Adventure Magazine Cover, October 10, 1921 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

18 He had dared to hit Tonio Lopez! A hundred men, with varying emotions, looked at the young fellow as one marked for death. : The young fellow didn’t seem to know it. While Lopez was struggling to arise ~ the young fellow took away his splendid six-Shooter and found a knife in his shirt. The pistol was opened and the cartridges extracted. The knife was tossed out of the doorway. Lopez stood up. He was too enraged for words. Breathing heavily, he glared as if to blast the young man to purgatory and beyond. The Mexican was trembling all over. He tried to speak, but he only gib- bered, clawing at the air with his hands. The old cattleman stepped forward quietly. “T reckon you better git out, boy. Go while the goin’s good!”’ The young fellow looked around and then nodded. He was the center of all attention. He felt abashed and stage-struck. He was also a stranger and knew that Lopez had many friends in the crowd. To stay was foolish against such odds. He thrust the empty revolver into the Mexican’s con- vulsive hand and disappeared through the door. Grant Wilcox followed him. He should have gone anyhow, but he had forgotten about Lopez. He wanted to see the boy. Wilcox overtook him some distance down the street and beckoned him into the shadow of a building. The young man turned and braced himself for anything. “Who are you working for?” asked Wilcox. The young man decided that the stranger meant peace. ‘Nobody just now. I was dickerin’ with the Red Rock outfit. Why?” “Know anything about the cattle busi- ness?”’ “T was born in it. Why?” “You fought. You didn’t talk. You didn’t lose your head afterward. I want you to work for me. I am Grant Wilcox.” ; ““Oh.”’ “What is your name?” “Steve Adams. Just in from Montana.” ‘All right. Bring in some more from Montana.”’ Steve laughed, then looked thoughtfully into the quiet face of the stranger. Adventure “T might take a chance,” ruminated Steve. “All right. My Ghckhcard is over at the stable yonder. I leave at ten in the morning. You get out of town. Meet me on the road.” “Keep out of trouble. the fighting you want on the ranch.” Steve obeyed orders. Next morning he came up to the buckboard as it toiled through wind and drizzle on the long road toward home. Wilcox drove and smoked. “Tupper sat quietly beside him and watched -the scenery. In the back of the buckboard was Tupper’s blanket roll. Steve, with all his wordly possessions on his saddle, trotted alone with the buck- board till they reached the foot-hills sur- rounding the home ranch. Turning on the “downhill grade at last, the travelers ob- served Old Man Shay leave a chair on the porch and advance. He shouted when they drew close— ‘Some one jest lifted three hundred head o’ cattle off’n the main herd!” VI my THAT afternoon there was an in- ya vestigation about the missing cattle. — Grant Wilcox sat behind the long tablein the ranch-house and let Tupper and Old Man Shay-volley questions at a bow- legged little chunk of a cow-puncher who braced his feet and answered almost too promptly. Steve Adams loafed near a window and watched. The puncher said it had been a mean, cold, windy night with restless cattle milling around in circles and likely to start any- thing. The night herders had their hands full. Gray dawn brought no abatement of the storm. Daylight revealed that a certain part of the herd was smaller than before, so the men searched, but nothing was found. The wind-blown sands covered all tracks of the vanished herd. Nobody knew where it went. Wilcox kept smoking during the recital. At its conclusion there was an awkward silence. In some outfits there would haye been a wild uproar. “All right,” grunted the boss. “Go back to your work.” The cow-puncher left in a hurry. Gomiicovook You will have all © C@