Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1916 - Feb 1917)

The Quitter 51 "Marriage ain't got nothin' to do with it. I aim to try my luck outside. I'm not goin' to see the lady, much less marry her. Just goin' to leave her the claim ; an' I want you to fix up the papers according you bein' notary an' sev'ral other things asides sheriff." It took Big Bill many minutes to grasp the idea. He laughed deep in his throat. ''You're a wise bird !" he said. "I've heern tell uh them there fee-males what write in reply to matrimonial ads. But you're sure doin' the square thing by her, Jack." The lady who alighted from the fourforty at Pine Junction the following Saturday was by no means the unlovely fee-male sketched by Ben, the barkeeper, but a dainty girl, clad in a modish gown, with hair very distinctly her own, blond, and of that distractingly ungovernable character that refused to stay "put." Save for a certain selfreliance in her bearing, she looked like a shy schoolgirl. Happy Jack had vacated his shack, and it was generally believed that he had left the gulch; but, though he had lain low, he had delayed his departure. Curiosity had won over discretion, and he was lurking in the background as the train rolled in and the other miners, headed by Big Bill, gathered in mass formation to receive the lovely visitor. When he saw the winsome girl of the photograph descend the steps to be greeted with enthusiasm by Big Bill, he was tempted to rush forward and claim her. But fate in the person of "Skookum" George, one of the near-bad men of the camp, intervened. Skookum's venomous tongue had many a time brought him into a gun-pulling encounter, and during the few minutes of waiting he had proceeded to "get Happy's goat," as he phrased it. Happy was a dangerous man to play with, and, unstrung as he was by recent happenings, he promptly knocked Skookum down and reached for his gun. The reception committee was too deeply interested to note what was happening on the outskirts of the crowd, and Skookum George scrambled up out of the dust unnoticed by the others. "Put away yer gun," he said. "I thought yuh could take a joke." Happy said nothing, but moved a little closer to the circle crowding around the girl. He watched her surrender her grip, saw her smile at his pards with the most dazzling display of teeth. He stared, conscious of nothing but the wonderful fact that a dream girl had come to life. Skookum George, too, had been attracted by the loveliness of Glad Mason, but he was too bruised in mind and body to devote much thought to her. Instead, he was keenly alive to Happy Jack's absorption. It was too good an opportunity for revenge to let it slip. He put his full strength into a blow delivered on the point of the jaw, and Jack crumpled up. "Mr. Lewis," the girl had asked for, "Mr. Happy Jack Lewis ;" and Big Bill painted him as a quitter, a man so afraid of women that although he had advertised for a wife, he had crawled out at the last moment and was gone to parts unknown. "But yuh don't need to worry none about him, miss," he added. "Happy Jack has done the right thing by you. He's left you his claim, and we've fixed up his house for you — 'tain't nothin' but a shack, but we've done the best we could in the way of furnishin', an' I hope " "Oh, I can't have him do that," she demurred. "Beggin' your pardon, miss, but it's all done. He fixed it afore he left." "I — I wish he hadn't run away. I'm