Adventure Magazine Cover — page 64: what you’re looking at

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

se Gurley. Now——” \ killin’ those Basques than I did. I stood = to gain nothin’, an’ lose everything. If he could fasten it on to me, like he did, he stood to win my ranch an’ cattle, an’ the -__Dishpan Basin. Nobody seen me kill those z fellows, but I did see Hasbrouck an’ “Whoa,” Bradley cut in. ‘Sounds like you hadn’t heard all the evidence. Has- ___ brouck and Gurley claim they saw you do | “Well, don’t that make my case all the stronger? ‘He had the motive to kill ’em an’ - frame me up, an’ this evidence here shows that he had the character to do it,” Dal : insisted... “Tt shows naded of the kind,” Bradley said coldly. ‘‘Where you’ve slipped up is in. supposin’ that this Hasbrouck here, an’ the one in Topaz is the same man. But this man’s crimes don’t make that man a criminal.” “What’s that?” Dal demanded dazedly. “You mean to say there’s two Hasbroucks? Why, man, it’s impossible! The same look, the same walk—everything!”’ “Not so strange, considerin’ that they’re - twin brothers,” Bradley explained with cool aloofness. That’s Bill Hasbrouck up there and Jim here. “No, my man,” he continued - firmly, “don’t fool yourself. I’ve got you cinched for murder.” © CHAPTER XVI THE FIGHT AT LONESOME JIM’s OR a moment Dal seemed to loose cntrol of his faculties. His head whirled, and ee he seemed unable to make his thoughts co- ordinate. For weeks he had worked and planned on the theory that if he could get something on Hasbrouck it could be used to pry apart the evidence which fastened the Basque murder in Idaho to himself. ‘Then what he had been working for had dropped into his hands almost miraculously—but the whole fabric of his hopes had been based upon a false assumption. With a supreme effort of will he regained a his self-control, and regarded the situation calmly. He saw clearly now the depths of folly to which his specious reasoning had = : brought him; and yet he had been justified. == “True enough he had never met Jim Has- ___brouck face to face except in that brief Adventure | ’ instant when he had collided with him in the raid on Silver Zone, but he had seen him at a distance, and in motion, and every look and movement were the same as those of the man he had known. Nor could he be blamed for thinking one man owned both ranches and traveled back and forth between them in spite of difficul- ties. Had there really been only one Has- brouck, and he the owner of both ranches, such an arrangement would have been exceedingly useful in carrying on his rustling operations. However, he had been fooled and regrets were vain. He set aside his-own predica- ment and returned to the one theme which had predominated in his mind since he had come to himself that morning. “Do you happen to have any information about what happened to Miss Bently and the nurse?” he asked Bradley, making a titanic effort to overcome his growing repugnance for the man. “Don’t know a thing,” Bradley replied. “Last time I seen ’em was-when they rushed out of the door of Bently’s cabin. When we come by Silver Zone Sawyer told us you had left word that they would be here. Didn’t you know what you was talkin’ about?” “T only made a guess, but that was better them sendin’ ’em out to face a mob while ‘you skulked behind like a scared coyote,” Dal retorted hotly. “You can’t insult me—as long as you’re my prisoner,” Bradley said laconically. “But PI just explain that I use common sense in dealin’ with the ladies, an’ not sentiment. If I’d have rushed out —— bent like you would have done I’d’ a’ got killed, an’ nobody any better off. As it was I sent em out to create a diversion so I could git out through a back window: This. here posse is the result. Any remarks?” Dal had none to make at the moment. The detective was cold-blooded as a fish, and that was all there was to it. Anyway, Bradley’s morals was not the issue before the house. Dal began to realize that he had been keyed up too tight; that he had been thinking too. frantically. What the problem needed was clear, ana- lytical thought. Vincie could not be around the ranch or Hop Sing would at least have heard something about it. Hasbrouck’s presence there all that day argued that he had either never taken her prisoner—this surmise was untenable—or he had placed ‘comicbooks wae ee meray as To 3 ~ 3 = 4 c — a es a :. af en : es spay Saab te me. . ((@)