Adventure Magazine Cover, December 10, 1922 — page 128: what you’re looking at

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

Se a vas 122 against his right side he glared over Baldy’s head and shrieked: “Tves! Ives! Don’t let him!” The frantic glance, the sincere terror in the young man’s voice, made the old ruse convincing for a second, and for a second the fierce eyes were off guard and rolling to dis- cover Ives. With a hysterical scream Beach struck the horse with his left hand, at the same time yanking out his revolver with his right. The horse gave a jump just as Beach fell prostrate. The scream, rather than the plunge of the horse, caused Baldy’s trigger-finger to twitch spasmodically, and the bullet went Like an echo Beach’s heavy gun went off, the ball smashing the polished top of the man’s skull and causing him to pitch for- ward with his face on the ground. -~| BEACH remained lying on his side, stupidly staring across the blankets at the grotesque posture of the dead man. It was allso unreal. He had stood at the edge of death, and in an instant the danger had been eliminated. Baldy would ~ never kill again. It was incredible that the toppled-over figure was entirely finished with earth. The convulsive tug of a finger had robbed the hardened rascal of all his fell power. He was as harmless now as the charred trunk of a spruce behind him. It was stupendous. Beach slowly shifted his gaze to stare at the Colt painfully gripped in his right hand. In correcting such an abuse as the dead man exemplified Nature might take a lifetime; this piece of mechanism, with a revolving magazine, had worked the cure in the in- finitesimal part of a second. As his dazed wits cleared, his imagination began working, and he found himself slyly _ crawling back from the dead man, his gaze never quitting the bowed figure, the revol- ver held tensely for another shot. The man was not dead. He could not be eliminated thus easily, imagination told him. For years Baldy had lived evilly, with no corrective strong enough to halt his career. He had had all the advantage. His victim had been powerless. Then how could he be ~ dead in an instant? _ Beach had never seen a man die by vio- lence. He could not conceive of the brain ceasing to function between the ticks of a watch, nor of the hands refusing to carry out Adventure the last command. But as he stared at the shattered head his reason elbowed imagina- tion aside. Obviously a man could not live when broken as Baldy was. Beach continued to take note of the havoc worked by the heavy ball and reacted phys- ically much as he had when gazing on Gold Dick, murdered. Be it miracle or just luck, no man could live with the top of his head blown off. Nauseated and shivering, Beach man- aged to get on his feet, stagger to his horse and climb on his back. Then he remem- bered leaving saddle, blankets and gold. Slipping to the ground, with his legs going weak beneath him, he secured the saddle, and, taking care to keep his gaze from resting on the dead man, made it fast to the horse. He reached out a hand side- wise, caught the blankets by a corner and snatched them to him. But to recover the gold it was necessary to move the dead man. He gritted his teeth, breathed hard; and began the repelling task. He was thrown into a spasm of fear when the bowed form suddenly toppled over sidewise, disturbed from its poise by a groping hand. He hur- riedly rolled the gold in the blankets, tied them on the horse, mounted and dashed away from the scene at a mad gallop. After he had covered a mile at a frenzied pace he found himself still glaring back as if expecting to behold Baldy with his bloody head racing from the spruce. Then he knew his flight was a species of insanity. He allowed his horse to walk and fought to recover his self-control. In an awed voice he confessed to the towering ridges— “T killed him!” The horse continued picking his own gait while his rider indulged in saner contem- plation of the tragedy. The whole affair - was so profound with mysteries. He had been dogged by a murderer and all but slain, and he had protected himself and his employer’s gold and had killed the assassin. It was as simple as that. The new keynote to his thoughts was the realization he had protected Holter’s gold. The country was cringing in terror: because of evil men, and all that was necessary was to point a Colt revolver and pull the trigger, and the menace would prove to be as unsub- ‘stantial as the long shadow cast by the eastern ridge. Gradually Beach’s head came up. He { “Ecomichboo CS (EO)