Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 21, 1922 — page 38: what you’re looking at

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

28 ranch, and the men had again dropped to the weeds, revealing only their sombreros. “ If you don’t shoot now I'll start the fireworks myself,’ Lady Larkey grumbled. + And her threat was not a vain one. As soon as the men had wiggled their way up the hill until they were on a line with the shake-barn where Jim Quade was wait- ing Lady Larkey fired, the gun kicking into her shoulder so that she stumbled back and fell over a chair. Ross Larkey then followed with half a dozen shots aimed as accurately as he could at the sombreros. He had no way of know- ing whether they had taken effect. The only reaction from his enemy was a sud- den burst of reports in six flashing streaks. The lanterns in the yard were smashed out, but Larkey knew by the shots the ap- proximate locality of a good number of the attackers. He had judged there were ten in all—though he could not be certain of this. They might have been joined by others during the three hours wait. At all events there were four men lurking about whom he had not yet accounted for. After that first fusillade had crashed the window-glass above him, and ripped mto the ceiling, there was a moment’s silence. Lady Larkey was the next to fire. She poked the muzzle of her gun out of the window and banged at random into the air. “You've killed one of our own nags!”’ Larkey cried. ‘‘ Damned if I thought you could even do that good!” One of the rangy little pintos on the picket line kicked and fell, emitting a panic- stricken neigh. ‘The other broncos began to kick at each other’s barrels, the thud- ding sound of the hoofs making the only. break in the stillness. They continued pawing and kicking, and one after another stampeded and broke loose, galloping off to- ward the cow-corrals, the hay-stalls or the open plain. In this confusion the attackers crept up another twenty feet, fired at the lamps and lay low upon their stomachs. Larkey and his wife both fired continuously. Old Grandpa Bob, trembling and white, crept from the kitchen and crawled underneath the sofa, gibbering in his panic and begging Larkey to save him from the outlaws. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. But Larkey had troubles of his own. “¢ Why the hell don’t Jim Quade shoot?” he cried desperately. ‘If he waits another minute there’ll be ten men rushin’ in on us.” Meanwhile Sue was at her post in the western wing of the house. From the win- dow where she stood she could see the shake-barn. The knowledge that Jim Quade was there gave her a sense of security. She even began to think that there was no probability of any attack on this side of the house, when she saw the dim black figure of a man against the adobe bluffs high up near the crest of the mesa. One of the men, she concluded, had rid- den up to the mesa, had dismounted and was now climbing down for an attack upon her wing. At the same moment the men attacking the front of the house had passed the shake-barn. Sue could only see the flank of this line of attackers, but she knew that Quade could open fire now if he chose to. She wondered why he was waiting so long. - The hoarse barking of the guns around by the front of the house was din- ning in her ears, and she knew that her father and mother were both firing. The flash of guns from two of the attackers was also visible. She looked again at the cliff and saw that the little figure had swung down almost a third of the way. In the starlight he looked like a black spider slow- ly crawling down an invisible skein. _ Sue lifted her gun and fired. The bluffs threw back the echo of her shots, and she could hear the rolling of stones. The black form had merged into the protection of the brush. Sue waited, and presently she saw the figure again. She fired, and again the shots reechoed confusingly, and rocks rolled down almost to her very window. The ‘‘ spider ” disappeared again in a more ex- tensive background of chaparral. This time she waited for an eternity before he reap- peared. The black bear-brush extended al- _ Most to the foot of the bluffs and Sue knew that when she next saw the spider he would emerge into the open, almost within a hun- dred yards of her window. In the yard outside the horses which had broken from the picket line were running aimlessly from shed to corral, catch-pen to snubbing-post. They loped across Sue’s COMmiclboo SS C©