Adventure, January 20, 1922 — page 153: what you’re looking at

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

Powder Law Frenchy. “She’s fire de town of Rome and den she feedle.”’ ‘She done what?” asked Blaze. “Feedle, feedle, feedle!’’ Frenchy imi- tated the motions of playing a fiddle. ‘‘She’s mak’ music for de fire.” “Must ’a’ been loco, Frenchy.” Jus’ so. Mak’ good _ shepherd, Blaze?” “Make a good pardner for Black Mora.” “Ba gosh, dat’s de fac’. Bot’ crazy. No man can run dis countree a-lone. Mebby she mak’ big try, but bimeby somebody she’s come along and no run. Bam! One man no run, anodder man she’s see and she’s quit run. Bimeby everybody quit run. Den de man who run de countree mus’ run fas’ or de countree run over him.” Blaze laughed at the wisdom of Frenchy Ditteau. Back of Frenchy’s black eyes was a keen mind; a brain capable of doing bigger things than fighting battles in border countries or trapping for furs. The country needed keen minds, but Frenchy Ditteau loved action too well to live long enough in any one place. Blaze was also a drifter. The clink of poker chips, the lure of the green cloth was in his blood. His long, muscular fingers itched for, the feel of playing-cards, but above it all was an in- definite longing to do something worth while. Blaze was better educated than the majority of cowboys. He did not remember his mother; and his father was but a hazy, unreal sort of a person. Thrown on his own at an early age, he had grown to manhood, unsullied by his environment. He rode hard, drank moderately, and fought fero- ciously, but something in his soul seemed to cleave a deep line between right and wrong. Men said that Blaze Carlin was too honest to be a gambler—an honor conferred to few gamblers in those wild days. To the six-shooter has been the glory of winning the West, but it took brains behind the gun to do this. Perhaps the six-shooter did much to hold back the West—the six- shooter plus lax laws, or no law at all. Very often a sheriff was elected for his pistol ability, regardless of his fitness for the office, and only too often they combined with evil powers to loot behind the mantle of the law. At times an honest sheriff was elected when the law-abiding element was in the majority; but the majority were unable to eh, I5I “give their assistance when the lawless com- bined against his authority. WOLF BUTTE was a county-seat <.*6, in a territorial county; a county so === vast that a man could ride for a week and never reach a boundary-line. Range cattle mingled with the buffalo. Men were neighbors at fifty miles. Towns were very few and far between, with Wolf Butte the metropolis. Therefore Wolf Butte flour- ished, roughly speaking and more roughly acting. It was a town of saloons, dance-halls, gambling-places, where hard-bitted men came to revel in wine, painted women and coarse song; a town, where morals were flung to the winds, like a deck of unlucky playing-cards. iA 7 “hii GAD 4 LANDS, XG 4 & AinGy .: Gi ee SA % BLD CABIN THORS RANCH: =) eo?“ ®asecoe igre roy VIGILANTE S\HEADQUARTERS = q e Be at BaWOLF BUTTE DELA NEY HOME O eX q REEK, oe WHEELER RANCH | DOTTED LINE SHOWS ROUTE TAKEN BY BLAZE AND FRENCHY. -There was a certain moral element; an element composed of hard-riding, God- fearing men, but they were wofully in the minority. Day or night the long hitch- racks of the main street were lined with saddle-horses, standing patiently, often for days at a time, while their masters lounged in the smoke-festooned gambling houses and pitted their weak wisdom against games which did not operate for any one’s health. Wolf Butte lived fast—living today, for tomorrow might never come. Into this town rode Blaze Carlin and Frenchy Ditteau; rode past the gambling- halls, where the rattle of poker-chips sang a siren song to Blaze’s ears. To Frenchy it only meant mingling with other men, a drink or two, much useless argument and COnniclooolks (C@