Adventure Magazine Cover — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

4 Adventure for old Jessica, didn’t we? It isn’t every burro that names a million-dollar mine.” ‘“‘We should have been more dignified,” mumbled the older man. The younger partner straightened and looked backward over the sagebrush and the white alkali plain in the distance. His face saddened a little. It was a thoughtful, whimsical, intelli- gent face blessed with straightforward eyes, a square jaw and a high forehead. Just now it was frightfully streaked with grime and the hair stood up in a cockatoo effect. “T guess we're justified,” he remarked. “Look what we've gone through. Six months of it, and nothing to show until today.” “Huh! Look at me,” “Fifteen years of it.” He looked it. In four words he had de- scribed himself. Homeless, lonely, un- kempt, indomitable, untamable, unkillable, hoping always for the best and thoroughly inured to the worst, he belonged to the leather-faced, steel-bodied, iron-hearted tribe which sallies forth with a canteen and a plug of tobacco to conquer an El Dorado. He was a typical desert prospector. Over the scanty hair of his forehead hung the wreck of a brown felt hat. His eye- brows were hairy, his eyes were slitted from facing the sun and his nose looked like a red bulb. His mouth and chin were hidden by a scraggly, sandy beard. Under the chin was a tattered red bandanna which sagged down over a frayed and sweaty shirt. His blue overalls, with the color faded from age, were so baggy that they descended inward in a majestic Zouave sweep to the tops of his battered tan boots, which in turn needed repairs badly. grunted the other. me ONE of the boots was off. The eek younger man cut away the sock, Me examined the-swollen ankle thor- oughly, laved it with water and made a rough bandage. “There are no bones broken,” he de- cided, “but you’ve probably wrenched every ligament in that foot. You'll have to go easy for some time.” The senior partner lay back. “Oh, well; serves me right.” He pro- duced a reeking corncob and soon began blowing clouds of smoke. ‘“‘The question is, what are we goin’ to do? Can you work that claim alone till I git well?” “T can work all right if “Yeh. Ifa lot of pesky siege and gunmen leave us alone. Consarn it, why did the Lord put that mine in amongst a passel of cutthroats? The minute they hear about it, then what?” “T don’t know.” Old Pete thumbed his pipe contempla- tively. “Seems like we’ve got to go keerful. If we git caught workin’ that mine somethin’s li’ble to happen to us.” The younger man’s jaw squared. “It’s our claim!” “Sure. Only don’t git any fool notions about your rights. If you can’t keep your rights in this country by force, son, you ain’t got any.” The young man’s steady blue eyes looked at his partner. “All right. I'll take the chance. It’s worth it.” “Um. Yes. Sure.” The old prospector’s glance ranged over his partner’s supple, broad-shouldered, lean- hipped body. “T ain’t sayin’ you ain’t got the sand, but you can’t fight a whole county.’ ‘‘There are some decent people here.” ‘Sure. Only most of ’em’s moved away. Jed Hill and his rapscallions has things their own way. Don’t make no mistake about that. Here in the civ’lized year of 1896 we’re in the middle of the finest collection of or’nary rascals the——ever got together. It looks as if they’re here to stay. You and me has found a mighty good claim at the wrong time.”’ “Well, what of it? Let’s file on it and keep legal possession.” There’s been about two Most of ’em died. ’ 99 “Um. Yes. dozen cases like that. The rest went a-runnin’. The younger man seemed to study the shadowed mountains to the westward. “In other words,” he said slowly, “ have a mine and yet we haven’t got it. We’ve chased a rainbow and found a hor- net’s nest where the pot of gold ought to be.”’ ‘““That’s about the size of it.” ‘“‘What’s the remedy: aati “There ain’t none.’ “And yet you danced like a two-year-old when the mine was found.”’ COmiclbook CO