The Argosy, Vol. 90 No. 1 — page 127: what you’re looking at

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

THE WILD EAST. pretty as an accusin’ angel, she faced the man she’d just been smilin’ at. But she wa’n’t smilin’ now. Her silky brows was drawed together, an’ the eyes under ’em was two fires. She pointed at him with her hand tremblin’, and for a moment she struggled for words that wouldn’t come. I flashed what she had to say before she mustered the indictment. standards, this Eastern party had crawled when faced by an enemy. She was goin’ to bawl him. But his map gave no inklin’ he had any idea what she was goin’ to say. At last out it come. “You'd better leave town, quick, as you’re ordered!” she says, her voice low but clear as a bell. “ Cactus City ain’t got no use for a coward!” I saw him stiffen like he’d been froze in a breath, like the sun that warms the world had gone out. And there was ex- pression to him now. His face got set like the hinges of hell, and his eyes seemed to burn through her. ‘You mean that?” he asked her crisp, and there was a funny little note of won- der in his tone. “T sure do!’ she flung back. But I, that knew her so well, caught a little un- certainty in her voice, as if her mind wa’n’t quite sure it had called the right turn. He didn’t say another word. He pulled at the brim of his hat again, as if he’d been saluting, whirled on his heels like a soldier, and walked out, turning toward the hotel. Chin up and shoulders back, as if she’d been a soldier, too, Gussie marched back toward the kitchen, eyes straight ahead. But as she neared the door she was run- ning, and I heard her sob as she bolted through it. Sagebrush Jake Carroll and his attend- ant devils went across to Shafto’s resort of that king of indoor sports wherein many chips pass in the night. I knew they’d be spreadin’ the glad tidin’s of Haswell’s im- structed imminent departure from our city of brotherly hate. But I was of no mind 4+9-fellowthem into sinful associations. If we was all broke all the time, I mistrust this ’d be a world Billy Sunday ’d more cordially approve of. By all Western. 121 Instead, I took a stroll out to the prai- rie an’ back before bunk time. And as I stood under the stars in the six-mile strip of alkali road and dog-holes, intervening before the range where the miners toiled in ‘the hope of future purple and fine linen, I wondered. The thing was a mystery to me. I was the only man in that small but select group, barring the target of our recrimina- tions, that was onto the truth. I knew that Haswell wasn’t afraid of Sagebrush Jake Carroll! I’d caught a flash of his eyes while he was lighting his cigar as Jake syllabled his dissatisfaction with his presence. That look was all I needed to know. It’s the sort of impatient glance you give a sassy fly that’s buzzing around your head. Then why hadn’t he tackled Jake, if he wa'n’t afraid of him? Anywhere in our circles Sagebrush’s oratory would ha’ been the signal for a rough-house right there and then. I puzzled over it till I got a headache. Then I went to bed, marveling at the in- consistencies of life. Next morning I got another shock. Uncle Billy Westlake contributed it as I was goin’ by the hotel, of which he was sweeping the steps. ‘“‘ Pete,” says Uncle Billy, transferrin’ the sweat from his corrugated brow to a section of his pants, “our visitor — who @in’t so worse, havin’ tipped me two bones —is goin’ to wamder back East this after- noon. Goin’ to catch the stage and pro- ceed to the Yelpin’ Dog station, bag and baggage.” I stopped short, my eyes radiating mild dismay. I must have been wrong, the fel- low carryin’ out Sagebrush Jake’s order like this. This Haswell must be yellow, after all. ‘Well, you don’t say so!” I alleged, when Uncle Billy just had. ‘ Did he say anything, Uncle, about—Caotus City, in partic’lar?”’ “ Nothin’ in partic’lar,” bleated Uncle Billy, munching off about half of the plug o’ longcut I extended him. ‘“ But in gen’- ral, he remarked that our happy little set- tlement was a dormitory, and he’d be glad comicbool< CO