Adventure Magazine Cover — page 85: what you’re looking at

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

The Heart of the Range — “There aren’t any buts! You’ve got a (nerve, you have, making love to me after running round with that wretched hussy!” “She ain’t a hussy,” denied the exasper- ated Racey, who was always loyal to absent friends. \“She’s all right. Just because she happens to be a lookout in the Happy Heart ain’t nothin’ against her. It don’t give you nor anybody else license to insult her.” This was too much. Not content with confessing his friendship for the girl, he was standing up for her. Molly whirled upon him z “Go!” Tone and business could not have been excelled by Peg Woffington herself. Racey went. _“What’s the matter?” queried a sleepy voice from the doorway giving into an inner room, as Racey’s spurred heels jingled past the wash-bench. “What’s goin’ on? Who was here? What you yelling about any- - way?” “Racey was here, ma,” said Molly. “Seems to me you made a uncommon racket about it,” grumbled her mother, plodding into the kitchen m her slippers. « Her gray hair was all in strings about her face. Her eyes and cheeks were puffed with sleep. She had pulled a quilt round her shoulders over her night-dress. Now she gave the quilt a hitch up and sat down in a chair. “Make me a cup o’ coffee, will yuh, Molly?” said Mrs. Dale. ‘My head aches sort of. I hope you didn’t have a fight with Racey Dawson.” “Well, we didn’t quite agree,” admitted Molly, snapping shut the cover of the coffee- mill and clamping the mill between her knees. “I don’t like him any more, ma.” “And after he’s helped us so! I was counting on him to fix up this mortgage business! Whatever’s got into you, Molly?” “Heé’s been running round with that awful lookout girl at the Happy Heart.” “Ts that all?” yawned Mrs. Dale, greatly relieved. “I thought it might have been something serious.’ “Tt is serious! What right has he to——” “Why hasn’t he? You ain’t engaged to him.” — “T know I’m not, but he—I—you—” Molly began to flounder. “Has he ever told you he loved you?” Mrs. Dale inquired shrewdly. “Not in so many words, but——” “But you know he does. Well, so do I ville. 75 know he does. I knew it soon as you did; before, most likely. Don’t you fret, Molly, he’ll come back.” : “No, he won’t. him to.” “Then who’s to fix up this mortgage business with Tweezy, I’d like to know? I declare, I wish I’d taken that lawyer’s offer, We'd have something then anyhow. Now we'll have to get out without a nickel. Oh, Molly, what did you quarrel with Racey for?” ‘ CHAPTER XXVII Not now. I don’t want BURGLARY ERELY because he believed that the * well-known “all” was ove™ between Molly Dale and himself, Racey did not re- linquish his plans for the future. He rode to Marysville as he had intended. That is, he rode to the vicinity of Marys- For, arriving at a hill five miles outside of town in the broad of an after- noon, he stopped in a hollow under the cedars and waited for night. Daylight was decidedly not appropriate for the act he contemplated. | “T wonder,” he muttered, as he lay with his back braced against a tree and stared at the bulge in his slicker, ‘‘I wonder if I use all them sticks at once. I never heard that miner man say how much of an argument a safe needed. I s’pose I ought to use ’em all.” Luke Tweezy was a bachelor. His office was in his four-room house, and he did not employ a housekeeper. Further than this, Racey Dawson knew nothing of the law- yer’s establishment. But he believed that his knowledge was sufficient to serve his purpose. About midnight Racey Dawson removed himself, his horse and his dynamite from the hollow on the hill to where a lone pine grew almost directly in the rear of and two hundred yards from the residence of Luke Tweezy. He had selected the tall and lonely pine as the best place to leave his horse because, should he be forced to run for it, he would have against the stars a plain landmark to run for. He thoroughly ex- pected to be forced to run. Six sticks of dynamite letting go together would arouse a cemetery. And Marysville was a lively village. Racey, taking no chances on the Lainey oe EOLMICG OOO KS) (E@)