Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 25, 1924 — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

VALOR. down! I got to give up this sometime. Sometime I got to go. An’ who'll take it on?” He considered this for an instant in somber bitterness. “Not you, by God! There won’t ever be a yellow, chicken-hearted woman in the saddle of Bart Parmelee! You couldn’t ride it. Like wolves they’d come down on you and tear out of yo’re hands the things I’ve builded up out of blood an’ sufferin’! ‘‘ That’s how I stand. An’ yo’re all I got to lean on. Well, do you know what a man does with a rotten girth? Do yer know?P— He throws it away! I’ve had men around me who’ve fought me, an’ oth- ers who’ve played the snake. I know how to handle them. But you ain’t got the guts to stand up an’ fight, nor the brains to do the other. God gave me a son to lean on and when I need him, I find he’s afraid!” He bit off the words as a man spits out a foul mouthful. He poured from his eyes the glitter of a disgust that was almost ha- tred. As he spoke the last words he grasped with one arm the back of his chair and by an effort almost superhuman pulled himself to his feet. As he stood there, towering in the shadow, the boy appeared small before him, incredibly slight and boyish. “T tell you what I’m goin’ to do!” barked Parmelee, glaring down upon him. ‘‘ Dasent knows me, an’ what I tell him to do, Dasent does. To-night, Dasent an’ the boys ’re goin’ to round up. Harper Preest, an’ when they’ve rounded him up, they’re goin’ to hang him. “ You an’ Aleck will be there when Preest dances on the air, an’ you, David, yo’re goin’ to kick him off! When you come back to me an’ tell me how you did the trick, then I’ll know you ain’t afraid.” He leaned forward, as he spoke, so that he was directly above the boy, his face close to David’s face, and his glance had in it something demoniacal. David felt that this man who leered into his eyes was not his father, but was some spirit incarnate of evil; yet his own eyes did not quail. “‘ An’ if I don’t do it?” Parmelee’s face darkened terribly. “You got me to deal with then!” he rasped blackly. ‘“‘ Ask any man on the range what it is to deal with Bart Parmelee 15 when he’s mad.” And his lips twisted back in a snarl. “ That’s all I wanted to know, dad,” said David. “ Outside of that yo’re all riled up, and don’t know what yo’re sayin’. But when yo’re thinkin’ clear again, just re- member what I said. I said I wasn’t afraid!” He smiled slowly, and the fire that had burned in his eyes when he cast away the shears came back to burn like a flame renewed. ““1’m not afraid of anything on earth!” he cried proudly. ‘“ You say that any man can tell me of what it means to deal with you. But it don’t signify. I’m not afraid of you!” Aleck saw Parmelee lunge toward the boy. “ Dave!” cried Aleck, but the boy didn’t budge. The father’s clenched hand uprose, but at its height the tall figure swayed, and what inspired that gesture was never known, for Old Man Parmelee swung about and the arm dropped to grope wildly for the chair. It found a grip upon it, high on the back, and the chair tipped backward. Aleck, springing forward, held it fast as Old Man Parmelee sank into it. David stepped to him, placing a hand behind his father’s shoulder, but Parmelee pushed him away. “ You—yellow rat!” The man mut- tered the words with accusing vehemence, and the boy started up at them as though he had found his father’s body cold. He started up with a sense of horror, but he uttered no sound. is He turned his large, grave eyes on Aleck as if in doubt; then he silently walked from the veranda out into the parched grasslands which were already tinted now by the variegated colors of the sunset. CHAPTER VI. A NECKTIE PARTY. OR long after David left them, Old Man Parmelee sat staring into a va- cancy that blinded him to the vivid grandeur of the sky against which his face was set. Aleck reflected as he watched him COmiclboooks (C@)