Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb-Jul 1913)

28 TEE MOTION PICTURE STORY MAGAZINE shack stood open, and that it could be reached easily from the trail. She spread her hands. ''Just whatever you say," she answered, and turned. "Git!" came the command of the man with the gun. Calamity Anne started. Slowly she walked at first, then quicker, as she came abreast of the girls. She leaned forward. "When I give the word, follow me — and run like a coyote!" she ordered, tersely. "All right," came softly from Jane. Lola, her face white from fear, said nothing. Fifty feet passed — a hundred. Calamity Anne cast a glance over her shoulder and noticed that the man with the revolver still stood guard. She eyed the distance between the trail and the shack. Another fifty feet. "Now!" came the terse order. A rush. A spitting flare of flame from the distance, and a bullet sang high overhead. Calamity bent low and hurried for the shack. She felt the girl at her side stumble. With one great sweep she reached out and dragged her to her feet. Two great leaps. They were inside the shack, and Calamity was rushing for a rifle that stood in a corner. Suddenly she stopped. "Where's Lola?" she gasped. "Gone," came the answer of Jane. "She went straight down the trail." "Good enough," Calamity answered, shortly. "All the better. That only makes two of us to kill. Well," she said, half to herself, as she rolled up her sleeves and swung the rifle, "they'll have to start killin' plumb soon, 'cause I'm gettin' riled. I'm feelin' my pizen, I am!" She stepped to the door, and sent a bullet into the air. "Out o' these diggin's!" she yelled. "Out! — hear me? Calamity Anne's gettin' ready to start fire, flood and pestilence. She's a-gettin' ready to raise tornadoes! Git!" she aimed the rifle at the form of Cal Edwards, who had pursued. ' ' Hear me? Git ! " And Cal Edwards, bloodthirsty two-gun man, looked once, then "got," and the siege had begun. "There it is," mused Calamity Anne, as she watched his fading form, "nothin' but trouble. Trouble for breakfast, trouble for supper, trouble when you aint got nothin ', an ' trouble when you're chock full. Now I've got to sit up an' waste a whole good night's sleep to keep that varmint from comin' in an' slicin' my neck. Aint life vexin'? Go on to sleep, you," she ordered of Jane, " 'cause you'll have to be doin' what I'm doin', tomorrow, if those galoots still hang around." But the next morning brought no evidences of the men. The mine was safe. Calamity Anne grinned as she looked about the little shack and on to the shaft. Then she turned. "Jane Baxter," she said, "go git a bucket of water. Them galoots has vamoosed. I dont guess they hurt Lola none. They wasn't after nobody but me, nohow." "I guess not," the girl answered. "I hope not, anyway. I guess that creek we passed is the nearest place for water, isn't it?" "Guess so," answered Calamity Anne. Jane left the shack and started down the trail. A hundred yards, and she heard some one behind her. She whirled and looked into the face of Cal Edwards. "You!" she gasped. "Dont git skeered," the man said, hastily. "I'm not gointa hurt yuh. I just wanta talk to yuh, that's all. What's Calamity doin'?" "Waiting for you with the rifle, that's what," the girl answered. Then she swung the bucket, idly, and looked off thru the trees. Assured that Cal Edwards did not mean harm, she was noticing things, particularly that he was good-looking — perhaps, after all, the scene of last night had its mistaken part. Cal was speaking again. "I made an awful mistake last night," he said. "We've been lookin' for somebody to turn up here