Adventure Magazine Cover — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

Clothes and the Man way unmolested and unscathed by virtue of sheer bluff and impudence. Almost any man there could have shot Buskirk down, and very few of them but would have de- lighted in the job. But not one of them offered to lift a finger against the man. There was a psychology about it. The devil looks after his own. | Finally Buskirk turned sidewise to the bar and rapped on it with his knuckles. Hawkins answered that well-known signal by setting a bottle and a glass on the bar. Keeping the crowd in view from the corner of his eye, vigilant for a hostile move, Buskirk poured and drank a glassful of liquor. He wiped his mouth with the back of a hairy hand. “T' heard tell there’s a gent here from Yuma lookin’ for me,’’ he broke the silence growlingly. ‘If he’s present let him step out so as I can have a look at him.” Nobody moved or spoke. At that precise moment the deputy from Yuma stepped from the door of the hotel down the road and started toward the Gray Wolf Saloon, and he too hitched the holster containing the pearl-handled .38-caliber re- volver where it was most convenient for quick use. “T heard tell,” Buskirk went on sourly when nobody spoke, “this here gent from Yuma’s a deputy sheriff of this county, an’ he’s figgerin’ on arrestin’ me an’ takin’ me to Yuma to put me in jail account of rustlin’ cows. “Gents, I aims to say if that party’s here inthis saloon he’s a yaller houn’ pup without no teeth if he don’t step out an’ meet me personal. I wants to see the color of his hair. Is he here, gents, or do I have to insult myself goin’ after him where he’s hid under a bed somewheres? Let’s have a look at you, mister man from Yuma.” His request could not have been better timed, for at that exact moment the deputy of Yuma County entered the door and ad- vanced to within eight or ten feet of where | Buskirk stood before he seemed to see him and stopped. The crowd to a man pressed back against the wall, and above the dead silence that followed came a sound similar to that the winds make when they blow through the branches of a tree on a Winter’s night. The sound was caused by the crowd sucking in its breath. For several moments the Yuma deputy Fats ~I don’t want to go,” he said. 33 stood looking at Buskirk; then to the utter astonishment of his apprehensive audience he calmly removed his glasses and pains- takingly polished them with the silk hand- kerchief he jerked from his pecket. He replaced the glasses on his nose and lighted a cigaret. Then and not till then did he condescend to fix his gaze upon Buskirk again. Buskirk towered over him like a crag over a stone. e “Sonny, does it happen you come from - Yuma?” the renegade inquired with feigned politeness. : The other nodded and flicked the ashes from the tip of his cigaret. “Appointed special deputy sheriff two weeks ago,” he replied. ‘Does it happen you are Henry Buskirk?” “I reckon you-all called the turn there, youngster. I heard tell you’re lookin’ for me.” ) “Tam. About that Fletcher matter at Tacna, Buskirk.” Buskirk laughed and uncovered a mouth- ful of yellow teeth. - ‘‘You was sent up here to take me back, eh?” he rasped. ; ¢ ‘Ves. +3 “Didn’t they send no men with your” “T came alone.” “Think you’re big enough to take me back all by yourself?”’ “No harm trying.” Buskirk laughed jeeringly. The idea of the almost diminutive man before him tak- ing him to Yuma or any other place against his will unassisted was highly amusing. “Well, sonny, I reckon there ain’t no dude like you’s goin’ to take me newheres “Was you tryin’ to.disguise yourself in them wimmin’s clothes you got on?” Somebody in the crowd snickered. “This is my customary garb,” replied the Yuma deputy with studied unconcern. “Well, well, you’re a brave little boy,” laughed Buskirk jovially. “Senny, mebbe you didn’t know when you started up here I was considered a purty bad man to deal with.” “Tt seems to me that I have heard that you consider yourself a rather tough char- acter,’’ answered the other with a calmness that was astounding to the crowd that caught every word of the banter geing on between the twomen. “TI’ll admit that you COMIC IOOKXS (E@)