Adventure, July 1, 1928 — page 9: what you’re looking at

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

trip to that wild new oil town, Verona, with prospects of excitement?” “Fine,” Daly replied, without outward interest. Despite himself, he was custom- arily aloof and indifferent. ““What’s the idea?” “Got a letter from dad. He’s in the East and can’t get away. He backed an old friend of his, named Henry Ivers, as a silent partner in an oil machinery business down there. They got into acreage some way, and are getting their eye teeth rooked out of them by some crook. Ivers don’t know what to do, and dad wants me to go down and look over the land and see what can be done. Henry is a business man, not a rough and tumble bozo. Dad knew you were here and thought you might be of help. What say?” “All right with me,” nodded Daly, for all the world as if the prospect were as thoroughly appealmg to him as it was to the lean Texan whose eyes were shining with enthusiasm. “Where is this Verona?” “West of Laredo. They used to call it Park Forks.” Ghosts of the past rose, to drop a film over Daly’s eyes and tighten his mouth. His face was a mask now. He had gambled along the Rio Grande. “About fifteen miles or so north of the river, opposite a little Mexican village called Santa Verona, isn’t it?” he asked quietly. Tex, who knew Daly as no one else in the world did, studied him silently. He started to say something, and stopped abruptly. “You can take a couple or three days off, can’t you? I mean you aren’t liable to get urgent orders from Washington—” Daly shook his head. For more than three years he had been a special Govern- ment agent. His knowledge of the under- world had made him a valuable one, too. He had just finished a job here on the Border. “Well, then,” grinned Tex, “I vote we call up Henry Ivers right now and get started this afternoon, if it’s all right with the captain. He said the trip in general was O.K, providing we didn’t use our official position to further our comicloooks.com