Adventure, February 1917 — page 138: what you’re looking at

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

136 camp clearing and then to the superinten- dent’s office. Bill Cooley gave Halea jobas a cutter, and Hale went to the commissary and spent all the money he had for a log- ger’s outfit of clothing—a broad-brimmed gray felt hat, clay-colored corduroys, blue flannel shirts, laced boots with. spikes in their soles. “You look iaeuer in them clo’ es,” Sally told him the next day. “But I reckon you ‘looked big enough without ’em, Charley. Big men hain’t so much punkin. Ye can buy beef ’most anywhars.’’ No man of the crew held his job better than Hale held his. Super Bill took a fancy to him, and promised him a fore- man’s place as soon as he had shown him- self competent—and Sally King was at the bottom of that. Hale was delighted. When he had a fore- man’s pay, he would ask Sally to marry him. He believed she would accept him. - She had shown him much greater favor _ than she had shown any of the other tim- berjacks, all of whom worshiped her from their respective distances. ' Had she not been the only young wo- man in the camp, it would have been the same. Sally was exceedingly pretty, and she had ways about her that made her charming in spite of her illiteracy; in short, Sally was a marrying woman. The unfortunate worshipers were a mixed lot — mountaineers, lowlanders, Yankees. But they were believers in the square deal and Hale suffered none at their hands. ee} THEN big Linderman McNabb a heard that the last chief of the Hales had not left the country after all, and he at once hied himself away for the logging-camp on Pistol Creek to run Hale off. He reached the camp late in the after- noon of a day early in July, and the first man he saw there was the man he wanted to see. Hale was sitting alone on the rough steps that led to the boarding-house porch. He had washed his hands and his face, and combed his brown hair; he was waiting for the supper call. McNabb wore a brown coat that hid the two revolvers on his belt fairly well. He drew up at a point half a rod from Hale, _ put his hands on his hips, and thrust his ~ brutish jaw forward. _. “You’re not gone,” he said briskly. Adventure — Hale looked slowly upward until his gaze rested on the cruel black eyes. “No, and I hain’t a-goin’ to go,” he said quietly. “Who’re you talkin’ to Lindérman. “You,” said Hale. “You might as well onderstand ’at you cain’t play bad here, Super Bill Cooley is a depity-shuriff o’ the law, and he shore keeps order whar he’s at. You’ve lit right in the middle of a different bunch from what you ever seed afore, Lin- derman. Every man here loves Bill Cooley ?” snapped big _ like a brother, and you shore cain’t play hoss with nobody here. Now git that, Lin- derman. Ram it in yore pipe and smokeit. Put it in yore pot and bile it. Stick it in yore mouth and eat it.” Sally King heard Hale’s voice and recog- nized a strange, new note in it, though she failed to catch that which he said. She went to the front doorway, and stood there looking curiously at McNabb. The Long Bald’s| bully had changed his demeanor com- pletely. Linderman McNabb could be bad in a cunning way as well as he could be openly bad. He raised his broad-brimmed Western hat to Sally, and spoke as courte- ously as he could. As many another young © man had done, he had lost his heart to Sally the moment he saw her. ‘“‘Where could I find the boss, Hale?” he asked, smiling a little. ‘I want a job here.” At that moment Cooley came walking up to the steps. McNabb asked for a job and got it. There was a shortage of room in the boarding-house, said Super Bill, but a vacant cabin stood some two hundred yards up the logging-track, and the com- missary kept blankets for sale. McNabb bought a pair of blankets, had his supper at the boarding-house with the others, and went to the cabin. The days went by, and Linderman Mc- Nabb deported himself so well that he be- came a favorite with many of the other timberjacks. He courted the friendship of Charley Hale unceasingly, and even Hale was almost deceived. Of all the camp, Sally King alone held to her first impressions of the man. The intuition of women is some- times a wonderful thing. ‘“‘Fle’s a snake,” she whispered to Hale one evening when they were sitting together on one end of the porch. ‘A copperhead ‘snake. Watch out for his bite, a-cause it’s a-goin’ to be bad when it comes. Charley, : Eomichbooks;com Sal