Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 3, 1924 — page 155: what you’re looking at

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

—— \ ' é +~ fA 92>” ) 7 iy y © Sr. ha £ y = =z a te rH — = af ere: Lede @iwts ees By HAROLD FREEMAN MINERS TEVE RORK possessed plenty of ani- mal courage. Had he not he never would have earned the sanguine title of “ The Killer.” And certainly he well deserved that grisly sobriquet, for in all the annals of crime in the West there had never existed the perpetration of a more ruthless, cold blooded series of killings. But now, for once, his nerve was shaken. It is no sinecure to be adrift, lost and afoot, in the worst blizzard of a quarter century. He struggled unsteadily to his feet and with a shaking hand wiped the blood from his right eye where it had trickled down from the cut on his forehead. For a mo- ment the warm liquid brought a tremor of fear. There is something terrifying in blood, particularly when it is your own. The wet, clinging snow swirled about him in blinding eddies, thick, bewildering. He was half conscious that the air had grown more penetrating; that the snow was be- coming drier; that the cold was clamping 10 A down. Just now life was possible. As the cold increased in intensity it would become less tenable until that point when mercury would seek the bulb. Then, to be lost in the driving flakes would be as sure death as to face a firing squad. Again Rork shivered. But there was animal courage there aplenty and animal instinct urged him on. Any animal will fight to the last breath for self preservation. Rork brushed the blood and snow from his eyes impatiently. The wound was nothing. The storm was nothing. Steve Rork was no weakling to succumb or even be frightened by such trifles. Steve Rork, feared of men, deserving the title of “ The Killer ” a dozen fold, was no stripling to be conquered and vanquished by the ele- ments. Resolutely he plunged into the storm. Reason told Rork to go down the gulch, for in that direction lay civilization and 945 COMGDOO! (©