Adventure Magazine Cover — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

_ horses’ tracks showed that a band of ‘ mustangs were in the habit of watering there. There was a pool of stagnant water de- tached from the main lake which aroused his curiosity, especially when he saw that it was full of sluggish, torpid fish. Investiga- tion showed that a short canal connected the two bodies of water, or would doso if the lake were higher. Now the canal was dry, and Dal judged that the water in the lake got higher in the Spring of the year and overflowed into the other depression through the canal. Presumably Bently had dug the -canal under the impression that the over- flow would make more room to water a herd of sheep; and had not figured on the water in the lake decreasing in volume. It was a blunder, Dal figured, that was on a par with most of Bently’s actions. But be- side this dead pool, with the sickly, green scum over it, Dal found other tracks and signs that aroused his interest keenly. “See here,” he said to Vincie, when they were eating dinner together, “how much longer will the grub hold out?” “Two weeks,” the girl replied quickly, proof that she had already given the matter much thought. “Then we ought to fill the grub box easy by that time,” Dal said cheerfully. “T don’t see how; with no money, nor any way to make any,” she retorted. “See here now, Vincie, if I didn’t know I was man enough to rustle a food supply from somewhere I’d never touch a morsel of yours. I’li git some grub somewhere by the time this is gone if I have to rob Has- brouck’s cook.”’ “But you’re welcome to anything we have. What would we haye done without you, Dal?” she cried earnestly. It was the first time she had used his first name, and he was glad. Formality, like gratitude, he despised because it always made him ill at ease. Now for the first time he felt thoroughly at home. “Just the same,” he argued, “‘it’s not the way of a real man to eat the bread of an invalid and a girl without repayin’ it in kind. An’, by the way, have you ever no- ticed a bunch of wild horses comin’ here to” drink?” “Many times,” she paaeeel surprized at the question. ‘Sometimes they will come every night for a month, and then they may not appear at all for another month. I miss Silver Zone them terribly when they don’t come, ese — pecially one handsome, grey fellow. gee to watch them playing in the moonlight. I ‘can never get close, but I like to think of — -sheepherders, them as mine, particularly: that grey leader. 3 es I have named him Sport.” “Have you any rope about the place?” : = a Dal asked thoughtfully. “Yes, coils of it. Father brought in a lot a= for he thought he might need it to operate — S a windlass when he found the silver-mine. _ Surely you don’t think you can catch any of those wild horses, and if you did hee could you conquer them?” “T think I can do both,” Dal celia quietly. “You see I used to be a cowboy, an’ I got to know quite a lot about horses. i know I could git at least one out of that bunch by creasin’ it with a bullet, but I don’t want to do that. I might kill ten be- fore I knocked one over without killin’ him, an’ even when you do git one that way it seems to knock the sense out of ’em. Vd rather ketch my horse on even terms, then can make a friend out of him as well as a_ good horse.” 3 He inspected the rope which Vincie pro~ ae duced and was satisfied. He cut off aforty- foot lariat, and a shorter rope, It was five-- eighth inch rope, a quarter ofan inch larger than he would have preferred for a lasso, — = : : but the additional strength he felt was a commendable feature. 4s “if I can git a horse between my knees _ again I’ll feel like a man, an’ equal to aya thing, ” he said half-apologetically. | Vincie watched curiously while he tied a hondo in the end of the longer rope, utterly * unconscious of the fact that she was trying — to analyze him. He was a source of con- — stant wonder to the girl. Until she had come to Silver Zone she had associated only _ with men of culture and refinement; but — since then she had met only mean, grasping — and cattlemen like Has- brouck, whose very appearance filled her “ with repugnance. Dal was like them in the ~ language he spoke, and the clothes he wore, _ but there the resemblance ceased. He was just as much of a gentlemanasanymanshe -had ever known as far as innate courtesy — was concerned, though it was apt to as- sume weird, and to her, fantastic forms in its outward manifestations. Each was puz- zled-at the other’s mannerisms. She said to herself that she did not “understand £2 him.” Ie told himself that he “didn’t know com c 200 <