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Show USELESS lmmi cowboy jg&st gyjl Le MAY 00 W'NU- tRv,ct THE STORY THUS FAR: Melody Jones and bis side-rider George Fury, In crossing the plains near the border took the wrong trail and ended In Payneville, a cow town, where the wagon ronte west from Diamond Forks to California crossed the river. Fury hit the first bar, while Melody wandered down the street, his eyes on the first white woman he bad seen for ages. Two men were standing stand-ing In front of the general store, one whistled at the girl. In a flare of temper Melody knocked the whistler down. Melody Mel-ody was more surprised than the stranger, strang-er, and helping the man np asked him How come, your foot slip?" Melody then entered the general store to buy food. CHAPTER n In the brief seconds while-he had the fellow out of action, he was able to snatch a glance at the shorter man. This other one had jumped away from the wall, to be out of the line of fire. He was talking now, quick and low, through a tight throat, with lips that hardly moved. "Don't, Ira easy, Ira look out, Ira" But while he talked to Ira he was looking at Melody Jones; and the astounded fixity of his eyes was nothing like anybody had favored Jones with before. Melody's eyes snapped back to the man he was holding on to for the love of life, and they looked into each other's faces at a distance of five inches and a half. At this range Melody noticed for the first time that the man was crosseyed. "I didn't say nothing, or do nothing," noth-ing," Ira said now, without any expression. ex-pression. Suddenly Melody Jones realized he had hold of a man who was in fear of his life. Melody eased back, relaxing slowly. slow-ly. Before he let go altogether he let his right hand fall on the butt of his own forty-five, ' in the forward pocket of his chaps, as if just to rest his hand. A fast man could still have got him handily, but probably prob-ably wouldn't try. Looking steadily at each other the two edged apart with casual, furtive shufflings, circling a little, Ira toward the gallery steps. As the Inches between them increased, the man called Ira no longer appeared cross-eyed; he looked competent again. "I'll stand a drink," he said. Slow thinking saved Melody, then. In a moment he would have said, "Whut? Whut did you say?" But as the seconds ticked away, and still nothing in Melody's head found its way into words, time and tension were too much for the other man. "No offense," he said, with the dust heavy in his throat. "Any time. Any time at all . . ." Melody surprised himself again. "Keep the slack out o' your rope, from here In," he said, his voice flat. "And don't whistle no tunes at other men's girls." Anger jumped into the stranger's eyes, like a flash of gunpowder, scaring scar-ing the living daylights out of Melody Mel-ody again. For one short moment he thought that the incredible miracle mira-cle which had saved his life was about to run out. Over the door he saw the crude board sign that had been there long before slow prosperity built the wooden awning above it: Paynevllle Gen'l Store Peter Abajian "So that's where I am ..." He walked into the cool shadows within, w His shoulders rose stiffly as he pulled down his vest a cowhide vest with more than twenty cattle brands burned on it, showing where-all where-all he had been. Deep back in the dim interior the little proprietor put up his hands. Peter Abajian was behind a counter, and flanked by hangings of blue jeans, stable forks, dried stock-fish, sheepskin coats, and Navajo saddle blankets. His round cheeks, always apparently blown full of wind, shone like billiard balls. His buffalo-horn mustache quivered, and his eyes were like agates. Melody looked at him curiously. He had never seen people act like these people acted. His eyes left the storekeeper to run along the canned-goods shelves. He hadn't told the man to put his hands down, but after a moment the corner of his eye caught their wary motion as they descended. Melody jerked his head around, and the hands flew up again. He tried this several times more, experimentally making sure that he was the one who controlled this thing. He stole a look at the street, and saw that it was empty. x "One can tomaters," Melody said. Peter Abajian set it out. and stood watching Melody unhappily. Melody was thinking. He knew he didn't have any money. What blistered Melody was that he had saved his money for nearly three years, planning plan-ning one magnificent bust some day, and he had built up nearly seventy-six seventy-six dollars. And then he had lost it not in a card game, not in any particular way just plainly lost it, out of his pocket or something, some place. He and George Fury had argued ar-gued many a mile over who had seen it last, and what happened to it. All they knew about it was that it was gone. Now, after a month of bean diet, Melody was asking himself if canned soods wer worth getting to trouble for. He decided that they were. At worst, the cooking at the jail ought to compare favorably to George Fury's. "One can peaches," Melody Mel-ody went on, "one can pork beans, one can pears, one can plum pudding, pud-ding, and another can tomaters." "Yes, sir!" Peter Abajian moved with alacrity now, but kept his hands fluttering in view. "All in a nice gunny seek, maybe?" "Eat 'em here." Sitting on the counter, eating his cool wet canned goods, Melody Jones tried to fit himself into a world that was like a dream. A slouching cowboy with a saddened, sad-dened, sandy mustache came in and pawed around in a box of harness buckles near the door. He kept sneaking glances at Melody over his shoulder. Then he realized that Melody Mel-ody was staring at him. He turned suddenly confused, and pottered out of there. "What the hell goes on here?" Melody said aloud. The storekeeper's hands started up again, but he stopped them. He smiled at Melody in a sickly way, without meeting his eye. It was time to face the issue. Melody supposed he ought to glare at the storekeeper, but he couldn't make it. He studied the side of his boot as he said, "How much?" The words came out in a thin squeak, so that he had to try again; but he managed to get a good harsh growl the second time. "Nothing!" The little storekeeper said instantly, even eagerly. "It's a pleasure. Nothing at all." "Whut?" "It's free," Peter Abajian said quickly. "All free to a nice gentleman gentle-man like you." Then Melody saw the girl again. She walked along the gallery of the store from the steps at the end. She passed the door very slowly, looking in as she passed. There was Melody jerked his head around, and the hands flew up again. something both tense and lazy, very proud, In her straight-kneed step, Impossible to forget. He could see that there were straw-dull finger-curls, finger-curls, loose and carelessly kept, down the sides of her face. But against the eye-knocking white blaze of the street her face was in shadow. shad-ow. He couldn't see it at all. After putting Melody out of his mind, George Fury rolled stiffly, hoop-legged, into the First Chance Bar. Inside the door he came to a stop with a waspish dignity, and gave the conventional hitch to his breeches, while his eyes accustomed themselves them-selves to the shade. What he saw was the usual barroom, with a stuffed squirrel at one end of the back bar and a stuffed owl at the other end; and the bar itself so battered bat-tered and scraped down that it had a sway-backed look. The oak foot-rail foot-rail was worn half through. "Where am I?" George asked. The two cowmen looked at George Fury; then, with considerable consider-able deliberation, they looked at each other, their faces unreadable as sourdough bricks. Presently both looked at the bartender, who washed glasses in a bucket and minded his own business. And finally they turned to George again. "This yere's Payneville," said the man addressed, with constraint. George Fury took a deep breath, and his Adam's apple jumped. "Painful." he snapped. "What's painful?" "This yere is," the other said. George looked both men over with angry care. The guns they wore looked well-oiled, their holsters well-soaped well-soaped and well-used. He was aching ach-ing for trouble, made irritable by the dust in his throat and the strangeness here. But George Fury had a poor opinion of his gunplay. Rheumatism in his fingers had made it as inept as Melody's own. So he only walkea past them now, but slowly, stiff - legged, like a bristling dog. "O-o-oh," he said half to himself, but in a tone of sarcastic sarcas-tic insult. "Painful, is it?" "Right Payneville!" George Fury snorted like a jumped buck, but he knew he had said enough. He took up a stand well down the bar. "Forty-rod," he told the bartender. bartend-er. "From the bar'l with the snake-haid snake-haid in it." The bartender set out bottle and glass with the relaxed impersonality of practice. "How long," he spoke to George Fury courteously, "how long you been in Payne?" George choked explosively in the middle of his first gulp. He slapped his glass down on the bar with such a ringing crack that the whisky jumped clean clear of the rim, then sloshed back in again. When George lost his temper his dialect changed, slipping back to the far hills of his youth. "Naow, yew look yare!" he spluttered, his voice up an octave. "If yew fellers cain't answer a civilus question civ-ilus, civ-ilus, yew anyways daon't need to git new! I don't aim to stand fer it!" The bartender looked at him tired-ly. tired-ly. He was used to men with sun-sore sun-sore nerves, drunken at that. He shrugged and went back to his glasses. A pale, heavy man, six feet tall in Comanche moccasins, had come forward for-ward from a back table. He stood looking at George with small eyes without eyebrows, from a distance of about a foot. . And now as he stood there George Fury became aware that some new public affliction was building itself. Men were trickling into the First Chance by twos and threes. A dozen had wandered in; the bar was well filled. These men were cowmen, passing through or on the loaf, with a sprinkling of plains-bred townsmen towns-men who looked about the same. And all these newcomers were interested in-terested In George Fury. Low-toned Low-toned informations ran along the bar, to everyone but George. Men looked him over, studying him with a strange candor he had never seen. Somebody slapped him hard on the shoulder, and a voice said, "Howdy, Roscoe!" George Fury turned his head slowly, slow-ly, his eyes alive with death; but the other had moved on. Another newcomer edged toward George along the bar. "Did you ever find out," he asked George confidentially, "just where the hell you are?" Once more George Fury choked on his drink, and rang the glass upon the bar. He whirled upon the stranger. "I'll tell yew one thing, my owl-nosed owl-nosed friend!" he lashed out. "I ain't in pain!" A grumble of laughter, rising to a roar, swept the barroom. George Fury looked astounded. He had realized real-ized he had a keen wit, of course, very funny, but not this funny. As the laughter held up his anger died. He stuck his tongue In his cheek, winking largely, and the laughter increased. He spoke to them once more, when the laughter finally ebbed. "What air yew whistle-britched poop-heads laughing at?" Another howl went .up from this. Purple again, glaring glassily, George went stamping out At the door he turned Impressively for one parting crack, and was instantly in-stantly called back to the bar to pay for his drinks. Unstrung, he rang a silver dollar on the bar and got out of there, while that insane, unaccountable laughter still rang, beating him about the ears as he fled. He could not believe what he saw then. Outside, where his pony should have stood, was empty hitch-rail. Men properly hang for laying hands on another man's horse. Now at last George Fury's gun whipped out. The door of the First Chance was full of people watching him. George let out the rebel long yell, and fired on them point blank. They ducked back, laughing still, without counteraction or resentment. George Fury's bullets went no place, as far as he could tell. No window broke, and no wood splintered. He might as well have fired straight up. Perhaps he would have gone in after them then. Perhaps he would have killed three or four of them while his lead lasted, and got himself shot down, and later hanged if he lived. But now Melody Jones was coming along the walk at his long, legged canter the only man in the West who could spring at an easy stroll. Jones was hollering at him. George Fury pulled himself together and waited for reinforcements. "Teh, tch," said Melody Jones. "Drunk so soon. This here's disgraceful." dis-graceful." "Them devils stole my eayuse." George Fury said. "I aim to clar the town, and give 'er fresh start, an' she needs it!" "Nobody stole your moth-et old hide," Melody told him. "I taken and stuck him in the livery corral. Time, too. The old goat ain't seen hay for so long, he spooked at ft Some night you're going to ask him to balance you out of this dump on ! his top. I want to see your face ; when you find him so empty he's fiat in the road like a sack. In town, you gotta keep stuffln' a hoss. Or he comes unstuffed," Melody said. 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