Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 1, 1922 — page 148: what you’re looking at

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

938 there storm for to save Nan, I’! be damned to hell!” ‘* Shall we hang him?” the sheriff asked quietly. “ Hell, no!” Scrub snapped back. “ Wait till I scratch my haid into thinkin’, then we'll hang him.” ‘While Scrub’s thinkin’ maybe, Mr. Meakin, you’d like to make a few re- marks?” the sheriff said. ‘“I reckon you know he had somethin’ to do with savin’ your hfe. Leastwise it looked like he kept the shack standin’ until the worst of the stampede swept by. What have you to say?” ‘“T haven’t a damned thing to say.” “You ain’t lookin’ for to lynch him, then?” “I am a fair man,” was Meakin’s char- acteristic rejoinder. ““Get about your business, then, Mea- kin, and Scrub, too!” Sheriff Pickering said. “Vl see that this here gunfighter gets jus- tice.” “Justice?” Scrub repeated weakly. ‘What justice is there for a man who steals two horses and a woman! I don’t want him hanged—don’t give him justice. Let justice be damned this once!” ‘“'The two hosses are offen: the slate, you admit that, Scrub?” “ Yes, I'll admit that. The gal compli- cates it sayin’ she took the hosses herself.” Pickering, watching the girl bandaging Cal’s wound, went on: ‘‘ Then shall we give him a necktie party for takin’ the gal? They’s some States which hold that crime just as serious as takin’ a hoss. What’s your idees on that, Scrub?” Scrub Hazen also watched the process of the bandaging of the wound. One of his cow-punchers had lifted Cal up so that he was looking about, dazed, at the faces of the group around him. Scrub noted the smile on the gunfighter’s mouth as the lat- ter saw the girl’s face over him. The cat- tle king, thinking of his scattered steers, came hurriedly to a.judgment. “Tl tell you what I figure is justice, chief,” he said. ‘Give the damned gunfighter to the gal. She bein’ a partner of mine in a way of speakin’, can have everything to say. What she says I'll say. What she agtees I ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. agree. And I advise the best thing she can do is to break this bird, put him on a horse, and send him packin’ acrost the Rio Grande.” ‘“‘T reckon the gal’s judgment will be the soundest of any of us, men,’ the sheriff agreed. ‘‘ Bein’ as how she’s spent a couple days and nights alone with him out in the desert, she’d orter to know him better as we know him.” The different members. of the posse ac- claimed this speech of their leader as a wise one. “ Anything the gal says gues,” they remarked, each with his own particular oath. “¢ All right, gal,’ Scrub Hazen said. “ If this here gunman who horsed into your life and packed you off into the desert—I say, if he acted ungentlemanly out thar, and carried himself in any way which he hadn’t orter, and which you as a lady born resent, now is the time for you to get even. Just say the word. Tell us truthful-like, ‘ This bird attackted me!’ Just tell us that, and we'll bury him with these here daid cows.” The girl stood up and turned to her fos- ter father. ‘“‘ Cal Triggers has won, Daddy Hazen,” she said. ‘It wasnt back there in the rodeo that he won. It was out in the desert. If you don’t understand me when I say that, then you may understand something else that is simpler: Cal Triggers is mine—you’ve told me—to do with what I please!” Some of the men — Meakin and Scrub and the sheriff—understood this very clear- ty. Others did not, but it mattered little. Serub broke up the meeting. ‘‘ Leave her take care of him, sheriff,” he said. ‘‘ And two of you puncher boys stay by to tend her a hand. If the heltbender did ack ungentlemanly in the desert he'll be re- warded. She'll reward him—don’t you worry. I know her! And if he treated her right, she’ll reward that, too—aye, sheriff? There’s somethin’ that works out pretty just thar—aye, what? Better ‘n any of your phony juries—aye, sheriff?” ‘““ We'll leave her do what she wants with him,” the sheriff consented. “ Announce that to every one—to Red Town m partic- ular—afore we go back. Let Red Town understand that we caught our man, and comicloool C©