voice was near the door, and I wasn’t mistaken about the footsteps, so I hitched back my chair so that I was facing the door. "“ They were headed down the trail through the scrubs when I left them not more than two hours ago,” Barber contin- ued; “and there is nobody with them.” “Tm sorry, Barber, that bunch got up here on your range,” said the fellow just outside the door; -“‘ but I reckon accidents will happen. I found my herder, Gomez, dead down near Porcupine Spring, and the sheep had come this way. They don’t generally wander to- ward the desert. anything about it, because you’ve always played pretty square with us fellows.” I knew what was coming, because Jim Barber was just that way. He’d tell the truth, regardless, and especially. would he tell it when dealing with men who were none too friendly toward him, seeing how he was mostly interested in cattle and they were interested in sheep. “Ves, Trainor—I know something about it. 33 And before I could think of a way of calling Jim off he had told that gang of sheep men—there were six of them in the shadows outside—the whole story. “ Reckon we’ve got a job ahead of us to-night,” said Trainor. “ We’re certainly obliged to you for roundin’ up these skunks, but we'll be glad to take ’em off your hands.” ‘““A deputy marshal has them now,” Jim explained; “ and he is going to take them to Winslow.” “T reckon we don’t need no deputy noth- . ing to help us settle this business, Barber. All we want is these owe] men, and. we'll do | the rest.” “ Of course, Trainor, as long as the dep- uty marshal and his two prisoners are in my shack I’m not going to give them up. There were two hundred head of my cattle mixed up with your sheep, and my notion about it is that it was my cattle they were really after, and they were using your sheep. to cut up the trail. At any rate, I’ve an interest in seeing these fellows get what’s coming to them.” connicloookks Looks like sort of a bad mess. Don’t reckon you know . C©