Adventure Magazine Cover — page 125: what you’re looking at

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

Pay Gravel and as they advanced the cloud battle raging over Harney’s Peak and the sur- rounding hills receded toward the plains. Dinsdale proposed riding ahead and spying out the land. Pyrites, afoot and leading the burros, warned him not to go too far. “Tt’s easy to get lost in this broken country,” he added. ‘‘But there can’t be any Injun danger as the reds haven’t any heart for scalps when the lightning begins to sing.”’ Dinsdale went ahead, usually in sight of his companion every few minutes as he surmounted a ridge. For two miles he rode and then reined in and stared thought- fully at something ahead. Swinging his head about to scan the cover suspiciously he would have been thrown into something of a panic had he not remembered the Indians’ fear of thunder-storms. Slipping to the ground and shifting his rifle to his left hand while he drew a hand-gun he approached the object which had caused him to dis- mount. It was a long feathered arrow, with “lightning marks,” or grooves on the short shaft characterizing it as belonging to a Sioux quiver. The head was triangu- lar in shape, made for war. ‘The shaft was of juneberry, tough and flexible, so as not to break did the quarry, whether man or buffalo, fall upon it. The arrow satisfied Dinsdale that some savage had been stalking their camp and had planned to use the silent shaft in making his kill. The loss of the arrow in what was comparatively open ground suggested panic and flight because of the thunder-storm. Dinsdale waited until Pyr- ites came up. The prospector examined the arrow and muttered: “See how that head’s fixed on sort of wobbly. Once it’s stuck into a man it can’t be pulled out. Well, he’ll lie low for a spell along of Mr. Lightning. Only one of him, or they’d laid for us with their guns.”’ Acting on Pyrites’s advice Dinsdale con- tinued afoot, walking beside his horse, his revolver ready to resent an ambush. A few miles brought them to the Rapid, which they crossed just below the forks. They shifted their course a bit southeast so as to pass near Elk Buttes and by noon were midway between Rapid and Spring Creeks and on a tiny stream that made south to flow into the latter creek. Pyrites’s lust for testing the gravel could not be denied longer, and as their next march would take ‘any gravel. 119 them up on to the divide, due east, Dins- dale was willing to call it a day’s travel. They unpacked the burros and pitched their tent, and Pyrites fished out his pan, about a foot and a half in diameter, ‘and shoveled some thirty pounds of dirt into it, and hurried to the rivulet. Dinsdale stood and watched him but did not offer to pan In truth, his thoughts were back in Deadwood, and Bandy Allen once more was rushing at him with a double- barrel shot-gun. Pyrites exclaimed some- thing under his breath. “How does it pan out?” asked Dinsdale, with a flicker of interest. Pyrites stabbed a finger at several minute specks and announced— ‘About four or five colors.” “What's that in money?” Pyrites scratched his head and unwill- ingly admitted— “About a fifth of a cent.” “Great Scott! If that’s prospecting I’m through. Why, it costs me fifteen cents to fire one of my guns oncel’’ cried Dinsdale in high disgust. Pyrites instantly regained his optimism. “The value of that pan simply proves there’s gold everywhere in these hills. This ain’t where we was aiming for anyway. I want to work close to the divide and locate a vein.” “That will be more like it,’”? mumbled Dinsdale. “I won’t bother to get my pan working till we strike something more promising. If you’ll cook a bite to eat I'll look around for a deer or Injun signs.” ‘Too impatient. You expect too much,” growled Pyrites. ‘Ain’t even keen to pan your own dirt. You miss the fun of look- ing for it. Cards ain’t nothing to the gamble of washing out twenty-five pounds of dirt. Every time I fetch gravel to water I’m a millionaire till the pan shows me to be a liar. That’s what keeps men at it. Next time may make me a millionaire. Greatest game in life to draw cards in. I’ve found four or five colors. Next pan may show four or five dollars. Take a walk and I'll peg away a few times more. Don’t either of us know if you’ll find a man of millions, or a three-dollar-a-day man when you come back.” “T wish you luck,” said Dinsdale; and tucking his rifle under his arm he walked down the rivulet and was soon out of sight of the camp. COnmiclbool< (C@