Adventure, August 3, 1919 — page 120: what you’re looking at

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

Creek. The crew had not gone to work in the woods that day. When at last the little locomotive came to a halt in the camp clearing, Garrett Henry and Bentley leaped to the snowy ground and went to meet Superintendent Bradshaw. “Find out anything more?” growled the officer. Bradshaw shook his head. “But the thief is still here, and the money, too. You’ve got a chance to show us how smart you are, all right!” Henry merely grunted. The trio walked on and entered the commissary, which was half filled with expectant timberjacks. An accommodating logger passed to the sheriff the peavy that had been used in breaking open the door. Henry looked it over, saw that it was only an ordinary implement of its kind and put it down. Then he and the superintendent and Bentley went back to the safe, where the officer asked questions soberly, nodded a great deal and made a superficial examination. Howling Jim Bas- kin had followed them; he idly dropped a friendly hand to Lonesome Bentley’s arm, and Bentley threw it off as if it were a thing of unspeakable contamination! “Somebody who knowed the combina- tion,”’ decided Henry. “Tt was not,’ firmly replied Bradshaw. He himself had vouched for the honesty of Billy Allison. ‘ The sheriff began to strike matches that he might better see into dark corners about the safe. Suddenly he bent lower and picked up a small, square object that was mostly white. As he straightened to bring it into better light—Henry’s eyes had never been so good as his courage—a muscular arm in corduroy shot over his shoulder and seized it, and, before the passing of another second, the man to whom that arm belonged was running like a race-horse for the door- way! It was Howling Jim, who had, by chance, been standing directly behind the officer. Henry snatched his revolver from its holster and called upon Baskin to halt. Half a dozen loggers stepped out of the path of a possible bullet, But Howling Jim didn’t stop; he drove through the door- way, turned sharply to his left and out of the sheriff’s range of vision and made for the near-by woods. Henry followed rapidly to the door-sill, and Lonesome Bentley was within a yard of Henry could fire, Bentley caught his right im backward. shoulder and pulled him “Not that!” led Lonesome, ashen- faced and defiant. “You don’t kill Jim Baskin as easy as that!’ When Henry recovered himself, Baskin was in the laurels and his escape assured. The ofhcer now turned his attention to Bentley, and there was a queer smile about “Pals, eh?” “Mighty good pals—” began Lonesome, remembering Nancy Kirkland and breaking off short. For the fractional part of a minute he looked away at nothing, and, when he again turned his eyes toward the Jonesville sheriff, he found himself staring straight into the muzzle of a Colt .45. “Tt’s my duty to arrest you,” quietly said Garrett Henry, “as a pardner in this robbery.” Lonesome Bentley lived a long time in the moment that followed this announcement. In his mind’s eye he saw himself and Nancy —when he had asked her—when she had agreed to marry him. He saw himself and Nancy when they had quarreled over—he didn’t remember what. And he saw Howl- ing Jim, his pal, holding the girl’s hand while she smiled her best smile into his rugged face. All of it—his bright hopes of a superintendency, the robbery, the accusa- tion and all the rest of it—somehow tangled him, muddled him, dazed him. It seemed unreal, likea baddream. .. . The sheriff was speaking again— “T’ll have to search you, Bentley.” ee gave no sign nit had heard. Henry b to go thro e pockets of his aeons Nancy Kirkland walked smilingly into the commissary and turned toward Billy Allison, who now stood in his place behind the counter. “T want some sug——”’ : That was as far as she ever got with it, for at that instant she caught sight of the sheriff and Lonesome Bentley. She j,went immediately toward them. a “What—what’s that for?” she demanded jn a Small, thin voice. ' —— ss : oo .)