Adventure Magazine Cover, October 10, 1921 — page 114: what you’re looking at

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

104 women. His well-fitting whipcords bulged slightly over the hip pocket. On that bulge Boozy’s eyes fixed themselves. Little thrills ran all along his spine, and his mouth began to water. The big tramp pulled himself together and scrambled down the. bank. Startled, the man on the rock whirled to face him. “Hello, Fox!’ Boozy’s greeting was blithely hopeful. ‘Got a flask on ye?’” The little man’s frown erased itself. A smile spread over his face. He looked like a well-groomed angel. Any one who had seen that smile would have taken him for an innocent boy who had never known the cuile of a heartless world. “A flask? Certainly!’ His hand shot to his hip, removing the cause of the bulge. “Help yourself to the finest whisky you’ve tasted in years. Can’t get its like in the States these days. I guess that’s the reason you left, eh?” “Nope!” gurgled the tramp, from under the inverted bottle. “Uncle Sam didn’t like my curves.” He paused to let the fiery liquor gurgle down his throat. ‘‘Safe here. No extradition in Honduras. Glug- glug!” The other reacned swiftly for the flask, but Boozy held it to one side and glared fiercely. “Lord, man, don’t take it away! I hard- ly wet my neck yet!’’ He raised it for an- other swig; but his companion snatched it away deftly, and disgustedly surveyed the lowered tide. Hopeless of another drink, the tramp yearned for conversation. “What brings ye to Honduras, Kelly?” he asked. Fox Kelly pointed to the working women. “Same thing,” he grunted. ‘Heard of some good placers down here, and found this bar. I thought of promoting it, but the results are too thin. Natives talked it up so big I looked for a rich haul. Honduras was always good ground before. You don’t know of anything, do your” He beamed sweetly on the disheveled tramp. Boozy Bill Blain was an odd fish to find favor with one so prosperous. His great, moon-like face was almost lost in a shock of tousled red hair, and pin-feather whiskers grew to his eyes. The dominant feature of an ill-conditioned lot was a mountainous red nose, large and lumpy, that shone like a beacon on a dark night. you handed Doc. Adventure Slick and glossy, it had cost him a lifetime of joyous carousing, and much money. He fondled it with the bowl of an old briar pipe, then gazed at the pipe as if to calculate, from its oily sheen, the condition of his prideful proboscis. ‘‘Ain’t much in your line,” he answered thoughtfully. Kelly showed his disappointment. The angelic face that was his fortune clouded. He had hoped that Boozy might pay for his whisky with useful information on local mines in need of dexterous promotion. It was Boozy’s business to prospect for gold, and Kelly’s to promote. Neither one had been a scrupulous practitioner. Boozy’s skill in “salting”? mines was the offense which had forced him to seek refuge, three years before, in the Central American republic; Kelly, whose financial operations always filled his own pockets and emptied other men’s, was just returned from the States to make another killing. On his previous visit, he had profited so well that Honduras called him irresistibly back. But his trade was the exploiting of mineral deposits that others found; he couldn’t so easily find them for himself. Boozy could. Originally a Coeur d’Alene hard rock man, the tramp had become a desert rat with an exigent thirst, a profound knowledge of Honduras mines, and an easy conscience. “Think again!” Kelly urged. “All I want is a mine and a sucker!”’ ‘““Gimme that flask, then. I can’t think with a dry neck!”’ Ruefully Kelly relinquished his property. One tilt, and the flask was empty. Boozy sighed deeply. “Got an idea,’ he murmured. “It’s good, too; but it needs oilin’s Any more whisky?” The promoter fixed him with a savage glare. “Vou get another drink when you spring the idea, see? It’s got to be mighty good, though. Something like the haul I made out of old Doc McWhinnie two years ago.” *eVeah!” Boozy laughed sarcastically. “The trimmin’ you handed old Doc is just what dishes you now. The natives in this district love the old coot like a father. Whenever they’re sick he doses ’em up, an’ he’s saved a dozen lives in every village. The whole of Olancho is sore at the raw one Conmnicoooks Some of ’em have mines, . C@