Adventure Magazine Cover — page 181: what you’re looking at

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

Law Rustlers Hashknife. *“‘We can’t take any chances of hittin’ our little jigger.” “Think a lot of that kid, don’t yuh,” says I. ‘“*Thout a doubt in the world, Sleepy.” “Tt ain’t noways reasonable for you to adopt him,” says I. Hashknife recovers his hat, with a hole in the crown, and nudges in closer to the lumber-pile, while Willer Crick sifted lead across the street. “Nobody wants him but me, Sleepy, and I ain’t goin’ to let the little jigger go to no orphing home, y’betcha. Maybe I ain’t no fittin’ person to bring up a kid, but—oh, oh-h-h!”’ Hashknife slips his rifle-barrel into a slot between two boards and then twists over almost on his shoulder, in order to look down the sights. A feller has slipped out of the doorway, thinking that we didn’t dare to expose ourselves enough to shoot. Hashknife’s rifle cracked, and the feller’s feet slipped and he sat down hard. I don’t know where it hit him, but it made him either brave or sick, ‘cause he just sets there, until a arm sticks out of the door and hauls him back inside. Then the shooting seemed to ease up. ‘What do you fellers want?” yells a voice. “This is a of a time to ask ques- tions!” yells Hashknife. “Don’t stop shoot- in’ on our account.” Just then a bullet nicked a piece of meat off the point of my jaw, and splatted into the wood beside my head. Before we can move, another bullet hit Hashknife’s hat. “Behind us!” I yelps. ‘“‘Look out!” Hashknife flips off his hat and yanks his gun out of the slot. “Look out yourself! That son-of-a-gun I knocked down has circled us.” Willer Crick woke up to the fact that something is wrong, and they sure ham- mered our fort. Zowie! A bullet spinged off my rifle- barrel and almost knocked it out of my hands. “Watch the hall,” says I. . “Ill tend to our neighbor before he spoils our Alaska trip for good.” I crawls in behind the old shed. Behind us is nothing -but mesquite brush, which don’t make very good cover, especially for the first fifty yards. Willer Crick is still trying to annihilate that pile of lumber, so I takes a chance and ~sat down hard. Some of the 175 crawls like a snake. None of ’em seen me and I reached the heavy brush in safety. I hears this feller shoot again, and all to once I see him. He ain’t over fifty feet from me. There’s kind of a high piece of ground, with some rocks on it and a lot of mesquite clumps. He’s having quite a nice time all by his lonesome and ain’t expecting visitors. He has to lift up real high to send his lead anywhere near Hashknife. He’s shooting one of them old 1876 models of Winchester, the kind we calls “grasshopper” action. He rises up on his toes, squints down the sights, but seems to kinda get dissatisfied and relaxes. IE could almost throw my gun and hit him, and shooting him thata- way would be murder; so I waits until he lines up his sights again and then I slams a bullet into the loading-gate of his rifle. I reckon a .45-70 hits kinda hard, cause it knocked him loose from that gun and he busted mechanism must ’a’ dented the primer of one of the shells in the magazine, ’cause that rifle sure raised for a few seconds. The owner of the gun wagged his head and looks down at the barrel of my rifle, which was poking into his belt. “Get up!” says I. He got up kinda slow-like, shaking his head and then he grabbed for his six-gun. I’m too close to him to shoot with the rifle, so I uppercuts him§under the chin with the barrel, and he lost interest in everything. I took his belt and six-gun back with me. Willer Crick seen me as I came back, but they must ’a’ hurried their aim. I got back to the shed, with my eyes, ears and nose full of dirt and a hole in my sleeve. Hashknife is doubled up, covering the door- way from that slot in the lumber-pile. ‘““You’re a fine friend,’ says I. ‘You let “em all come to the window and shoot at me.” “They had Buddy with ’em, Sleepy. Dang it, I was afraid to shoot.”’ Somebody yells at Hashknife, but I don’t hear what he said. “No yuh don’t,’® answers Hashknife. “You let us have Buddy and we'll call it square.”’ Hashknife motions for me to stay behind the shed. I seen him settle down and line up his rifle again. He lifts his head and says: “Sleepy, for ’s sake; look! He’s usin’ Buddy for a shield. The rotten coward!” COMIC DOOKS (C@