Adventure, August 3, 1919 — page 122: what you’re looking at

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

—_ 112 Adventure him and find out. Also, he would bring the little matter of Howling Jim’s love-making to Nancy to a show-down. Fifteen minutes more and he had come upon the footprints for which he had been searching. They led him up a bank of the creek for a mile and then turned to the left and were lest on bare ground under a great patch of hemlocks that stood so thickly that their interlaced branches had caught nearly all the snow that had fallen on them. Howling Jim had brought into effect a woodsman’s trick here in order to halt pos- sible pursuit, and Lonesome suspected it at once. Lonesome began to look for the answer, and soon his gaze rested upon a spot at which the bare ground ran within half a dozen yards of Big Brother Creek. Bentley nodded understanding. Just as Baskin had done, he backed off, ran hard and leaped over the few yards of snowy ground, landing somewhere near the middle of the shallow stream. He walked a mile up the stony little creek before he found Howling Jim’s footprints leading out of it. The trail now took him high on the side of Little Brother Mountain and then across an outstanding spur and into a deep cove, and he was not more than half-way down the side of this cove when darkness closed in upon him. It was im- possible, of course, for him to follow the string of footprints farther before daylight came again. Lonesome Bentley halted. He was chagrined but by no means beaten. He was cold now. His wet feet seemed frozen, and he stamped them on the ground to help the circulation in them. It was still, very still, and Lonesome stood and listened. A few minutes later he heard faintly, coming from somewhere in the bottom of the dark cove below him, a snatch of the foolish old song that Howling Jim was so fond of singing in a sort of abandon— “T’m a-goin’ to live, anyhow, till I die!” Bentley stole softly onward, downward, heading for a tiny point of flame that had suddenly come to life m the woods below. ° Howling Jim Baskin sat before a brush- wood fire that he had just made at the base of an overhanging cliff. The fire made dancing and grotesque shadows there in the wild forest. Baskin held his wet feet in his wet boots near the flames. The muffled Pl a 4 ry an ee q a peek an 2 un firelight, walked slowly up and — looking straight into the upturned and smiling face of his pal. He had suffered an almost overpowering wave of sudden, insensate It was his intention to de- nounce Howling Jim as a black traitor to all friendship. But im a second’s time there flashed on the palimpsest of his brain scenes from the good old days that he and Baskin had spent together, scenes that pictured little kindnesses, confidences, almost tender- nesses. So, when Lonesome finally spoke, he said only this— . “My feet’s about froze, Howlin’.” “Shore,” grinned Baskin. “Mine was too, by grab! Set down and warm ’em. Have any trouble a-trackin’ me, Lone- some?” His voice was full of gladness, “Not much,” Bentley answered. “He went on, “Do ye reckon Garrett Henry can foller us, Howlin’?” “Him? Humph! No, by grab! He ain’t smart enough for that, nor used to the woods. But—but they didn’t have nothin’ agin you, Lonesome!” Bentley shrugged his shoulders. ‘No, nothin’—only-they arrested me as a pardner in the rob’ry; that’s all. And the s’arched me and took my money; that’s all. But I got it back. Jail? Not for me, Howlin’, ef anybody happens to name it to ye!” He dragged up a flat stone, turned the dry side up, sat down on it and put his feet over the fire. He was at the point of aski Howling Jim what it was that he snatched from Sheriff Henry’s hand, when Baskin said slowly: “Leather burns quick when it’s wet, Lonesome; don’t stick *em too clost. By the way, Lonesome, I got somethin’ here what belongs to you.” Irom an inside coat pocket he drew an opened and uns and somewhat crumpled letter that had Bentley's name in a thin, feminine scrawl on the envelope and this he passed into the hands of er never read it, 0’ course,” he said, Bentley took the missive and pocketed it almost without looking at it. He had been * et ss <Comicbooks.com