Charles E. Van Loan

“ The tone of the voice, more than the words, drove Gilmore's hand toward his pillow.
"Aye!" said Buckshot John. "Look for your gun if you want to. I got it here!"
The figure on the side of the bed made a sudden gesture, and there was a flash of dull metal in the half light.
The Great Gilmore was no coward, but the cold shudders were fluttering up and down his spine. It is a sensation which may come to any one at two o'clock in the morning. It cost him a great effort to find his greatest asset—his tongue. ”

“ But nobody knows why it is that the four slowest players in every club always manage to hook up in a sort of permanent alliance. Nobody knows why they never stage their creeping contests on the off days when the course is clear. Nobody knows why they always pick the sunniest afternoons, when the locker room is full of young men dressing in a hurry. Nobody knows why they bolt their luncheons and scuttle out to the first tee, nor where that speed goes as soon as they drive and start down the course. Nobody knows why they refuse to walk any faster than a bogged mooley cow. ”

“ Half an hour later, the Great Gilmore, clad only in a nightshirt and a buckskin bag which hung about his neck, spun the cylinder of his forty-five, placed it under his pillow, tiptoed over to the window, tried the catch again, placed the back of a chair under the knob of the door, and, sighing heavily, blew out the light.
As he crawled between the rough sheets, the brown canvas bag rasped against his body, and he reached down and patted it as he might have patted an animal. Then he grunted luxuriously, and stretched himself until his aching joints cracked. ”

“ Fate, which often uses the wireless telegraphy of the human eye to bring about its ends, chose this moment to strike the spark of jealous anger deep into Buck's wounded vanity. Jack La Rue, idle and mischievous, glancing casually about the studio, spied Georgine and stared hard at her. Interpreting his curiosity as an awakening interest, Georgine tossed her plumes with bovine coquetry and, if a woman weighing one hundred eighty-nine pounds can be said to simper, Georgine simpered. ”

“ If the mountain divisions could deliver the goods and snake the Coyote into La Junta within the forty-six-hour schedule, the balance compounds across Kansas could be depended on for the rest.
Between sunset and sunrise the Coyote streaked across Arizona, a night of fighting against heavy grades. The small Arizona towns flickered by the windows of the Pullman like a hatful of sparks tossed out into a gale, and Division Superintendent Gibson held his watch in his hand most of the night.
Gibson is a great railroad man; nothing surprises him. Nothing gets a rise out of him. ”

“ An extra man rolled out of a prairie schooner and saluted the day with a succession of resounding yells. Chief Spotted Elk came out of his tepee, glanced shrewdly at the sky and, squatting in the doorway, proceeded to paint his face, like the dependable moving-picture actor he was. Almost immediately the corrals swarmed with cowpunchers grooming and saddling their horses. Jack La Rue, the leading man, thrust his head into the open and bawled to Jennings, who was seated on a camp-stool in front of his tent, making up his face for the part of the cattle baron. ”

“ There was another brief silence, and then the Great Gilmore caught the last words he was ever to hear from the lips of Buckshot John Moran, train-robber, murderer, and repentant sinner—a benediction, a farewell, and a speculation, all in one short sentence.
"Maybe," said the voice reverently, "He can't be too particular; like as not He has to use what instruments He can get." ”

“ Buck Parvin collected a noble aggregation of dickey-legged ponies, which looked all the polo they were no longer able to play; and, to Jimmy Montague's great joy, Buck also unearthed three English grooms. When incased in riding breeches, tan boots, silk shirts and pith helmets they came near resembling the real thing—and, with Kenneth Clifford, they were to represent Old England before the camera; while Buck Parvin and three cowpuncher friends were to bear the Stars and Stripes gallantly through countless feet of film. ”

“ They play together six days a week—a riotous, garrulous, hilarious foursome, ripping the course wide open from the first tee to the home green; and they get more real fun out of golf than any men I know. They never worry about being off their game, because they have never been on it; they know they can be no worse than they are and they have no hope of ever being better; they expect to play badly, and it is seldom that they are disappointed. Whenever a Dingbat forgets to count his shots in the bunkers, and comes home in the nineties, a public celebration takes place on the clubhouse porch. ”

“ Since the tout lives by his wits and his tongue, he is never without a hard-luck story—a dependable one, tried, but seldom, if ever, true. He circles human nature, searching for the weak point and, having found it, delivers the attack. Squeaking Henry knew the armour plate to be thinnest on man's sympathetic side, and the hard-luck story which he told Old Man Curry would have melted the heart of a golf club handicapper. ”

“ The traveler did not dare to sleep soundly by the wayside, and he fled out of the hills with his hand on the butt of his pistol, like a man pursued by enemies. It was not that his conscience troubled him. Far from that; but he was aware that he was now well worth killing, and the thought brought no comfort with it. He drew his first long breath when he looked down on Silver Tip and the line of the railroad. ”

“ Peter Lone Wolf, his arms still folded on his chest and his eyes on Mr. Peckinpaw to the last, backed slowly out of the room and departed, grunting at every stride.
"Well," said Montague, "how do you like my Indian?"
"Superb! Glorious!" Mr. Peckinpaw was recovering from a nervous chill and was chatteringly voluble. "What native grace! What insolent pride! Why, the man might have been a king, the way he looked at me! And he positively makes one feel his physical superiority! I wish I might have talked with him in his own tongue—gotten his viewpoint on life and what it means to him. ”

“ To one man, at least, the bare little room was uncomfortably full of the ghosts of the dead. A third voice spoke faintly from the air over Moran's head—a man's voice, high-pitched and defiant, but barely audible.
"Shoot, you dirty thief! You'll have to kill me before you get at this safe!"
Buckshot John cried out in the midst of his torture.
"I never shot you, Cullen!" he gasped. "Honest! It was Charley Elms did that!"
Thus he was made to remember Pat Cullen, an express messenger who met his death in an almost forgotten hold-up, nearly seventeen years before. ”

“ At times Jimmy Montague, crashing through the brush, caught snatches of conversation behind him and smiled grimly.
"It's not legitimate work!... Confounded slapstick effects!... Too cold!... An artist is entitled to some consideration, even in moving pictures."
Evidently Hale was pouring his troubles into a sympathetic ear, as attested by a low commiserating mumble from the faithful James. In a bend of the stream the party halted, and Buck Parvin, sitting upon a rock and examining his battered forty-five-caliber revolver, gave them a noisy and cheerful greeting. ”

“ This one little trick of his is enough to drive an opponent crazy. Every golfer knows the moral—no, immoral—effect of going up against some one who gets more out of every shot than he puts into it, and still is not satisfied. It is like sitting in a poker game with a man who draws four to a deuce, makes an ace full, wins the pot, and then wolfs because it wasn't four aces.
I never played with Waddles without feeling certain that I could show him up on the long game, and it was straining to do it that ruined me. ”

“ On get-away day the bookmaker wears deep creases in his brow, for few horses are "laid up" with him, and he wonders which dead one will come to life. On get-away day the tout redoubles his activities, hoping to be far away before his victims awake to a sense of injury. On get-away day the program boy bawls his loudest and the hot-dog purveyor pushes his fragrant wares with the utmost energy. On get-away day the judges are more than usually alert, scenting outward indications of a "job." On get-away day the betting ring boils and seethes and bubbles ”

“ Five days of nervous haste, five nights of real fear, during which time the Great Gilmore came to know that a lively imagination could be a curse to its owner, and then—Silver Tip in the distance, and safety at last. There would be no passenger-train until the morning, but the traveler remembered, with gratitude too deep for words, that there was at least one good bed in the Occidental Hotel—and money would buy it. ”

“ An emigrant train, an Indian village, a soldiers' camp, a typical ranch house and outbuildings; corrals full of horses and long-horned cattle; a wonderful background of sage-covered hills—and Marcellus M. Peckinpaw, celebrated author of Western fiction, saw only the stage setting of a film drama! There was no kindly soul to tell him that the scenery and the properties were real, and that these people, though actors, were actually living the lives of the characters they assumed before the camera. ”