Adventure, December 3, 1920 — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

The Law Comes to Singing River back at the motionless car which he was fast leaving behind. The hoofbeats rang against the firm surface, for the horses now were following an ancient buffalo-trail, pounded hard for hundreds of years in the dim past by herds of bison traveling in single file across the plains. Night had fallen almost on the heels of the storm. the men in the marooned car could get out of the gumbo and make the long détour around the flats. Lang held his horses at a stiff pace into the west. He untied the yellow slicker behind and slipped it on. Ht covered the rifle-butt and saddle-horn in front and reached well over the cantle of the saddle in back. With the wind and rain in his face he rode on through the storm-swept night. Vill ‘= DAWN disclosed to Lang’s eyes a new er panorama of indescribable beauty. He ——1 had covered a great distance during the night, left the wide expanse of gumbo far be- hind, crossed a sea of scented sage and bunch- grass, and now he was in a country of rolling hills and streams fringed with cottonwoods; hills that steadily became steeper with sharp tumbled ridges, and here and there a growth of alder and pine. He was in the foot-hills of the Rockies. He kept as much as possible to the meadows and the grassy sides of the slopes, avoiding the open, muddy stretches of trail where the tracks of his horses might show too plainly. The rain had ceased, and finally when the sun was up he turned aside from his course, topped a ridge and dropped down into a narrow canon screened from view by a thicket of scrub pines and bushes. Here he unsaddled the horse he had ridden and removed the packs from the other animal. From one of the pack-sacks he secured a double set of hobbles which he had _ thoughtfully included with his provisions; and he hobbled the horses. The animals were tired; he knew they would feed a while on the rich grass on the cahion’s sides and then lie down to rest. Lang himself could have pushed on, for he possessed too great a measure of youthful vitality to miss a night’s sleep. But he had to watch out, for his horses. And his eyes were smarting and sore from the night’s straining vigil in the wind and pelting rain. From the folds of the blanket he took a small granite-wear coffee-pot in which a cup was nested together with some wooden-handled knives and forks and spoons. ‘Then came the diminutive frying-pan or skillet, ground coffee, a slab of bacon, and hard, dry biscuits. ‘ He found a pine-stump and cleaved to the ~ It would be hours and hours before. T5 center of it with his ax. Here the wood cut very hard for it was rich with pitch. He cut a number of thick chips of this pitch-soaked” wood, lit them with a match and ‘almost in- stantly had a hot little fire. The coffee-pot, half-filled with water from the little stream in the bottom of the gulch and generously enriched with the steel-cut berries, he propped against the side of the fire. Then he covered the inside of the frying-pan with thick strips of bacon and held it over the flames. When the bacon was fried to a juicy crisp and the coffee was done he covered the coals with earth and ate a hearty breakfast. When he had finished eating he spread the piece of tarpaulin on the soft grass and ar- ranged the mackinaw for a pillow. He spread the saddle-blankets in the sun todry. Then he removed his riding-boots, placed his revolver and rifle handy, rolled a cigaret and lay down, enjoying his smoke and the sweet smell of the pines after the rain. Lang did not fear that his pursuers would catch up with him before he again took the trail, even if they surmised that he had taken to the hills. The imprints of his horses’ hoofs had been washed away by the rain. There were scores of places where he might hit for the mountains; indeed, he had entered the hills at random. The men in the car who had followed hin— if they really had been following him, as ap- pearances certainly seemed to bear out—per- haps were not sure that he was the man they were looking for. Another day and he would be safe in the hidden recesses of the mountains. He laughed joyously, and dangerously, as he finished his smoke and dozed. Lang could not know that keen eyes had watched the little drama on the flats from the rim of the coulée by Sixty-Mile Spring; nor that when the occupants of the little car finally had gotten it out of the gumbo and started on a wide détour to the south a single rider had set out with cunning instinct upon his trail. He slept. The horses rolled, drank, grazed upon the rich native grasses to which they were accustomed, and then rested. The sun swung across the high skies and dropped with a splash of crimson behind the western peaks before Lang, rested and re- freshed, with hunger again appeased, resumed the trail. And this night as he climbed steadily up a narrow mountain path beside a swift-rushi stream he had the advantage of the light of the moon and the stars. Several times when he thought he heard an unusual noise on the trail behind him he halted and waited, listening. But always he pushed on, higher, higher and higher. The casual growth and scrub timber gave way to towering sentinels of fir and pine and co IOOLKS (C@