Adventure Magazine Cover, February 3, 1921 — page 149: what you’re looking at

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

The Heart of the Range a Winchester from the scabbard under his left leg and made sure that he had not for- gotten to load it. For Racey labored under no delusion as to the danger that menaced not only his, own existence but that of his friend, Swing. He knew that their lives hung by a thread, and a thin thread at that. They were but two against many and their position had not been aided by the string of uneventful days succeeding their advent at the Bar S. For their enemies were taking their time in the launching of their enterprise. And Racey had not ex- pected this. It threw him off his balance somewhat. Certainly it worried him. It was not humanly possible that Jack Harpe could be aware that Old Man Saltoun did not believe what Racey had told him. But he was acting as if he knew. Perhaps he was waiting till Nebraska Jones should be entirely well of his wound. That was possible but not probable. Jack Harpe had not impressed Racey as a man who would allow his plans to be indefinitely held up for such a cause. There was no _ telling when Nebraska would be up and ° about. His recovery, thanks to past dis- sipations, had been exceedingly slow. Again, perhaps the delay might be merely a detail of the plan fat Jakey Pooley men- tioned in his letter to Luke Tweezy, or it might be due to the more than watchful care the Dales and Morgans were taking of old Mr. Dale. Wherever the old gentle- man went some one of his relatives went with him. Certainly no ill-wisher had been able to approach Mr. Dale, since his spree at McFluke’s, at any time. Mr. Dale to all intents and purposes was impossible to isolate. At any rate, whatever the reason, the fact remained that Harpe had not moved and showed no signs of moving. Mr. 'Saltoun, every time he met Racey, took special pains to ask his puncher how much twice six times two hundred is. Then Mr. Saltoun, without waiting for an answer, would walk off, slapping his leg and cack- ling with laughter. EvenTom Loudon was beginning to take the view that perhaps his father-in-law was in the right after all. “Vuh been here near two months now, Racey,” he had. said that very morning, “an’ they ain’t nothin’ happened yet.” “T got four months to go,” Racey had replied with a placidity he did not feel. 143 Now as he rode, his eyes closely scanning the various places in the landscape provid- ing good cover for possible bushwhackers, he recalled what Loudon had said. “T’ll show him all the happenstances he wants to see before I’m through,” he said aloud. ‘“Somethin’ gonna happen. Some- thin’s gotta happen. Jack Harpe won’t let this slide. Not by a jugful.”’ The words were confident enough, but they were words that he had been in the habit of repeating to himself nearly every day for some time. Perhaps they had lost some of their force. Perhaps “Twelve hundred dollars,” mused Racey. ‘An’ the same for Swing. Six ‘months’ work for— ——,it can’t turn out different! I know it can’t. We’ll show ’em all yet, won’t we, Cuter, old settler?’’ Cuter, old settler, waggled his ears. He was a compamionable horse, never kicked human beings and bucked but seldom. “Yep,” continued Racey, sitting back against the cantle, “she’s a long creek that don’t bend some’ers or other.” And then the creek that was his flow of thought shot round a bend into the broad and sparkling reaches of a much pleasanter subject than the one that had to do with Harpes and Tweezys and Joneses. After a time he came to where the pleasanter subject, on her knees, was weeding among the flowers that grew tidily round Moccasin Spring. Baby-blue-eyes, low and lovely, cuddled down between tall red columbines and orange wallflowers. Side by side with the pink geranium of old-fashioned gardens the wild geranium nodded its lavender blooms in perfect harmony. The subject, black-haired Molly Dale, rested the point of her hand-fork between two rows of ragged sailors and Johnny- jump-ups and lifted a pair of the clearest, softest-blue eyes in the world in greeting to Racey Dawson. “This is a fine time for you to be traipsing in,” she told him, with a smile that revealed _a deep dimple in each cheek. “I thought you promised to help me weed my garden today.” “T did,” he returned humbly, dismount- ing and sliding the reins over Cuter’s neck and head, “‘but you know how it is Sun- day mornin’s, Molly. There’s a lot to do round the ranch sometimes. Now this mornin’——”’ “Tl bet,” she imterrupted, smoothing out the smile and frowning as severely as ANICGLOOOLKS (C@ (C@