Adventure Magazine Cover — page 106: what you’re looking at

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

~ * mad’ wailed To, ay 96 - Adventure I manages to angle under the sidewalk and give him the shells. “Mighty, who’d bury you if you got killed?” I asks. - He fills his gun thoughtful-like. “Never gave it a thought, Ike. reckon.” “Friends in life may renege in death.” “You sure touches me deep-like, Ike.” “Sure. Maybe they just dig a hole, throw you in and say, ‘Here goes nothing,’ or they might put you in a pauper’s grave.” ' “What is a pauper, Ike?” - I made a guess and says— ‘“‘A retired sheepherder.”’ Mighty picks some splinters out of his whiskers and send a few shots at the shop door. “That’s awful, Ike. Ain’t there no way to dodge it?” “In my hand I has the antidote. Sign on the dotted line. You pay us five dollars a month and we guarantee five hundred when you die.” -“When—I—die? Shucks, I ain’t going to die, and besides that money don’t, cheer me none if I do. You better go over“and insure that danged judge and blacksmith, Ike. fs: “Why don’t you do it? Kill ’em off and collect the thousand.” _ Mighty stares at me and nods. “Vl do it. Can you changea twenty? Now, keep down when you get out, ’cause I want a witness left to prove it was all legal. Sabe?” I manages to get behind the shop, where I tells Dirty he’d be safe, but he contends that he’s in better shape to shoot where he is. I peers around at the street but she don’t look safe. I’ve got to get across; so I signs my name to an application, pins a five-dollar bill to same, tightens my belt and hit that street at a mile-a-minute clip. Uh-huh, I got across. - A bullet cut the sack of tobacco out of my hip pocket and another turned my hat around on my head, but I’d ’a’ got across in fine shape if I hadn’t been running regardless and forgot the hitchrack. Friends, I I MUST ’a’ been looking back when z @ | hit that rail. I feels a awful pain in my chest and my feet begins to whirl over my head. I reckon I went over twice before I fell loose, and then I walked right into a loose buggy-wheel, which almost spoiled all ‘ the future I ever looked forward to. ‘ A loose wheel is peculiar. It never does things according to rule and has a awful way of acting when you step into it. Me and that wheel kept company for quite a while. At times it seemed to want to travel and then again it wanted to lay down on me. It ends up by running across my neck and pulling one of ~ _ my boots off at the same time. As a protection to the coming generation I hung the darn thing over a post, and it fell down -a stuck shell... before I got away, and landed on my feet. “ag a Then I got mad, kicked it in the hub with my right knee-cap and went away with the feeling that five dollars per month was very little to pay for a decent burial. — -I crawled up to the back door of Buck’s place, knocked and fell flat to let the bullets pass unhampered. “This is Ike Harper!” I yells. “Come in,” says Tombstone. ‘Crawl under the pool table with the rest of us and let Wick waste his lead.” Tombstone and Half-Mile are on the floor, but Ornery is laying on top of a pile of boxes near the roof, where he can shoot into the tops of Wick’s windows. Every little while a bullet seeps in and travels around a while. ~* “Who you gunning for, Ike?” asks Tomb- stone. “Business. Who’s going to bury you hombres when you die?” Ornery almost falls off his perch. ‘When we die?”’ asks Half-Mile, fussing with “Seems to me you ’re taking a lot for granted. Who says we’re going to die?” “Wick Smith predicts it.” “Wick Smith!” yelps Ornery, sitting up. “That penurious ‘ Crash! The pile of boxes buckles in the middle and Ornery hits the floor on his back. Then he gets up and walks circles like a tired pup, and then sets down on the floor. “What seemed to mceast asks Tombstone. Ornery feels of the top of his head and begins singing soft and low: “Beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly; beat the dead march as, you bear me along. Take me-e-e-e-e out to the prairie-e-e-e-e ‘and lay the sod o’er me-e-e-e-e, for I’m a PO-0-0-0-0-0-I cowboy and I know I’ve done wr-r-r-r-r-r-ong.”” “You sure did, > nods Half-Mile, “when you: raised up.” “Knocked senseless,” says Tombstone. “No, sir,” objects Half-Mile. ‘He was born thataway. He just couldn’t stand the rattle * when the bullet hit his head.” ‘“‘A inch higher and the city would have had to bury him,” says I. “We're all thataway, I reckon,” grins Tomb- stone. “Which is the reason I am here,” says I. “T am prepared to guarantee you five hundred dollars when you die, gents, and it only costs you the measly sum of five dollars per each. Prepare for death.” “Hurrah for ! Who’s afraid of fire?” mumbles Ornery. “Not me,” says Tombstone. ‘A five in the hand is worth a million when I’m dead. Some- body’d take that five hundred and drink it up, and I’d ‘be lucky to get planted in a hole. GomiGchdooks th. Pak ae, RANE Ln kauny mn Pa, | eae 1