Adventure Magazine Cover — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

~ part of the business. Now he was supremely glad that he had at least some skill, for the He would get the goods on Hasbrouck if he could by visiting his ranch, but if that ~ failed he would seek Hasbyouck. face to face : and settle the issue man style. Yet he did not underestimate the danger. = a coyote—his secret ownership of two ranches was proof of that. Moreover, he - usually had some gun-fighter with him, Slim Gurley in Idaho, and presumably - Wevada Brown or Kutch here. _ Ip the morning Dal and Sawyer had = z breakfast together, and later Dal hired a saddle horse and a pack horse from the = livery stableman for ten dollars each, on condition that Sawyer would agree to bring ~ them back the next day. Then they went _ around by Cutler’s store to load up the supplies Dal had bought. _ Cutler was on hand, and greeted Dal with a surly nod. Evidently he had heard of the ___ row of the night before and had taken sides. - Yet he seemed to be friendly enough with _ Sawyer—a. friendship, however, pers based on the expectations of further profit _ Six herds of sheep meant an expense account — > > Se ae = s E = = of four or five hundred dollars a month, © _. asum which was not to be scoffed at. Sawyer. — : 3 sm _ “Yes; Vm goin’ out to look over the range,” Sawyer replied, _. Now that he was entirely sober, his utter- =e ‘ances were crisp and to the point. ee “You'd bok not monkey with that —— =o eZ fidential tone. “Why not?” Sawyer asked bluntly.’ __ -“T¢’s a long way to haul your supplies, the range ain’t very good, and you’re liable =, have trouble with cattlemer I’m a tk to avoid these range wars. They’re bad for the country. That is why I always try to smooth things over when I see trouble com- sat ing. If you take your sheep out there you'll a not be.allowed to water them.”’ __ “That so? Why I figured on leasing that Silver Zone Spring!” es oe ee sonia that,”’ Cutler Adventure - only logical thing to do, it seemed, was to - carry the fight to Hasbrouck in person. - “You going out to Silver Zone?” he asked “That spring belongs to Samuel Bently, an’ Hasbrouck won’t be allowed to water a critter there,’ Dal answered. “T suppose you think you can hold Has- brouck off at thé point of a gun,” Cutler ‘Tet me tell you, Sawyer, that sneered. old man Bently has been there two years and he ain’t plowed a furrow. To hold that alleged homestead he should have forty acres plowed. Hasbrouck has been trying to buy him out for charity’s sake, but now he’s decided to contest him.” “Looks like you might be tryin’ to sell me a lemon,” Sawyer remarked: to Dal, though without rancour. Dal’s homesteading eg him a little about the Homestead aw. “Even if Hasbrouck contests, Bently has possession an’ he can’t be put off until the contest is decided in Hasbrouck’s favor. . If Bently wants to appeal it to the General experience had Land Office he can hold it for a year if © he loses in the end,” Dal reminded them serenely. Cutler lost his temper. “See here, you,” he snarled. “You keep out of affairs in this country. We don’t need your kind of people—nor that girl out there either. What’s she doing out there at that water-hole except to catch men that come around? It’s all a bluff about-——” Dal’s fist crashed into the tobacco-stained mouth, and Cutler went down like a beef, his head striking against his own door-step. It was not a clean knock-out, but the man was-too stunned to get up at once. Dal let him lie there, and snapped an order for the dish-faced clerk to bring his stuff to the © door. He was just ‘putting the last articles in the pack-bags when Cutler staggered to his feet. “Don’t you ever show your face in Hog-up_ again,’ he quavered through his bloody lips. “And if you know what’s good for you you'll leave Silver Zone. You ain’t fooling anybody about what you’re after out there.” “Well, if I ever do come back to Hog-up you’re mighty likely to go out,” Dal shot back. He mounted his hired saddle horse, and giving the leading rope on the pack horse a pull, rode out of town. Saveyes rode by his side. “Looks like you’ve made an enemy out of every man in this country. For a cowboy you are sure one —— of a mixer, What have Eomicbooks (E(0)