Adventure Magazine Cover — page 51: what you’re looking at

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

Silver Zone “No, no. I don’t know anything about it. But I can find clues——” “Then I reckon I'll jog.along,” Dal said laconically. “When you feel like makin’ a clean breast of it, mebbe we _can talk business.” “All right,” Cutler choked, his Adoni? S apple bobbing up and down frantically behind the thin whiskers. Murder was written plainly on the man’s face. Dal stretched himself lazily but his eye never left the merchant for a moment. — - “Ten thousand dollars,” Cutler shot out abruptly. “A straight story from beginnin’ to end is my price. After that we'll talk business” —mebbe. An’ remember that I know a plenty to tell whether you’re lyin’.” For a moment Dal hoped that the-man’s obvious fear would make him surrender, but Cutler was not a fool. Some very tangible incriminating evidence was_ held against him by somebody, for which he was willing to pay, but he still considered him- self far from beaten. Dal had noted that’ Cutler regularly stopped his pacing for an instant each time he got close to ‘the door and appeared to listen. Now the man appeared to be better satisfied and ceased to listen. Suddenly Dal walked over to the door and listened. Just outside he could hear the shuffling of several pair of feet. “Well, if you won’t do Giminess stand back while I unlock the door,” Cutler said curtly. “But remember that any one man who thinks he can buck a whole country is a —-— fool.” Suddenly Cutler felt the cold muzzle of a forty-four in the pit of his stomach. “Back up an’ keep quiet,’’ Dal whis- pered tensely. “I’m goin’ out the back door.” - The foiled, baffled expression on the merchant’s face told Dal that he had guessed correctly. He would never have got through that inside door alive. “Git down on the floor, you old mur- derer,” he hissed, “an’ if you even whisper Vl brain you.” With his left hand Dal assisted the mer- chant to a position flat on his back on the floor. With a handful of waste and a handkerchief he gagged him very effectu- ally, then anchored him to a studding on the wall with a piece of strong baling wires ba some place to stay all night. tating taking Cutler’s keys. Dal unlocked - the door, slipped quietly outside, and seeing — no one in sight relocked the door and threw _ . the keys away. It was now clearly unsafe to go straight | across the street to his horse so Dal dodged — rapidly through the cluster of buildings at the back of Cutler’s store until he was un- der cover of the greasewoods. The desert was slightly rolling there so it was not hard to keep out of sight, until he was on the other side of town and coming toward his The back door proved to be locked, necessi- — = : horse from the opposite direction to which | < 2 - the men in Cutler’s would expect. A hundred yards from old Spot pa~ stopped and recoiled behind a bush like a startled coyote. his horse was a man hunkered down behind a pile of rubbish, gun in hand and his eyes upon old Spot. Dal craned his neck until he could get a good look at the man. He = = was fully six inches over six feet tall, raw- boned, extremely narrow shouldered, and with a wrinkled, bronzed face. . From Vic Sawyer’ s description Dal knew that this was Pet Bradley, the famed eae man-hunter. Dal emitted an almost soundless vikisdle | while he began slowly backing away from there. Luck had certainly been with him. Had he been unmolested_at Cutler’s he would have crossed the street to his horse and undoubtedly fallen into the hands of Bradley. It was not hard to deduce how the detective came to be waiting there. He naturally would have a description of old Spot and the saddle from the people at Topaz; nor would they neglect to let him - know that Dal and the horse were insep- * arable. Finding the horse tied there the detective would, of course, consider it to be pure luck; but evidently it had not interfered with his taking full advantage of it. Dal could imagine the man chuckling inwardly as he waited. “People are sure determined to make me lose old Spot,” Dal thought resentfully as he backed out of sight of Bradley and fled hurriedly to where he had left his other horse. It was getting late and he needed Stopping longer in Hog-up was out of the question, and he didn’t care to return at once to | pe Silver Zone. A few miles out in the desert he came Directly between him and a ' 7 ah pe” be 1) a% = t it. Pitre : 1a ty ory J ~ ——. — -Comicbvooks.c