Adventure Magazine Cover — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

we othe Sia fast phen The Eselales that she was safe seemed to overwhelm her at first, and she showed no desire to talk; nor was Uncle Dick in a loquacious mood. He was much perturbed over Joe Peace. It seemed to be the working of an ironically cruel fate that, just as the old mountain man should effect the release of one of his young friends, another should become the outlaws’ prey. And what new discovery did Peace’s warning against Keene indicate? His fruitless cogitations were broken by Miss Isobel’s frank admission. “Now I will talk. It’s about the gold. z -“S’pose we pass it over,” gently suggest- ed Uncle Dick. “Let’s talk about pleasant things.” “No. I must tell it before my memory slips away from me again,” she persisted. “That will never happen. You can’t ever be shocked any worse than you have been tonight. You’ve stood the last and hardest test mighty well.” “Then it will always be in my mind. Perhaps if I tell what little I know it will be easier for me.” Uncle Dick decided this was sound logic and nodded for her to begin, so she drew the blanket closer about her shoulders, snuggled up to him. Gm “MY FATHER left the East for Cali- 4 fornia in 1855, taking me with him. My mother had died when I was an shee and there was nothing to keep him back East. ‘His brother, who had gone to the coast two years earlier, wrote and urged him to come and make a fortune. Father seemed to have no ambitions, prob- ably because of the loss of my mother, but the thought of winning a fortune for me decided him to make the trip. I was eleven years old at the time. We went by the way of the isthmus. I was placed in a mission school selected by my uncle, and kept there until my father died, when I was sixteen. “It was then that my uncle became my guardian. He placed me with a family * in Sacramento where I lived happily for two years, while he worked in the mines. Sometimes he would have considerable gold; then again we would be very poor. _ He always paid my way, however. After the two years I was shifted about quite frequently until, a year ago, he suddenty. | decided to return to the States. — ~ ee . always laughing. wild, desolate spot. - i ¥ io = “We came to Santa Fé with a wagon- train, but instead of pushing on we re- mained there. at heart and was always good to me, but he could not endure the thought of re- © turning East as poor as when he left. It became a mania with him to get gold - enough to finish his days in decent comfort | and leave me enough to live on. He tried gambling, hoping to make a fortune overnight. I home one morning flushed with success. He had won twenty thousand dollars and we were to start at once for the States, but fate was against us. We had to wait a bit and he went back and lost all his money. After that he seemed to lose his lust for gambling and would sit for hours, silent and miserable. “Then happened the incidents which were never clear to me until I sat on my horse and saw him helping to rob a stage- — coach. It began with his acquaintance | with a man he called Charlie, a man his own age with a whimsical face which was I suspected nothing when he told me we were to go East under the protection of a large band of traders. “We traveled through Raton Pass, go- ing through your gate at night. I rode a horse and was muffled in a blanket, as — my uncle did not want any one to know I was a woman. ‘There were three of us, he and the man called Charlie and my- self.” “You were the three that wouldn’t come in and eat,” broke in Uncle Dick. “Tt was about three weeks ago.”’ She nodded and resumed: “Nothing out of the ordinary happened until we stopped at a river, Le Purgatoire. I was surprized that my uncle and Charlie should decide« to remain there until the other traders joined them, for it was a Charlie pretended to discover the opening under the rocks. I know now that it must have been used by the outlaws many times. We had brought three pack-animals loaded with provisions and ammunition, and we lived comfortably while waiting for the supposed traders to join us. They came in, two or three at a time, and seth Charlie or uncle always hastened to meet them, probably to explain the deception being Sats upen me. ag? * - ISS th o ip te en STOIC DGOKe I soon suspected my uncle was in bad company. He was not bad — remember when he came Se a . ‘ - 5 a ‘i tee " 4 ’ v? ¥ 4 wy inl Preah i ve! “ff ¥ a RRS i be aR le wre: ayy s VA iF \ vat dd ie ty oa Po - & Ae ss eal ‘ea 2g Sa com