Adventure Magazine Cover, February 3, 1921 — page 147: what you’re looking at

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

The Heart of the Range “You. hadn’t oughta take acvantage of old Salt thisaway.”’ ‘An’ why not? What’s wrong with the bet? Fair bet. Leave it to anybody.”’ “Shore, shore, but alla same, Racey, you’d oughta gone a li'l easy. Twenty- - four hundred dollars “What’s the dif? You won’t have to ay it.”’ “°T’sall right; but I didn’t think it of you, if I did. You knowed how old Salt is—always certain shore he’s right, an’ you took advantage.” “Shore I took advantage,” Racey ac- quiesced amiably. “I got sense, I have. Alla same, he’d never ’a’ took me up if you hadn’t slipped in yore li’l piece- of advice for him not to. That was a bad play, Tom. You might know he’d go dead against yuh. But I ain’t complainin’, not me. Nor Swing ain’t, either. We'll thank yuh for yore helpin’ hand to our dying day.” “T guess you will,’ Tom Loudon said ruefully. “When you get through here, Racey, you an’ Swing come on over to the wagon-shed. I wanna sift through this Jack Harpe business once more.” CHAPTER XVI THE BAR § “Kind friends, you must pity my horrible tale, I’m an object of sorrow, I’m lookin’ quite stale. I gave up my trade sellin’ Pink’s Patent Pills To go huntin’ gold in the dreary Black Hills.’’ “T wish to you'd stayed there,” said Jimmie, the Bar S cook, pausing in his march past to poke his head in at the bunk- house doorway. “Honest, Racey, don’t you ever get tired of yell-bellerin’ thisaway?” Racey Dawson, standing in front of the mirror, ceased not to adjust his necktie. The mirror was small and he was not, and it was only by dint of much wriggling that he was succeeding in his purpose. “Don’t go away; stay at home if you can, Stay away from that city; they call it Cheyenne.” “Seemin’ly he don’t get tired,’ Jimmie answered the question for himself. ‘An’ what’s more he don’t ever get tired of dandy-floppin’ himself all up like King Solomon’s pet pony. Yup,” Jimmie con- tinued with enthusiasm, addressing the world at large, “I can remember when e I4I Racey used to ride for the 88 an’ the Cross- in-a-box, how he was a regular two-legged human bein: A handkerchief round his neck was good enough for him always. “Tf his pants had a rip in ’em anywheres, or they was buttons off his vest or his shirt was tore, did it matter? No,- it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter a-tall. But now he’s gotta buy new pants if his old ones is tore, an’ a new shirt besides, an’ he sews the buttons on his vest, an’ he’s took to wearin’ a necktie. A necktie!” Jimmie, words failing him for the mo- ment, paused and hooked one foot com- fortably behind the other. hip-shot against the door-jamb and spat accurately through a knot-hole in the bunk- house floor “Yop,” he went on, ramming his quid into the angle of his jaw, “an’ he’s always admirin’ himself in the mirror, Racey is. He pats his hair down, after partin’ it an’ usin’ enough goose-grease on it to keep forty guns from rustin’ for ten years, an’ he shines his boots with blackin’, my stove- blackin’, the rustlin’ scoundrel. Scrouge southwest a lvl more, Racey, an’ look at yore chin. They’s a li'l speck o’ dust on it, Oh me, oh my!» Li'l sweetheart will have to wash his face again.. Who is she?” Still Racey did not deign to reply. He placed, removed and replaced a garnet stick-pin in the necktie a dozen times hand- running. Jimmie beat the long roll with knuckles on the bottom of the frying-pan and winked at the broad back of Racey Dawson. “T hear they’s a’ new hasher at Bill Lainey’s hotel,’ pursued the indefatigable Jimmie. “Tim Page told me she only weighed three hundred pounds without her shoes. It ain’t her? ‘Don’ t tell me it’s her! You ain’t, are you, Racey?” Racey, pivoting on a spurred heel, faced Jimmie and stuck his arms akimbo, and spoke. ‘Not mentionin’ any names, of course, but there’s some people round here got a awful lot to say. Which if a gent was to say their tongues are hung in the middle he’d be only tellin’ half the truth. Not that you ain’t popular with me, James. You are. I think the world of you. How can I help it when you remind me alla time of my aunt’s pet parrot in yore face an’ language? Except you ain’t the right color. If yore whiskers only growed out green.” Gomicdooks He leaned (C@