Adventure, August 3, 1919 — page 104: what you’re looking at

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

“Take off these cuffs and shoot me quick!” says the man, “I have thirty dollars in me jeans. Send them to the Elk’s Lodge for to’bury me with.” © “Hand them here,” says the artist chap. “T’ll attend to that.” “The —— you willl’ says O’Toole. “Only over my dead body, you four-eyed ink-slinger! I'll match you for the thirty!” Degraw took off the handcuffs and says, says he: “Now, stand over here by the corpse. Jarvis, you hand me that gun on the shelf yonder. I'Il shoot you myself.” Faith, I was mighty slow in reachin’ for the weapon, as you may well believe, sor, and, before I laid my hand on it, O’Toole leaped through the door like a bloomin’ rabbit and was gone wid the whole pack after him, yellin’ like fiends! All, that is, but the artist chap, and he says in great alarm: “Hide behind the bar, lad! You're as good as dead if ne doubles back in the dark to get you! It was your evidence that convicted him, and he'll take a chance to pay you back!” 1 laid myself down behind the bar, and there I stayed until they all returned. “We'll put the bloodhounds on his trail in the morning—if I ean finish with my hayin’,” says the sheriff. “Tt’s on my mind that he’ll drown hisself in the lake,” says the prince. ‘He'll never be able to survive the loss of O’Keefe. They were partners in crime for many years, and O’Keefe’s ghost’ will hant him until he. makes away with hisself—you can gamble on that.” Just then the bandmaster stands up rather unsteadily, and says he— “Vot iss the matter mit playin’ a dirge for dot dead man, alretty?” “That’s a splendid idea. O’Keefe was fond of music!” @ See, WELL, sor, the band, which was Wass) pretty well soused, as you might ==! say, played somethin’ slow and sad- like, and it affected their hearers so that some of them had to go outside to hide their feelin’s. But the prince spoiled it all by ordering drinks, and then they missed me. Degraw came behind the bar, and says he— ; “And what do you there?” he asks. ‘They say he’s apt to come back for me,” Adventure says I, “Sor, could I go“to “Shucks! That cheap Tete] have the sand to come five miles of me! I'd bore him as full of holes as a Swiss cheese!” says Degraw. ~ — With that I looks up, and there stands O'Toole, glaring down through the window, — The sheriff yelled, and everybody rushed outside. I stood up and grabbed the per ie as me eee into the room. Sor, was that scar ints the straight at his chest and faba Wat he carer turns a hair! I never fired a pistol before in my life, and I expected to see him drop at my feet. But instead he steps up and says: “You'd do better work with a brick! Gimme a drink, you poor boob!” I drops the gun qceltants him the bottle, and there he stood drinkin’ out of it when the gang rushes back. “Boys, I give up!” he sings out. “I’m through! I’m afraid of the dark out there, and the Willies are chasin’ me. O’Keefe’s spook, all pale and wavin’ blue flames, follows me about and calls me a four- flushin’ piker! String me up and end my misery!” * My word, sor, I was flab “O’Keefe’s spook!’ said the prince. “That man hasn’t been croaked long enough to have a spook! The human jack- rabbit never had soul enough X-ray of a spook that would show three feet away! For that matter, we’ve been prancin’ around here for two hours without overhauling the corpse. How do we know that he is dead, at all, at all?” “Oh, he’s croaked, all right!” says the artist chap. “Rigor mortis and alco- holic decomposition set in long ago. He smells like sour mash! He’s laid there under that fur cape without twitchin’ since ten o’clock, but let the murderer lay his hand on the dead body and make a test. That will prove it!” “Never! Never!’’ groaned the murderer, shrinkin’ back and takin’ a pull on the bottle. “Let this bartender do it!” “‘Nonsense!”’ says the prince. “There’s one sure test. Tickle the stif just under thefirst rib. If he moves, there’s life in him.” Well, sor, just’as one of them stepped to get an» — a a a ee ee ee eee ——— |