Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 21, 1922 — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

20 us who kinnot—I suppose man for man there isn’t a better set of drivers in the country—leastwise, in Colorado. “ But talk! You oughtta hear this man Windy talk. Say, if talk wuz a drop of water, Windy ’d have the Pacific Ocean lookin’ like a bottle of home brew, for quantity, to say nothin’ about quality. The I’s in his conversation look like the way telegraph poles look outta the windows of the Twentieth Century Limited when she’s goin’ good. “There’s nothin’ this boy don’t savvy, an’ still less he won’t talk about. He’s the most popular guy in the woild, wit’ him- self, an’ he don’t hesitate to express his beliefs in them sentiments one hundred and fifty per cent of the time, if you’re familiar wit’ the higher mathematics, sir. “IT sez to him one day: ‘ Say, you an’ Napoleon must ’a’ had terrible hardships when you retreated from Moscowitch, or Petroburg, or whatever the name of that there Russian burg wuz.’ ““* Why, what do you mean?’ he asks, innocent like. “*<“ Nothin’—nothin’ at all,’ I says, ‘ ex- cept that if everything you told is straight goods, you must be old enough to have fought wit’ Napoleon at Valley Forge.’ “““ Naw—it just seems like that to you. A regular guy kin squeeze more things into a week than you dumbbells can do in a lifetime,’ he says, not mad, but scornful like. “Vou see how it wuz, sir.. He wuz the original white-haired kid from White Plains, by. which I mean he wuz a reg’lar heller. Well, that don’t make him popular none wit’ the men around here, but my! the wimmen soit’nly fell for him. Take Delia, for instance. If I tried to pull the line of talk that Windy did, I’d get bawled out proper, an’ serve me right, too, says I. But Windy! Everything he said they takes for Gospel troot’, an’ that’s what first got me sore about him. ‘Vou kin see for yourself, I ain’t got the appearance of a hero, an’ I never claimed that I did much heroing—but this here Windy, why, he just looks the part. Big, blond, good-lookin’, nice blue eyes—can you imagine how the ladies fall for him? ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ‘“ An’ the worst of it wuz that Delia falls for him harder ’n anybody else. I'll tell this here qld woild that he sure made a hit wit’ her. Which leaves me coolin’ me tootsies somewheres on the outside, you might say. An’ the yarns he pulls! Say, he told me about capturin’ six bandits what tried to hold up a stage he wuz runnin’ wunst—single-handed, mind you, an’ wit’- out a gun. Sez he’d ’a’ got all seven of them if he hadn’t been troubled wit’ a bit of rheumatism that mornin’. ‘* Delia swallows this stuff, hook, line, an’ tails, hollerin’ for more all the time, an’ so do the rest of the fool female sex in these parts, but the men is all sore at him be- cause they can’t shut him up none an’ he’s gettin’ to be a national nuisance. ‘“An’ on top of that, Skinny Robertson gits held up. Yep—reg’lar Wild West style. They ain’t much of that hold-up stuff around here now—but wunst in a long time somebuddy gits to Jesse Jamesing. *T’wan’t much of a hold-up—only one pas- senger on the stage, an’ he gits relieved of a tin watch an’ a bit of dough, not much. Well, when Windy gits news of this, you should ’a’ heard him holler. Kids the life outta poor Skinny, an’ describes in detail as to how /e would ’a’ acted in the soicum- stances. “He goes pretty far wit’ his kiddin’, too, an’ him an’ Skinny come close to goin’ to the mat, but when he sees that Skinny is gittin’ good an’ mad he lays off an’ goes out, prob’ly to see Delia an’ tell her all about it. “Well, Skinny an’ Bob an’ I discusses him pro an’ con, an’ finally we decides he’s gotta be suppressed for the good of the community. As for myself, when I says community I has Delia in mind, but that’s neither here nor there, as the poet sez. We talks over lottsa plans, but didn’t find no good one for a while. This Windy he’s a pretty wise boid, an’ it’s gotta be a good scheme for him to fall. Then we sits si- lent for a while, jest thinkin’ an’ sayin’ nothin’.”’ Six lapsed into silence for a minute as he carefully killed the butt of his cigaret with the heel of his heavy shoe. “Funny how hard it is to git decent cig- comiclboooks C©