Adventure, August 3, 1919 — page 123: what you’re looking at

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

he said. “That is, I think I did, by grab! s i ie him, and it amazed him to think that he hadlostone. = “Much obliged, Howlin’,” he muttered. ‘“‘Where’d ye find it?” “Tt was that,” said Baskin, “that the sheriff picked up from under the commissary safe, which I took from him and run with. T seed the ad-dress afore he did, and I—I knowed you never had no business back there—and I thought—I thought you e “T see,” cut in Lonesome. “You thought it'd put me in bad about the safe-robbin’, and you done it toclearme. Well) it was a fool thing to do, for I never lost the letter there, I’m shore! But—but you——’” He broke off, flushed slightly and began to stir the fire with a boot-heel. Baskin took up the thread that he had dropped: “Brad had told mie jest afore he sent me to ye this mornin’, Lonesome, that you was might’ nigh shore to be the camp’s high- boy purty soon, and I was a-thinkin’ about that when I took the letter and cut the mustard for the timber. It’d ha’ sp’iled the job for ye, Lonesome, at least. I knowed, y’see, how much ye wanted to be a super. And, as for me,” smiling, his eyes twinkling, ‘‘I—well, it don’t matter about me. ’Cause I’m a-goin’ to live, anyhow, till I die! Now ain’t I?” He looked back to the fire. Lonesome turned his gaze hard upon the rugged profile of his pal. So this was the fellow whom he had been about to denounce as a black traitor to their friendship. Lonesome Bent- ley wished vaguely that he were another man in order that he might kick himself clean across Little Brother Mountain. — “You been mad at me, Lonesome,” suddenly said Howling Jim, without taking his eyes from the glowing coals. “It was partly that, too, what made me take the letter and run with it. I wisht I knowed what you been mad at me about, Lone- some.’ Bentley told him straightforwardly: “IT seed you a-holdin’ Nancy’s hand. There on the creek, at the big poplar. It flew all over me like powder a-burnin’; I’ve died a thousand times sence that one minute, Howlin’. I reckon I ain’t got any sense. J reckon ye must ha’ had some good reason for a-doin’ that, but I shore couldn’t see it thataway till now.” Howling Jim sat up straight, smiling. “I did have a good reason, Lonesome,” ae %. " Howling Jim's Pal Tll leave it to you. Y’see, I could easy tell that somethin’ had come between you and her, and I was a-beggin’ her to take ye back —and a-tellin’ her what a fine, good young man ye was and how much ye liked her and how happy she’d allus be with youl” “Was—that—it?” gasped Bentley. “God knows it was,” said Baskin. He went into his corduroy coat and came back with something wrapped neatly in a blue bandanna. Ever so carefully he took the bandanna from it with his big and bun- gling but wonderfully gentle hands and passed it over to his pal. Lonesome took it and held it up to the dancing firelight. It was an old-fashioned tintype picture of a bareheaded and barefooted mountain Iass, a smiling and pretty little mountain lass in calico. “My sweetheart,’ Howling Jim said. “This is the only real secret I’ve ever kept from you, Lonesome. I never talk about it.” “Where is she now?” “Under the snow.” After a minute of silence Baskin went on: “T ain’t never seed nobody else what could take her place, and I know I never will. -That’s why I go along a-singin’ and a-whoopin’ through life, jest to forgit, a-doin’ the best I can with the little that the Almighty put into my wo’thless cyarcass, for I’m mostly jest plain meat, I reckon. It wasn’t much o’ my business, I know, Lonesome, for me to go to Nancy and ax her to take ye back. But—well, I thought meboe—— “Tt’s all right,” said Lonesome. “I thank ye for that, Howlin’. A man never had a better pal ’an you, Howlin’. I shore beg yer pardon for a bein’ so low-down mean to ye! Here’s the little picture.” He gave Baskin the tintype and rose. _He would go straight back to Garrett Henry and tell him everything, though it surely meant jail for him. Baskin put the picture into his pocket, and he, too, went to his feet. Just then there came a most sur- prizing addition to the little drama there in the snowy wilderness. mae THOSE two were not the only men (o>! in that wild country who knew =<” woodcraft. An eavesdropper who had stationed himself on the cliff just above had lost his perilous footing, and he now came hurtling down with a resoundi thump between Lonesome Bentley an 9 ie al at cbooks.com