Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 18, 1925 — page 131: what you’re looking at

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

IN scent and hearing the presence of another animal. Containing her with a steady hand, he urged her slowly forward. Inasmuch as it seemed to him that he had been traveling many hours, and indeed, the windswept heavens proclaimed a dawn which was not far distant, Cosgrove was not incredulous that he might now be close upon the fugi- tive. _ He frowned anxiously as he debated whether, if Lederer were indeed closely in front of him, the sound of Thunderbolt’s hoofs, clicking loudly on the stony trail, would betray his coming. The problem was solved for him dramatically by a shot; by the whine of a bullet which followed; by the frantic plunging of Thunderbolt and a squeal with which she proclaimed that the bullet had grazed her flesh. She plunged off, rearing, away from the sound of that shot, and Cosgrove had hardly seen the flash which stabbed the night and betrayed the direction from which the attack had come before he was hurled against a wall of rock and came down with Thunderbolt to the ground. He wriggled from beneath the body of the struggling mare which had pinned one leg to the earth, and whipped out his gun. In the same instant that he scrambled free, his enemy was upon him. Lederer had leaped from the darkness which con- cealed him and, believing his shot to have brought Cosgrove down, was intent upon delivering the death blow. It was, of course, a mistake, for Cos- grove was unhurt. He leaped to his feet even Lederer shoved forward his gun to give him a finishing shot, and, using his own weapon clubwise, he whipped it up, striking the gun from Lederer’s hand even as it ex- ploded, and with the upward sweep of his arm delivering a further blow upon Led- erer’s head which sent him spinning back- ward. Lederer cried out as he fell a victim to this surprise, but, evidently still under the impression that Cosgrove was wounded, did not despair. “Curse you!” he roared. “ That’s the last blow you’ll strike. Yo’re a dead man now, Cosgrove! Pray, damn you, pray! When I heard you shouting at the ford I THE EVENT OF DEATH. 281 knew you was mine, and by Gawd, nothin’ can save you now!” Cosgrove had not fired his gun, and Led- erer therefore felt doubly assured that he was wounded. In the gray obscurity of the night he stooped and picked up a large stone. Then, with an exultant, savage cry, he jumped forward. As he saw Lederer bear down upon him, Cosgrove laughed. Dodging the blow which Lederer aimed, he struck the man again with the muzzle of his gun. He reached the face, and the gun sight laid it open from brow to jaw. “ That’s a gun, Lederer!” cried Cosgrove as his opponent started back. “TI hit you with a gun! Now, come on!” Lederer stood crouching forward, smear- ing the blood from his eye with one hand. ‘““Put up yore gun!” he roared furiously. *“* Vll kill you with my two hands!” Cosgrove thrust the gun in its holster. “It’s up!” he cried. ‘ Come on!” And with confidence in Cosgrove’s good faith, Lederer, not caring to admit that he held a rock in his hand, plunged forward once again. He aimed a smashing blow at Cosgrove’s head with the hand that held the rock, and Cosgrove would no doubt have succumbed then and there had that blow hit him; but he dodged, and, catching Lederer’s fist with both his hands, he twisted it backward, throwing into the twist all the weight of his body. With a scream which mingled rage with pain, Lederer dropped the rock from his grasp, and, wrenched off his feet, fell crashing upon the rock ground. Cosgrove was upon him in an instant, and in blackness the two struggled there to- gether, unable to see, unable to chose their hold or aim a blow. They struggled in a blackness which baffled skill, and depended only upon the strength which with they could hold when the right grasp came, and break when the other’s grip became too deadly. Again and again they struck. Cosgrove felt the other’s arm snap around his throat in a grip of desperate energy, and with all his might he struck upward at the face which he felt must be close above that dead- ly arm. He caught Lederer’s cut face with Gomichbooks (E@)