Adventure Magazine Cover, October 10, 1921 — page 117: what you’re looking at

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

The Gold Cure Boozy Bill carefully shut the door behind him. “Ye’ll think it’s a good wind afore I’m through, Doc. Kin I set down?” “Can ye sit doon? When did I ever deny ye hospitality? Here, ye red-nosed skate, hae a drink!’ He cast a solemn look at the bedraggled figure slouching to a chair, reached him the mixed peg, and prepared himself another. Bill downed it at a gulp. “Say, that’s the stuff!’ he gasped, rub- bing his paunch. “Say, Doc, what’s the treatment for a cuss as skins ye?” “Pleasure before business, Bill! Hae -anither, an’ here’s tae ye!’’ The doctor’s laughing green eyes met the faded blue ones of his visitor. ‘Lookin’ at ye!” Boozy replied, and raised the rose-tinted glass. It is to be feared that the tramp had sadly deceived the astute Mr. Kelly. His behavior toward the doctor was anything but the hostility he had declared the night before. Nor—though he was now on a fair way toward it—had he indulged in his three- day spree. “Grreat stuff, that!’ McWhinnie purred. “A life-saver, airly i? the morrnin’. Ye should never prropound abstract questions till ye’re forrtified. Noo, what were ye askin’?” “What would ye do, Doc, to a man as skinned ye?” “Tt wad depend on hoo muckle skin I had lost,” the Scot answered judicially. Boozy surveyed the bottom of his glass. “Fox Kelly’s back,’ he announced in- nocently. McWhinnie sat bolt upright. he snapped. ‘They say he’s lookin’ fer another sucker to sell him a mine. He’s always madea killin’ in Honduras.” The hint was ac- companied by a sly look at the doctor. He got the expected rise. The Scot’s language filled the room with the sudden smell of brimstone. On an earlier visit, Kelly had bought a mine from McWhinnie by the old trick of putting up the capital and working the mine, getting fifty-one per cent. for his investment. All the doctor would have to do was to sit back and reap the harvest. But the harvest had been Kelly’s, and the graft easy. The fine old man had taken Kelly at his face value, never realizing that the face was a fallen angel’s. The lesson had been “Well?” 107 strong medicine, but McWhinnie had taken his dose like a man. Now Kelly was back, on the Guayappe, within a short distance of the doctor’s dwelling—and hunting a mine to buy. The blood of fighting clansmen boiled in the Scot’s veins. Hot of heart and cool of head, his first thought was of revenge. He had a mine now, one that he would gladly sell. He owed Kelly a long score; perhaps Providence would be kind and let him settle it. But he knew now, from bitter ex- perience, that Kelly was no easy man to. beat. Boozy’s pale eyes read the doctor as they would have read the label on a bottle. The psychology was ripe. He played the vibrant string. “Maybe ye’d like another whirl at that geezer, Doc? There’s the old mine ye got from King. If ye could get ee to pay ye a good price fer it ‘“He’d no do it. The mine’s no guid. Kelly’s naebody’s fool. If I sell for what it’s worrth, ’'d no get my revenge; an’ Kelly knows better than tae pay me more.” Boozy winked wickedly. ‘““Me an’ you might tinker the mine up a bit,” -he suggested. “It can be done, with a little—science.”’ The dialect dropped from McWhinnie’s tongue. He was touched on his honor. “None of that, Boozy! I’ve never stooped to cheat any man, and I’m too old to begin. I’d lke well enough to see the rascal skinned to the bone—he deserves it— but my conscience will not let me connive at an illegal and unjust trick.” “He swindled you,’ Boozy grumbled. “Tt’d only be turn about an’ fair play to swindle him.” “And no man better fitted for the part than you. If there’s a single trick you’re not up to, it’s yet to be learned. I hear it was salting mines that got you chased out of the States. But [ll have no such doings with my mine. “Tf there’s any way to persuade Kelly to pay me more than my mine is worth, then all right, so long as everything is above board. If you’ve a scheme that will do that, Jet’s hear it. But I’ll have no dirty work!”’ “Not a scheme in the old bean! My throat “T thocht so!” The burr returned with a grim good humor. “Ye like naethin’ sae cComicoooks <s C@