Adventure Magazine Cover — page 68: what you’re looking at

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

58 knew that she was storing up blackened eyes for herself. Her eyes met Butch’s angry, warning gaze. She had avoided him and his efforts to signal her to bean that fellow. The result was that he felt so completely double-crossed that he had begun to Imagine the whole thing was a frame-up on himself. , It was beyond him, however, to imagine that anybody could be such a chivalrous, innocent fool as not to be agitated by the appearance of an outraged husband, and it looked suspiciously as if she had tipped this fellow off to play a little joke on him. No doubt she had wised the guy up that he, Butch, wouldn’t be carrying a gun. Butch shot some sentences at her that showed how he felt and what he thought; and he ended fiercely— ‘“‘Youse bot’ go to t’ morgue f’r dis!” “Oh, yes. Yes. Certainly,” said Jack. “We'll go to the morgue and identify you— if you don’t keep your mouth shut.” The woman knew that Butch was in deadly earnest. He might in time cool off a little and listen to reason, but right then and there if he got the chance he would kill them both. She said— “He'll croak me sure!” Jack said: “No, not if you buy a poodle for a watch- dog. He’ll keep away and buy himself a rag doll to beat up. Take his belt and give him a hundred cuts. [Jl count ’em. What you waiting for?” Oaths crackled from Butch. He writhed on to his side, twisting about and snarling threats. “Shut up,” said Jack, again sighting along the barrel of a gun; and there are few things more intimidating than to have a cold eye looking at you along the sights. — “He'll croak me,” the girl whispered pathetically. But Jack stooped over. He laid one of the guns on the seat of a chair behind him, and with the free hand pulled loose the belt in Butch’s trousers. As he did so the gangster motioned ex- citedly, whispering: ‘“‘Nail it! Nail it!” meaning for her to pick up the gun on the chair seat; and when she hesitated he was half-crazed with anger. He reached out, grasping her ankle and bruising it in a fierce grip until she screamed. Adventure At that Jack brought the belt down overhandedly and the buckle struck on Butch’s face. On the instant the gangster went mad. He forgot all about guns and everything else. He had the fury of a runty Samsen, suddenly aware that Delilah was a double- crosser. He slewed himself around at the blow, and, reaching upward with unexpected swiftness, snatched Jack’s wrist, partly twisting the gun from his hand. Jack came down on top of him. For a few seconds they struggled brutally, with Butch the stronger and fiercer, and much the more expert at the hazardous game of rough-and-tumble. He was the heavier too; and at last as he got a choking grip on the boy’s neck he jested savagely, bending the boy’s neck back almost to the breaking-point while with a free hand he easily tore the gun loose. “‘To d’ morgue, huh? Yes, soitenly—dis is where youse go—feet foist se Butch did not complete the sentence. A noiseless explosion full of fire-flashes and sparks seemed to go off inside of his head; and he settled over on his side, mouth agape and a trickle of blood seeping threugh the cut on his scalp while his throttling held about the boy’s neck relaxed. SO IT came about that Jack and Butch’s Mag fled through the driz- zling night. Butch had been knocked out, and when he came to he would rally his gang and seek them far and wide. He would croak them both, just as he had said. Jack knew less about where to go than if he had been blind-folded and turned loose in a labyrinth, Mag had made it convinc- ingly plain that he would be knifed or shot by men he had never seen; and she had wailed— “T ought ’a’ bashed your bean; then Butch ’d ’a’ listened to me.” But she might as well have spoken in Greek for all the understanding he got out of it. He was dazed and left with a sense of helplessness at being made to know that there was no husband, that it was all a crook game, that he had been picked for a sucker and had messed up the show by springing his hardware. It was all befud- dling to Jack. There is no way of telling why Maggie COmiclbook CO