Adventure Magazine Cover — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

9 ee RRR Ai Mad: ; ye Nil pS Pa eta WAR rue aly met nh va Ft 1B AT SD yu ara’ ok : Md - ; 7<- > ~ “F vy . <9 -. ace | = : vast shadow peaks crawled and undulated while a new moon played hide and seek xy | _ maintained obstinately. aoe ee Spc -_. mountain above the cabin, _ ___ wouldn’t apt to be any surprize—except for resentful he became. among floating clouds of silver; the almost 2 _ ghostly silence broken only at intervals by the even more ghostly yell of some morbid coyote, or the deeper, more resonant howl ofa timber wolf, or the startled, jeering - hoot of an owl. And at the end of the trail _-. —what? On top of the ridge overlooking Lonesome Jim’s cabin Dal halted and with a few terse words explained the topography of the cafion to Bradley. _ “We had better slip down afoot if we _ figure on takin’ ’em by surprize,” he advised in conclusion. ‘‘Ain’t there a way to get down there outside the trail?” the detective inquired. “A man might possibly slide down the but there the fellow that tried it. He’d probably loosen a ton or two of gravel to take along with him.” “But see here, Showalter; if those women are in the cabin the men will be outside. Anyway, they’ll be watchin’ the trail. The only way to surprize ’em is to drop down _ from above.” “You'll wake ’em up if you try it,” “No mountain goat has anything on me. I’m going to try it,” Bradley insisted. ‘“You -- ‘wait within yellin’ distance of the cabin till you hear from. me.’ Without more ado he swung off the trail. After all Bradley was the commander, and Dal but a prisoner. Reluctantly Dal strode down the trail alone.. He had no way to estimate how long it would take the detective to get down. He might come _ down with the speed of an avalariche, or he might work his way down inch by inch. ’ Themore Dal thought about it the more He felt that there was small chance of the men looking for two surprizes in one night. They had felt perfectly safe or they would not have brought the girls there in the first place— | 3 Gf they had brought them. The reasonable thing to do, then, was to advance straight up the trail, surprize them if possible, - fight it out with them if it was not. Once before that night Bradley had spoiled Dal’s. game by horning in, and Dal was not disposed to let it happen again. __-He waited impatiently for fifteen minutes - Adventure Dal - cabin stood. He could hear the restless stamping of horses and knew the quarry was trapped; but no sign of Bradley. The fact that the horses had not been concealed indicated that the men felt them- selves perfectly safe. Between where Dal lay and the edge of the grove in front of the cabin was a smooth, open space a hundred feet wide. Dal began to advance across it boldly, but cautiously. Straining his eyes through the moon- light he caught sight of some object in the trail, in the jack-pines, and not twenty feet from the cabin. Gradually it took form before his eyes, and he could make out the distinct outline of a bed and two parallel humps which marked the bodies of sleeping men. Within the cabin all was dark and quiet. His heart missed a beat. Whether will- ingly or unwillingly, as the case might prove to be, the outlaws were sleeping outside, and if Vincie and the nurse were inside all was well with them. He again cursed the detective for a conceited, double- barreled idiot. Had he come on down the trail like a sensible man it would have been dead easy for the two of them to sneak in a thicket opposite the grove where the 3 up and get the drop on the outlaws while | they slept. . As it was Dal felt that the best thing to do was to crawl in alone and get the drop on them before Bradley came plunging down the cayion wall waking them up. Inch by inch he crept warily closer. From time to time he stopped to listen, but all seemed serene and quiet. Suddenly he stopped and dropped to the earth. Between the cabin and the bed appeared the tall form of.a man. Even in the moon- light Dal knew it was Bradley. The man had succeeded in getting down from above without making a sound, and was certainly stalking the bed the same as Dal was doing. © Dal dared not create a diversion, or risk being shot by Bradley. All he could do was lie still and wait for Bradley to wake the men up. Suddenly the flashlight flared on the bed — accompanied by Bradley’s terse command— “Hands up.’ Almost the same instant the light was extinguished, nearly simultaneously with the report of a \revolver from somewhere within the grove. JOOK (CO) (E@)