Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 3, 1924 — page 163: what you’re looking at

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

THE LIGHT IN THE CABIN. *“‘ Said we’d never get you alive, didn’t you, Steve?” he gibed. ‘ Well, we’ve got you this time. You'll swing all right.” The Killer turned on him in a fury. “ Yuh’d ’a’ never got me if it hadn’t been fer that damned crazy preacher!” he cried. ‘** How’s that, Steve? What ’d he do?” asked the sheriff. And the Killer told him. In a halting, sobbing voice he went over the events of the night, describing each incident from the moment he had plunged headlong from his horse to the time he stumbled half frozen into the jail. He left out nothing. Some- times his voice rose to a wild, high, half insane pitch. Sheriff John Stark listened quietly and with mounting interest. When Rork fin- ished he made no comment, but turned away with a puzzled look on his keen old face. Back in his office he propped his feet on his desk, drew a black cigar from his pocket, lit it, and with long, contem- plative puffs lost himself in the considera- tion of a problem far too intricate for him to solve. III. It was well after daybreak when Sam Reynolds, one of Stark’s deputies, opened the office door and came in out of the cold with a great stamping of feet and blowing of fingers. ‘Some night, wasn’t it, Sam?” greeted the sheriff. | “Some night?” Reynolds questioned vo- Le] Le} 953 ciferously in reply. “‘ Man, she shore was some helldinger!” “Yes, you're right, Sam, I reckon,” Stark stated enigmatically. “Some night in more ways than one. We've got the Killer locked up, Sam.” Reynolds’s eyes bulged wide in astonish- ment. “The Killer! My Gawd! How'd you git him, sheriff?” “ Didn’t git him, Sam. He came in and gave himself up.” “ Give himself up? You're kiddin’ me, sheriff! The Killer never did that? And in that hellish storm?” “ Sounds funny, I know, Sam,” answered the sheriff, “ but that’s just what he did. Only maybe he really didn’t do just that, either. He claims that old crazy Preacher Job drove him in at the point of his own gun. Right queer, Sam.” ‘* Maybe that ain’t so queer as it might be, sheriff,” Sam Reynolds replied. “I reckon that old cuss is right capable o’ doin’ it if he took it into his crazy old head.” “°Fraid it’s mighty queer, anyway, Sam. You see, the Killer claims that the old preacher took his gun away from him and then drove him in here with it. What’s so queer about it is that when Rork give him- self up his gun was still in the holster on his hip. That’s it on my desk. But maybe what’s queerest of all is that old crazy Preacher Job has been dead for three weeks,” U BRIDGE | STOPPED on the bridge at midnight And said to the lady who’d won— I said it because I was right, I said it with keen delight, I said it for money was tight—- I said to the lady who’d won: ‘“*'You are a son-of-a-gun!” And the lady who had won, Who had jabbed me with her gaff, Did she hand me back my money? Wow! She handed me the laugh! W, J, Lempton. CONMIG DOOLK (CO