Adventure Magazine Cover, February 3, 1921 — page 139: what you’re looking at

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

~ had wrapped in the undershirt. The Heart of the Range And now the saddle-bags were on top of the cantenas. He glanced at Swing’s war-bags. They had not been moved. He wondered if Jack Harpe and the Starlight’s owner were still in their rooms. He listened intently. Hear- ing no sound, he went out into the hall and knocked gently on Jack Harpe’s door and called him softly by name. Getting no re- -ply, he lifted: the latch and walked in. There were Jack Harpe’s saddle-bags, can- tenas and rifle in a corner. A coat lay on the tumbled blankets of the cot. Other- wise the room was empty. Racey went out, being careful to close the door tightly, and went to the room of the Starlight’s owner. This room too was empty. Racey returned to his own room, tossed his cantenas and saddle-bags on the cot and began feverishly to paw through their contents. Nothing had been subtracted from or added to the heterogeneous collection of articles in the cantenas. The contents of the off-side saddle-bags were in their familiar disorder. There was nothing in or about the off-side saddle-bags to arouse suspicion. Not a thing. He unbuckled the flap of the near-side saddle-bag and flipped it back. Somebody had been at this saddle-bag. He was sure of it. His extra shirt, instead of being wadded into the fore-end of the saddle-bag on top of a pair of socks, had been stuffed into the hind-end on top of a pair of under- drawers. Which underdrawers should by rights have been at the bottom of the leather hold-all. But there was something else at the bot- tom of the saddle-bag. It was something long and hard and wrapped in. the button- less undershirt despised and rejected by Swing. Racey unrolled the undershirt. His eyes stared in genuine horror at what the unroll- ing revealed. It was the commonest of butcher-knives that some one’s busy hand But what was not nearly\so common was that the broad thin blade was stained with blood. From point to haft the steel was as red as if it had been dipped in a pail of paint. In- deed, being dry, it looked not unlike paint. But Racey knew that it was not paint. _ “Tt was dry before it was wrapped in that undershirt,” he said to himself, testing the blood on the blade with a_ speculative 133 finger-nail. “There ain’t a mar on the under-shirt. Here it is again—the earmark of a crime, an’ no crime—yet. This is gettin’ monotonous.”’ He laid down the knife, settled his hat and methodically searched Swmg Tunstall’s war-bags. It turned out a needless precau- tion. He had felt that it would be. But he could not afford to take any risks. Hav- ing found nothing in Swing’s war-bags save his friend’s personal belongings, Racey slid the knife up his sleeve and went down-stairs to breakfast. On the way he stopped a mo- ment at a fortuitous knot-hole in the board wall. When he passed on the knife was no longer with him. _ Jack Harpe was still eating when Racey eased himself into the chair at Swing’s right hand. Jack Harpe nodded to Racey and went serenely on with his meal. Racey seized knife and fork, squared his elbows and began to saw at his steak. And as he chewed and swallowed and sloshed the coffee round in his cup in order to get the full ben- efit of the sugar he wondered whether it was Jack Harpe or Bull to whom he was in- debted for the butcher-knife. It was one of the two, he thought. Who else could it be? He believed it would be wise to spend most of his spare time in his room. At least until he knew the inwardness of the butcher-knife incident. It was possible that the man who had secreted the knife would return. Racey might well be in line for other even more delicate attentions. | we BEFORE going up to his room,’ Racey went to the corral. He had left his saddle-blanket out all night,’ he mentioned to Swing in the hearing of Jack Harpe. He was gone five minutes. When he returned, strangely enough minus the saddle-blanket, he was in time to see Piney Jackson dart round the corner of the blacksmith shop, cup his hand at his mouth | and raise a stentorian bellow for Jake Rule. | Piney did not wait to see whether the sheriff replied to his call. Instead he beck-. oned violently to the handful of men grouped on the sidewalk in front of the | hotel. “C’mon over!” he bawled. I found there this mornin’.”’ Jack Harpeeand the owner of the Star- light being among those present .and res- ponding to the invitation, Racey Dawson took a chance and went with the rest. “Look what © COMICodoOoOkKS be (C@