Adventure Magazine Cover — page 88: what you’re looking at

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

soothed Dinsdale; “All right, partner,” “we'll take time enough some time to corral that dust. It isn’t to be sneezed at. But I’ve heard so many ‘lost mine’ stories I’ve quit taking stock in them.” “Still you’ve tried hundreds of times to make a flush. If we don’t find that gold in ae old shaft then some one’s been ahead of us.” “No doubt about that,” heartily agreed Dinsdale. ‘But as a business proposition ('d rather spend my time stealing horses than in hunting for cached gold. As far as _ the rest of it goes I’d just as soon steal ‘horses from live white men as to take gold from dead white men, or steal gold lands from the Injuns.” “No one is stealing the Injuns’ land,” Pyrites denied. ‘Government got this country fair and square. Injuns don’t want gold. White folks do.” “T’m too sleepy to argue,” dale. Pyrites eyed him shrewdly and _ haz- arded— “J reckon your conscience wouldn’t trouble you a heap if there was enough money in a game.” ~ “Not a bit,” promptly admitted Dinsdale. “Gamblers cheat and it’s all right if they don’t get caught. Miners grab land before the Government gets title to it. Mountain men used to sneak into the Injuns’ country -and trap. Grab game all around. The main thing is—don’t get caught. men are honest because they’re afraid they’ll get caught if they go crooked.” Pyrites chuckled at this line of cynical philosophy and agreed. “Lots of truth in your talk. But it hap- pens that gold is what I’m keen about. £m more interested in tracing float-quartz to the mother-vein than I’d be in the best herd of hosses ever run off. Take that slate we passed through, where it splits off in thin sheets like what they put on roofs in the East. A_hoss-thief wouldn’t give it a thought. Now I ’d swap my share in the primest lot of hosses ever run off from .a wagon train just to fool with that slate. A hoss-thief would ride slam-bang over a crack that held the price of a hundred hosses. I’d turn the hosses loose and dig down into that crack. San Juan Joe would quit the best pay-gravel in these hills just to draw to a busted flush. But how we talk! I wish we could take time to work up toward the yawned Dins- - better’n anything I’ve struck yet. Lots of. Adventure Box Elder. Those high bars and narrow flats are just loaded with gold I know.”’ “A cache of gold,-a silver mine or two, and now some more new diggings,” mur- mured Dinsdale. “I’m looking for the big chance,” ex- plained Pyrites. “What I’ve found I can always come back to if I don’t find some- thing better.” “If some one hasn’t come along and lo- cated it ahead of you.” Pyrites grew grave and sorrowfully ad- mitted: “It has been done. Fellow leaves something that’s pretty good. Doesn’t find anything better. Comes back to find a Swede making pay gravel fly.” Then with much spirit: “But I know I can find something that’s I never failed to do it in other diggings. Now there’s silver! ._There’s Bear Butte. Judas! but there’s a country for you: Mato Tipi- Grizzly Bear Lodge—as the Injuns call it. They used to visit its flat top and pray to the rocks. If Crook would ever come with the soldiers so we could get up there I’d show you some silver indications that would bulge your eyes. Injuns say that’s where their thunder god lands when he drops down to earth for a little visit. They reckon the ghosts of all dead Injuns are taken there to look at the rainbow stones and pretty shells and other rubbish before going to live in the real ghost-land. Sort of keeps them from being blinded by the dazzling sights in spirit-land, I reckon.” A gentle snore informed him that Dins- dale was asleep and had missed much of his talk. Shaking the offender’s shoulder he advised— “Tf you can’t keep awake when a man’s telling you how to find a fortune you'd better crawl into a tent.” RAPID CITY boasted itself to be the “Denver” of the Black Hills, but as yet played second fiddle to Deadwood, although its location made it the logical distributing center for the southern section of the gold country. In addition to a few hundred miners, who made it their headquarters when not at work on their claims on the outskirts, there were real estate speculators and men committed to business enterprises doggedly waiting for boom times to return. It was generally believed along Repld SJ comicboo! (EOy