Adventure, August 3, 1919 — page 101: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

a 0 ce - I more than suspect they invented right there, and more than one deadly quarrel Degraw only previnted by smoothness and blarney, the wise man! The German band, doubtless, aided him in that, begad! It was a fine one! | WHEN the prince returned, he kos brought with him a snake he’d just caught. He handled it in a manner to chill your blood. They told me he had a fondness for the creatures and often carried them about in his pockets. He said it was a brindled rattlesnake and extremely poisonous but that he had it charmed, as you might say, and offered to Jet me hold it in my hands. Wurroo! Sor, I can feel at this minute the deadly chill that struck down my legs as he reached the squirmin’ sarpent toward me! He said he'd keep it to show Petey O’Toole, who was addicted to snakes even when he was sober, and-he put it into his trousers pocket! For men of their age—for they were all years older than me—that was the liveliest crowd I ever saw. They frolicked like schoolboys and drank like bloomin’ hatters. With wrastlin’ and boxin’ and jumpin’ in that torrid heat, sor, they sported till sun- down, and in the cool o’ the-evenin’ they sat around listening to the sweet strains of the band. By and by they began to boast of their. doin’s to annoy Mr. Degraw, for I had soon discovered that he was the county sheriff. And, sor, I heard some shockin’ details of crime. But Degraw only laughed and said it was lucky for them that' these deeds had been outlawed by the Immunity Act, or they’d be dissolving in quick- lime that very hour. And a milder-lookin’ lot of blokes you couldn’t have found on anny Summer night the world over! Every onct in a while somebody would regret the absince of O’Toole and O’Keefe, and that would start another story about one or the other of these men, something that would start off innocint, belike, and wind up with the creeps in your liver, sor! “D’ye mind,” says one, “the time they stole the red-hot stoye from the Marnin’ Register Office and piled pavin’ stones agin _ the door and sat there in the snow-storm poe Nila drinkin’ applejack while the é ee ret ee + calli ego ae - Night in the 4 ey eS away the stones, afraid to _ Wilderness “J do that!” says the prince. “’Twas the very next day that O’Keefe attacked me with a Cuban machete in Murray’s saloon, and I had to lay him out with a brass cuspidor. I carry the scar of the cut he gave me to this day. But those were rough old times! You remember the night O’Toole got the cab-drivers into Mink’s to buy them a drink and we stole every cab in Newark and drove to Belleville with them?” “Yes, That was awiul! O’Keefe had no excuse for killin’ the mayor of Belleville, even if it was a Prohibition town!” says another chap. “Just because the mayor called him a white-livered Home Rule mick from Galway! °Twasn’t right!” You may see, sor, that I did not regret the absince of these two men from this social gatherin’, for I could readily perceive that they were desperate characters of the type depicted by Bret Harrte in his “‘ Jumpin’ Frog”’ stories, although I gathered that they were Irishmen of a sort. But a bit later we heard shots in the distance, and almost immediately afterward came the two des- peraydoes in the vehicle they call by the curious name of “buggy,” sor. One of them—that was O’Toole—was a small, red- headed, skinny chap with a mild eye, the verry last you’d take for a bad one, and the other was more like a parson than a hard- ened murderer, a fine, tall, clean-lookin’ lad with curly hair but very profane with his language. “Hurroo! We did the fifty miles in two and a half hours, swoppin’ horses every five miles!”’ sings out O’ Keefe. “You're a liar. It can’t be did!’ says the prince. “You’re no gentleman, you decrepit old horse-thief- It was did!” says O’Toole, climbin’ down in a hurry. “We'll have the constables of nine towns after us for shooting up each burg we passed through!” They all crowded indoors, and O’Keefe yells out: “Rum! Rum! Anda bucket of blood!’ Mr. Degraw whispers to me: _ “Be discreet, me boy, in talkin’ to these birds. They’ve been drinkin’ some; I can see that. We don’t want any trouble here ya al lve us a couple of nitroglycerin cock- tails!” yells O'Keefe, : . “We are all out of nitroglycerin,” says — Mr. Degraw very sm roe, out - alles ay —— ae