Adventure Trails, February 1929 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

Sexe think you do, you'll clear out of the coun- gs try just as fast as it’s humanly possible. _ To-night, due to the effect of the flash- =~ powder and your make-up and good 3 acting, they swallowed all that, but after they think it over a bit they'll realize you 4 sold them out. And they’re very fast and _ quite accurate with the cold steel. Id pe a= lear out quick, Jarnoff !” ES “T have my horses and supplies not far & =a off. I can take care of myself,” shrugged = Jarnoff, but the confidence had gone from = is his voice. “I can carry on without advice from you, thanks.” 3 “Very well. Only don’t let your trail cross mine again,” nodded Ted curtly. “I’m tying you up and gagging you to hold you here ten or fifteen minutes, until we can get safely away, before you start mak- ing any fuss. You'll find one of your oe guards trussed up just behind the hut; let = him go, too, after you get free.” He turned to Norah, touching her arm. “Ready?” he asked softly. “Ready,” she whispered, and together ‘they *hurried off through the gloom to | where their horses were waiting. “T hope, for Jarnoff’s sake, that Manuel, the man who introduced Jarnoff, doesn’t get free first,” said the girl a half hour or ‘so later, as they were riding quickly and _ quietly along a deserted moon-lit trail. “He was murderous whert he heard Jar- noff. A real fire-eater, Manuel.” “We'll probably never know the out- come of this night’s work,” said Ted thoughtfully. “I’m afraid my report to the chief will be pretty sketchy in spots— but satisfying, in the main points, at that. The chief, as a rule, isn’t much interested in details.” “Details—such as I?” “Er—exactly!” replied Ted. “The chief leaves the details for his men to settle.” “Oh!” said Nora de Arteaga thought- fully. = XIV AN ENDING—AND A BEGINNING HE way Ted’s eyes lit up the first time he saw Nora in real woman's clothes—some that were loaned her by _ Betty with mock sympathy. ADVENTURE TRAILS Betty, Scotty’s wife—told Betty as plainly as words that Ted’s days of single blessed- ness were numbered. Provided, of course, that he had anything to say about it. And from the happy sparkle in Nora’s eyes, when Ted came in sight, it seemed likely that what Ted might have to say would weigh heavily. “Gosh, but you’re pretty, Nora!” ex- claimed Ted. “You—you—” Somehow he couldn’t think of anything more to add to his first statement—at least, not with Betty looking on quizzically. “You poor, stuttering thing!” exclaimed “Can’t you be more original than that, Ted?” Ted grinned and turned dark red under his heavy tropic tan. “That’s all right, Betty; Nora and I un- derstand each other, don’t we?” Nora looked up at the tall, sunburned gringo, her blue eyes very serious. “T think we do,” she said very softly, and to this day Ted and Nora both con- tend that that was the only proposal and the only acceptance that passed between them. If so, it was certainly adequate, because it was only a little over a month later that they were married—the grizzled old chief himself performing the civil ceremony, which is, legally, the vital part of a Mexi- can marriage. After the ceremony was over the chief managed to ‘get Ted aside for a moment —and it was not the easiest thing in the world, for even the groom is a man of some importance in a Mexican marriage celebration. “I thought that perhaps you'd like to see this,” he remarked, drawing a wrin- kled, flimsy bit of paper from an inner pocket. “Came in a couple of weeks ago.” Upon the sheet, which Ted recognized in- stantly as a copy of a report from one of the chief’s under-cover men, was type- written the following: 55279-C3 This had no bearing on matter entrusted to me but might be of interest and perhaps of impor- tance. (ee) co Eboo