Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

Man to Man “Goin’ to eat me alive?” demanded Barbee lightly. “Or roast me first?”’ “For two cents,” said Blenham slowly, “T’d forget you’re just a kid an’ slap your face!”’ Barbee swept one of the fifty-cent-pieces from the table and tossed it to the foreman. “Vou can keep the change out’n that,” he said contemptuously. It was nothing new in the experience of Blenham, could “be nothing unforeseen for | any ranch foreman, toyhave his authority called into question, to have a rebellious ‘spirit defy him. If he sought to remain master, the foreman’s answer must be always the same —and promptly given. ° “Royce,” said Blenham, his ~ hesitation passed, ‘‘you’re fired. Barbee, I’ll take you on right now.” Few - worded was Blenham, a trick learned from his master. Across the room Bill Royce had floundered at last to his feet, crying out mightily: “Hi! None o’ that, Blenham. It’s my fight, yours an’ mine, with Barbee jus’ buttin’ in where he ain’t asked. If you want trouble, take a man your size, full- grown. Blind as I am*-and you know the how an’ the why of it—I’m ready for you. Yes, ready an’ anxious.” Here was diversion and the men in the bunk-house, drawing back against the walls, taking their chairs with them that ‘there might be room for whatever went forward, gave their interest unstintedly; so completely that they did not hear Steve Packard singing far out in the night as he rode slowly toward the ranch-house. ““An’ I’d rather hear a coyote howl Than be the King of Rome! An’ when day comes—if day does come— By cripes, I’m goin’ home! Back home! Hear me comin’, boys? Yeee! Isaidit. Comin’ home!” But in very brief time Steve Packard’s loitering pace was exchanged for red-hot haste as the sounds winging outward from the bunk-house met him, stilled his singing and informed him that men were battling in a fury which must have something of sheer bloodthirst in it. He raced to the closed door, swung down from the saddle and threw the door open. He saw Bill Royce being held by two men, fighting at them while he feviled a man whom Steve guessed to be Blenham; he saw Blenham and a curly-haired, blue- 15 eyed boy struggling up and down, striking the savage blows of rage. He came just in time to see Blenham drive a big, brutal fist into the boy’s face and to mark how Barbee fell heavily and for a little lay still. The moment was charged with various emotions as though with contending elec- trical currents. Bill Royce, championed by a man he had never so much as seen, had given fully of his gratitude and — they meant the same thing to Bill Royce—of his love; “Yellow” Barbee. > Barbee, previsioning defeat at Blen- ham’s hard hand, suffering in his youthful pride, had given birth, deep within him, to an undying hatred. And Blenham, for his own reasons and after his own fashion, was bursting with rage. “Get up, Barbee,” he yelled. an’, so help me .. “Tm. goin’ to kill you, Blenham,”’ said Barbee faintly, lifting himself a little, his blue eyes swimming. with a knife or with a gun or anyway, now or tomorrow or some time, I’m goin’ to kill ou.’ ‘They all heard you,’ Blenham spat out furiously. ‘‘You’re a fool, Barbee. Goin’ to get up? Ever goin’ to get up?” “Turn me loose, boys,” muttered Bill Royce. “I’ve waited long enough; I’ve stood enough. I been like a ol’ woman. Jus’ let me an’ Blenhamn finish this.” They had, none of them, so much as noted Steve Packard’s entrance. Now, however, he forced them to take stock of him. “Bill Royce,” he said your shirt on. Blenham, you talk with me.’ “You?” jeered Blenham. the are you?” “I’m the man on the job right now,” answered Packard crisply. “And ‘from now on, I’m running the Ranch Number Ten, if you want to know. If you wanteto know anything else, why then you don’t happen to be foreman any longer. You’re fired! As for foreman under me—my old pardner, Bill Royce, blind or not blind, has his old job back.”’ “Get up sharply, “keep “Vou? Who ILL ROYCE stared, dropped his jaw, gasped. “You ain’t—you ain’t Stevie come back?”’ he whispered. ‘You ain’t Stevie!” ait im after tonight he’d go to hell for “With my hands or Barbee, you do the same. » av an 4.44/44 an a} s ' 2 vy os ai AN s h Pi AMD As