Adventure Magazine Cover — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

a , Tine, which happened to be Nevada. =e 7 : Adventure - << scam that I’ll be there, but something might possibly happen that we could prove = a tp after all.” “We'll be there. My word was give to be a witness, dn’ I’ll keep it, family or no fam- - ily,” Thad premised. “But don’t forgit to leave your gun at "Thad tried to study the younger man’s | hace, but in the darkness it was impossible to do so. He could make nothing of the voice, for Dal’s tones were exceedingly - casual—too much so. “T ain’t in’ the habit of packin’ a six- gun any more anyway,” Thad said. “But Pm thinkin’ awful strong of reece out a big - insurance policy Dal Jaughed, ‘and the two men shook hands with a hard grip. Then Dal mounted his horse and rode slowly away. , “Good luck, Dal,” Thad called after the retreating figure. ' §o-long, neighbor—till I return,” Dal answered back over his shoulder. DAYLIGHT found Dal well into the mountains south. of Topaz. He was hitting for the nearest state The “mountains he was in ‘were not unusually high, but they all seemed to be standing ee = -edgewise, so rough and chopped up they were. He knew there were a few reason- “ably well-defined sheep-trails through them SS = - over which the sheep were driven to the % a ; _ desert in the Winter-time, and back to the Summer ranges in the Spring; but he felt that it would be a waste of time to try to - find one of them. He was confident that ee _ ~he could force a way through to the desert on the other side without a great deal of ~ trouble. His plans = the future were still nebu- lous. In fact he was still too sore at being = ae es robbed of the fruits of five years of toil - ‘to think of much else. He supposed, how- awe, eVET, that he would be able to find work as a rider with some cattle outfit in Nevada 23 a or Arizona, That there would be danger do this was certain, but as Hasbrouck’s main object was achieved Dal did not an- ticipate he would want him brought back for trial. He had forgotten the newly organized and powerful Sheepgrowers’ As- sociation. : 7 For four days he pushed on southward. “Making allowance for twists and turns -around mountains, and digressions to find water, he reckoned that each day found him at least forty miles farther south on an air- line—and he had not crowded old Spot to make it. Then they came out on the high bask: bone of a ridge that ran out into the white and yellow desert, and Dal knew he was in Nevada. The desert seemed to stretch away endlessly, broken here and there by a high, cedar-clad hog-back. These hog-backs were the oases in ‘the desert’ which made it possible to winter sheep there. High flying clouds were snagged on their summits, so that most of the Winter they were covered with a light blan- ket of snow to which the sheép were driven every three or four days from the flats below. The sun was now only two hours high, and there had ‘been no water since morning. Old Spot was showing the effects of it. Casting his eyes toward the floor of the desert Dal saw something that glinted in the sunlight like waves of silver. “By gosh, old hoss, that’s a lake down there, or a spring, unless it’s one of them there mirages—which it ain’t,” he told Spot confidently. Old Spot seemed to sense that it meant a drink for he began climbing down the ridge at a rapid shambling walk. Just beyond the lake, or spring, were two strips of something each several miles wide, and stretching away for miles to the east and west. At first they puzzled Dal. One looked like a field of ripened wheat, the other like barley. Then the realized how impos- sible it would be, for there to be such fields in this remote region. he saw that what he had mistaken for wheat When he got closer - was sweet sage, and the barley was white Dal had seen siiesé ‘kinds of sage before, and he knew that they were as palat- able and nourishing for sheep and cattle as alfalfa.” His cattleman’s imstinct was aroused, and he realized what a -paradise it “would be in the Winter-time for several = Of being arrested for the murders back at _ ___ Topaz did not enter his head.’ e. s ‘He knew that the county officials back there were cattlemen or sympathizers with them, and that they were prone to wink at pe S ~ the killing of mere sheepherders unless ____* there was some one to stir them up. That a _ Bill Hasbrouck had sufficient influence to COMEE JOOKS. GON