The Argosy, Vol. 90 No. 1 — page 130: what you’re looking at

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

124 staring at him with the respect he has un- expected earned. ‘‘ Miss—miss—I forget her last name,” he announces, “is going to be loved, hon- ored an’ obeyed by me for life. She ain’t let me ask her yet, but it goes! And you can’t trot out the first spavined old justice of the peace that can be reached any teo quick to suit us! Ajin’t that so, deary?”’ “Yes,” comes Gussie’s voice, all muf- fled up in the fellow’s coat. “I was en my way to the hotel to ask you to—ex- plain.” “Then pack!” he orders. ‘Fve ex- plained. And some one lasso a justice for us, for we’re goin’ to catch the stage this afternoon for back home. I wouldn’t spend another day in the West if you’d give it to me. It’s too tame for me!” That’s what he hands us. Meanwhile I’d been wonderin’ about a certain matter. Haswell had remed Heat Lightning, and afterward licked the now silent Sagebrush with ene hand. “Say, stranger,” I asks respectful, ‘‘what’s the matter with your left wing?” “Oh,” he tells us negligent, “it got shet up im a mess with gunmen. [’m off a month to let it heal a little more. I’d had a curiosity about the West, but it’s satis- fied!” Gunmen! All of a sudden I got a sus- picion. A mobbin’ center back East where everything happens at least twice. A danged Babylon where every outlandish THE ARGOSY. accident an’ heroism an’ blood an’ thunder you ever heard of is just daily imeident. A daily record of strife an’ movement and chile con carne that ’d make any dime novel you ever heard of read like a record of proceedin’s of the Epworth League. A place I’d heard of in dim traditions, that I’d thunk of an’ mused on often, an’ had wished I might be whisked from Cac< tus City to somewhere east of Broadway, where there’s thirst an’ liverwurst. If my suspicion was right, no wonder we had seemed slow to him! ‘“ Stranger,”- I purswes timid, while all of us, includin’ Gussie, looks with awe at the fellow who’s licked that prostrate mountain lion with one hand, and hasn’t a scrateh to show for it, “excuse me,” and with reverence I pronounces the name of the palpitating center of the wild East, “Might you be from New York?” He’d turned, still with his good right wing around Gussie’s waist, and together they’re mountin’ the steps into the eatery. “ Little old New York!’ he answers suc- cinet. ‘ Fhat’s me!” I cast a look at the mustang, Heat Lightning, standin’ with his head down by the walk. he certainty ef my instinct was grippin’ me. ‘“‘What’s your line?” I asks him. At the door he looks back over Iys shoul- der. He lamps the cayuse, then'me. He grins. ‘“‘ Mounted policeman!” says he. ROSES—FOR A SONG *““ DYUY me roses for my garden,” Said the lady whose least word Blends the iron of a mandate With the sweetness of a bird. “But I have no golden money; Scarce have I a silver crown!” “Buy them with Catullian honey, Sweet as wild bees’ dripping down. “Take scme golden words to market; Don’t you think the merchant knows Beauty always is good barter, Rose is fair exchange for rose? “Then, when next time in my garden By my side you walk along, You shalt see how words look growing— .Buy me roses with a song!” Richard Franklin, oO comicbool< CO