Adventure Magazine Cover, December 10, 1922 — page 157: what you’re looking at

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

“> An Unpleasant Episode / before the drawings as he wrapped his tat- tered quilt about him and lay down to sleep. But sleep would not come. The smile faded as he lay staring into the dark, and in its place there gradually came a strained expression, a tense, listening look. He raised himself on his elbow and _ peered toward the window, » where faint streaks of gray heralded the dawn. At length he sank back, and almost as he did so the gravel beneath the window cried out and there was a heavy knock at the door. ‘‘Who come?” gasped Ah Kow. ‘‘Never you mind, chink. You open that door.” Thé voice was that of Bud Lukens, and Ah Kow would have known it among a thousand. “What you want?” quavered the old Chinaman. “Tt want you to open that door and show some speed about it.”’ Ah Kow scrambled to his feet. ‘All lite, all lite,” he chattered. come.” Trembling, he pattered over to the door and threw it open. The three Lukens brothers swaggered in, Lafe, the youngest, slamming it behind him. “Strike a light,” ordered Bud, and when 2! | . this was done, “‘Where’s that lottery ticket?” ‘““No got,”’ stammered Ah Kow, retreating to the farther wall. “The you ain’t gotit. No argument, chink. Come across with it.” “No got,” repeated the old man stub- bornly. Lukens made one spring across the room, gripped Ah Kow by the throat and shook him like a rag. “Come across,”’ he reiterated as he flung the frail old body to the floor. Ah Kow lay in a heap where he had fallen. “Get up,’ boomed Joe, threateningly across the room. and get that ticket.” Slowly. Ah Kow rose to his feet, bruised, shaken and cowed: Painfully he made his way to a corner shelf, where stood a tobacco jar. Sorrowfully he drew forth a piece of pink paper, covered with Chinese script. ‘““That’s the stuff, ” exulted Bud. ‘Now, look here, chink. We ain 't stealin’ this from you; get that? We're goin’ to buy it fair advancing “Get up ee EH OS I51 and square. Here’s five dollars, just what you paid for it.” Digging into his pocket, he produced - a greasy five dollar bill, which he laid on the table. “What the ’s the idea,” cut in the youngest Lukens, ‘‘wastin’ good money that way? Give him a clout in the jaw for it and let’s go.” Joe turned on him savagely. “Shut your fool face, Lafe,’”’ he bellowed. ‘“‘Who’s runnin’ this? For two cents I’d slap you through the wall.”’ Lafe subsided sullenly, and Bud drew from his pocket a stub of indelible pencil and a scrap of paper. “This here’s a receipt,” thin lips twisted in an ironical grin. got to do now is to sign it, Chink. Hurry up,” he added, thrusting it at Ah Kow. His hands trembling so that he could hardly write, the old man made haste to obey. ia i here,”’ he explained, his remarked Bud when he had “That’s done and if this ain’t the right ticket, then God help you, chink, that’s all I’ve got to say.” The Lukens trio swaggered out, slamming the door behind them. They were in high feather, owners of a lottery ticket valued at seven thousand dollars, and—a new ex- perience for the Lukens family—so come by as to make it highly improbable that they were-in any danger from the law... Ah Kow’s receipt, backed by their triple testi- mony, would stand in any court against the evidence of one lone Chinaman. “That makes us about twenty-three hun- dred apiece, don’t it?’? announced Lafe at last, after a hand to hand struggle with a mental calculation which had lasted him all the way to the slab shanty” be don’ t make you no twenty-three hun- dred,” responded the elder Lukens briefly. | “Whaddya mean, it don’t?” the boy de- manded, a growing suspicion in his« eyes. vat you split seven thousand three ways Bud’s a hardinig’ to @misshapen slit, and his small eyes narrowed. “There ain’t gonna be no three ways,” he announeed. “If you shut your face and do like I tell you maybe I’ll give you fifty dollars. Make trouble and you don’t get nothin’.”’ “That’s right,’’ seconded Joe approvingly. ‘“‘That’s the stuff.” ecomicbooks “All you. (E(0) “a pee roe