Adventure Magazine, March 1916 — page 112: what you’re looking at

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

ee Ws Tee west ap Eee a a 4 iy 5 5% IIo that seemed lost on the cow-hand. ‘Got them yearlings up?” “Then brand ’em. You ain’t helpin’ things any, talkin’ about it. SS ene s Mis- teh Barton?” “Tn the house.” Sandy went toward the main house, Pete following, nosing at his shoulder. “Stan’ there, hawss,’’ admonished Sandy, dropping the reins over the pony’s neck in the shade of an alamo-tree. ‘‘I wish some of them punchers had yore brains. Not one of *em knows a jack-rabbit track from a wood- chuck’s, an’ they’ve rode circus oveh any trail they was.”’ He paused before the front veranda, Stet- son in hand. A window was open and the sound of a woman’s sobs were plainly audi- ble. A look of distress came into Sandy’s face and he scratched at his tawny crop of hair in perplexity. Then he set his lean jaw, bringing out the muscle-bosses underneath the temples, and entered the house. Barbara Redding was kneeling on the floor, her head buried in the lap of a ma- tronly negress who patted her hair, repeat- ing over and over the same sentence. “‘Theah now, honey, it’ll all come right, pray de Lawd! Yes indeedy, honey lamb.” Superintendent Barton, gray-haired, his face overlined with worry, was pacing up and down the room, a little teddy-bear doll swinging aimlessly in his right hand. His eyes lighted as he saw Sandy at the door. ‘“‘Ah, Bourke,” he said, “T thought they’d never find you.” Barbara Redding raised her tear-stained face from the colored woman’s knees. “Sandy!” she cried. ‘‘You’ll find him, Sandy? My baby—my baby!” ‘Shore we'll find him,” assured Sandy. “Don’t you take on so, Miss Bahba’a, How’d it all happen, Misteh Barton?” “Tt was all my fault,” declared Barbara Redding. “I’d put baby on the veranda, out of the sun. He was sleepy, but he wanted his teddy-bear.’”’ Her eyes over- flowed as she noted the plaything that her harassed father still unconsciously held. “T - went in to get it—”’ she struggled to choke down her sobs—“and mammy was asking me about some of his little ae she was going to wash.” “Theah now, honey, theah now, li] 3 Adventure lamb,” said the negress, as Barbara broke down again. “You jest git a good grip on yo’self, Miss Bahba’a,” said Sandy. ‘‘We’ll find him.” “Yes, Barbara,” said her father, ‘‘be brave.” “There’s nothing more to tell,” his daugh- ter answered him. “I’m —trying to be brave. When I went out again—in about fifteen minutes—he was gone from his crib. I called father-——’” “‘That’s all there is to it, I think, Sandy,” said Barton. ‘I ran round the house and there was no one in sight. The men were over at the corral and they rode off to look for sign while Mormon was after you. I was going to send them out on a circuit when you came up.” | ““M-mh,” said Sandy. ‘That won’t do much good, to have them whooping all over the country as if they was on a coyote drive. They’s only one way anybody could have come up an’ got away without bein’ seen, an’ that’s through Salt Cafion an’ by the barns. Got any idea: who did it?” “No, I can’t imagine.” “T can,” said Sandy. “Remember the nester you ran off the creek -bottomland count of his having fresh beef that he didn’t own an’ couldn’t have paid fo’? I found the hide with the brand cut out of it. You let him go, ’count of his having a sick wife?” “Hammond? Yes.” “He and his sick wife rode thirty miles into Rubio the nex’ day without seemin’ to huht her none,” said Sandy grimly. *“They’re in with a tough crowd now, chum- min’ with the Mexicans in Spanishtown. An’ they’s been a heap of talk about gettin’ even with the Curly Q. I didn’t pay much attention to what I heard in Rubio. I’ve heard talk before. But I didn’t figgeh on it breakin’ this way.” Sandy’s face was set and his gray eyes hard and glittering. “My baby!’ moaned Barbara. “He'll die. They’ll starve him.” “They ain’t goin’ to huht him any,” said Sandy. “They’ll bescared to, knowin’ they’d have the whole State of Texas after ’em if they huht a hair of his li’l] head. I know that brand of skunks. They’ll want a ran- som—that’s their game, but they won’t huht the baby.” “T’ll pay anything they ask,” said Bar- ton distractedly, ‘anything. I’ve sent Sam COmicelsrool KS