Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

epee Adventure significantly. “I’m going to find a sunny spot and dry my clothes. No objection, I suppose?” He clambered up the bank and made his way to the spot whence he had. dived after her, bent on retrieving his boots and spurs. Her eyes followed him interestedly. He ignored her and set about extricating a spur rowel from the fabric of the bright blue cloak. Her voice floated up to him then, demanding: ‘‘What in the world are you up to now? Not going to swipe my clothes, are you?”’ “T’d have the right,” he called back over his shoulder, “‘if I happened to need a make- shift dressing-gown. As it is, however, I am trying to get my spur out of the thing.” “You great big brute!”’ she wailed at him, and here she came running along the bank. “You just dare to tear my cloakeand I'll hound you out of the country for it! I drove forty miles to get it and this is the . first time I ever wore it. Stupid!” And she jerked both the abe and the ~ spur from him. The lining was silken, of a deep, rich, golden hue. And already it was torn, al- though but the tiniest bit in the world, by one of the sharp spikes. Her temper, however, ever ready it seemed, flared out again; the crinkling merriment went from her eyes, leaving no trace; the color warmed in her cheeks as she cried: ~“VYouw’re just like all the rest of your breed, big and awkward, crowding in where “you don’t belong, messing up the face of the earth, spoiling things right and left. I wonder if the good Lord himself knows what he made men for, anyway!” The. offeriding spur, detached by her quick fingers, described a bright arc in the late sunlight, flew. far out, dipped in a little leaping spurt of spray and went down quietly in the lake. “Go jump in and get that, if you are so keen on saving things,” she mocked him. “There’s only about fifteen feet of water to dig through.” ~ “Vou little devil!” he said without wait- ing or wanting time to pick and choose his word. For the spur with its companion had cost him twenty dollars down on the Mexican border ten days ago and he had set much store by it. “Little devil, am I?” she retorted readily. ~“You’ll know it if you don’t keep on your side of the ‘oad. Look at that tear! Just look at it!’’ She had stepped quite close to him, hold- ing out the cloak, her eyes lifted defiantly to his. He put out a sudden hand and laid it on her wet shoulder. She opened her eyes widely again at the new look in his. But even so her regard was utterly fearless. “Young lady,’ he said sternly, “so help me God I’ve got the biggest notion in the world to take you across my knee and give you the spanking of your life. If I did crowd in where I don’t belong, as you so sweetly put it, it was at least to do you a kindness. Another time I’d know better; I’d sooner do a favor for a wildcat.” “Take your dirty paws: off me,’ cried, wrenching away from him. “And—spank me, would you?” The fire leaped higher in her eyes, the’ red in her cheeks gave place to an angrier white. “If you ever so much as dared touch me again cs She broke off, panting. Packard laughed at her. “You’d try to scratch me, I suppose,” he jeered, “and then, after the fashion of your own sweet sex, when you don’t have the strength to put a thing across, you’d most likely cry!”’ “T’d blow your ugly head off your shoul- ders with a _ shotgun,” she concluded briefly. And despite the extravagance of the words it was borne in upon Packard’s understanding that she meant just exactly what she said. He was getting colder all the time and knew that in a moment his teeth would chatter. So a second time he turned his back on-her, gathered up his horse’s reins and moved away, seeking a spot in the woods where he could get dry and sun his clothes. And since Packard rage comes swiftly and more often than not goes the same way, within five minutes over a com- forting cigaret he was grinning widely, see- ing in a flash all of the humor of the situa- tion which had successfully concealed itself from him until now. “And I don’t’ blame her so much, after all,” he chuckled. “Taking a nice lonely dive, to have a fool of a man grab her all of a sudden when she was enjoying herself half-a-dozen feet under water. It’s enough to stir up a good healthy temper. Which, she -by the Lord, she has!” CO - - ae —_ ee ‘ SA ee SY SeS Ss FR MIG DOOKS Pe Ee en San