Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/380

 facture of "Judy Punch," I was spending a lot of time doping advertising copy and framing what I hoped was interest-building letters to the jobbers and dealers. Judy was worth her weight in platinum in helping me do this, as she's got some wonderful ideas and a business head as wise as it's pretty, which is saying several mouthfuls. Well, we'd been doing most of this work in the office, of our plant, and this particular night we are working there late trying to smooth out a idea which had all the earmarks of being a wow when we got it properly set. It came out later at the inquest that it must of been about ten o'clock when this thing happened. They couldn't prove the time by either me or Judy, as we was both too upset and sick with the tragedy of the whole business. Anyhow, I was just helping Judy on with her coat where there was a sharp report, the crash and jingle of broken glass in the window opening into the factory and a wicked thud in the opposite wall. I felt a stinging in the top of my left ear and when I felt it my hand came away sticky and red. Judy give a little scream and run to me as I staggered back. I wasn't hurt, but the sudden sensation that somebody had tried to cook me in cold blood made me a bit ill in the region of the belt. I can't say I've had that happen to me every day.

"Stay here, Judy—I'll get that guy!" I says quickly, pushing her behind a big book case out of harm's way.

"Gale—don't—you'll be killed!" she gasps, white as the teeth in a toothpowder ad.

"Well I'll be killed if I stay here, too," I says, forc-