Adventure Magazine Cover — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

= = “PH protect you,” the marshal snorted. Pe AK Eee some one in = crowd = eee well,” ” Dal opined. = = re “Give that gun = to Nevada, or to me, or I'll put you under arrest,” the _ marshal thundered. = “Give it to him,” the. sheepman inter- _ jected. “I’ve got two guns, an’ I guess : _ there’ sno law against me loanin’ you one of a ‘He. naa a forty-four to Dal, who in ge turn handed Nevada’s gun and belt over to Wendall, the marshal. - se SF ought, to arrest you both in the name of law an’ order,” Wendall growled. “Yet I reckon Tom Cutler thinks too _ much of the trade of the Burnt Creek Sheep Company. for him to let you do it,” the sheepman said impudently. The marshal beckoned to the two cow- ______ boys to follow him outside, and they did not __‘Yeappear that evening. Dal and the sheep- -- man retired to one corner of the saloon where they could keep a watchful eye on the crowd, which was rather studiously intent ~ upon leaving them alone. “T reckon I’m obliged to you for the pre- servation of my carcass,” the sheepman began. “My name’s Vic Sawyer. What’s yours?” _. “Walt Dallas—but my friends call me Dal,” Dal replied promptly, half-ashamed : already of his assumed name. FT just can’t keep from taking a fall se 2a = of a, cowpuncher every time I see one,” the talkative Sawyer went on. “They have the “same effect on me as a red rag to a bull _ They all think they’re some pun’kins—an’ _ they are—the punk-uns. That’s how I got mixed up in that poker game in the first place—I saw a chance to take it out of a : 2 couple of cowboys. I would have done it, too, if I hadn’t absorbed just one too many - drinks. You’re a sheepherder, ain’t you?” _-* “No—cowpuncher,” Dal said dryly. - Sawyer laughed. . _ “That’s one on -me—but you're sure one aoe -ofa imen.’ -“Phanks,” Dal grinned. much do you know about this country?” = “Not much, except that this desert country is pretty much run by old Tom ee a soe and a cattleman named Hasbrouck. ain’t overly ater down at Anna- bee b>. eee eS oe alg iy Ge aoe Fee a erg Pr Fat Ty eee ae pe sya < ab ines he Fo ras lS ea aa Oka en ee sin ae SS as ; Bar Fy ~ tye ; “ z - : a » “Now how have their own way on the desert. Cutler so far, but I may be in for trouble now. Them cowpunchers we had the run-in with work for Hasbrouck.” | “T thought so,’’ Dal said. The remark the larger cowboy had managed to stay on the good side of old : dropped let him know that he had been spied upon at Silver Zone, but the fact that. the cowboys thought him a sheepherder led him to believe that Hasbrouck had never seen him, and that no one as yet suspected his identity. “How Hany sheep do you run?” he asked Sawyer. “Six herds. I’m down here now tryin’ to spot a Winter range.” “Then listen. Would 2 place like this interest you? A strip of white sage, and a strip of sweet sage each a couple of miles wide, and ten or twelve miles long. Foot- hills an’ mountains on one side, shadscale desert on the other, an’ a twenty acre lake fed by a big spring in the middle of it.” “Would it? Boy, you’re describin’ sheep heaven! If I could find a place like that— _an’ could hold other outfits off of it—I could bring my outfit here as fast as they could travel. That would hold six herds till the snow come on the high buttes, an’ I couid go where I pleased,’ Sawyer said enthusi- astically. “That spring is privately owned, an’ if you leased it you could hold everybody else off,”” Dal informed. “Tf that’s the only water around, and f can get a legal right to it I'll pay a good price,’ Sawyer said. “Tt would be up to you to see that other outfits didn’t chase, you off the range,” Dal warned. “Tl take chances on that—but you’d have to see that nobody else watered at the spring. In other words you’d have to make the title good.” Dal deliberated a moment. . “T’ll do that,” he said positively. Straight-forwardly he told Sawyer of Hasbrouck’s intentions to use the spring. He had no wish to deceive the sheepman in any respect. “If you'll do your part to fight ’ em off the proposition is worth lookin’ into,” Sawyer said. ‘Besides, it ain’t like it used to be in these range wars when the cattlemen with their professional killers always got the best of it. Now there are a lot of sheepherders <S: Oo G Oe lee Oe oe gee be er ee Fe = 8