Adventure Magazine Cover, December 10, 1922 — page 84: what you’re looking at

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

78 dance was fast and furious. For it was one of them times when Old Man Trouble is plumb forgot and everybody turns their selves loose for a glorious time—right now. Everything swings along sweet and joyful, and along about twelve a big miner shouts and swings his hat. “Just a minute, fellers!’”’ he yells. “We've all been overlookin’ a little bet.’ And he flips a silver dollar on the stage. A shower of silver follows, clatterin’ on the stage from-all sides. Zeb don’t under- stand it, and looks sort of dazed-like at the girl. She smiles at Zeb and shows him a mighty pretty set of teeth, then she jumps up and gathers up the coin and piles it neat and nice on the corner of the piano. “What does all this mean?” Zeb demands, at last. “Tt’s for you,” the girl replies, with an- other fetchin’ smile. “For me?” says Zeb. “But there must be forty or fifty dollars there!” “Yes, and no telling how much it will be before morning.” “But it’s too much! I couldn’t “It belongs to you,” the girl interrupts. “They’re having the time of their lives, and _ they’re willing to pay for it. They want to pay—wouldn’t have it any other way.” “And just think,” says Zeb, sort of musin’-like. “Only a few hours ago I was scared blue because I only had eighty cents left, and didn’t know a soul in town!” The girl laughs right out, then she sobered pretty sudden. “Excuse me, Mr.— pardon!” she stammers. Oh, I beg your “Hollis, Zeb Hollis is my name,’ ” says Zeb. “Mine is Madge Thomas. I beg your pardon. It wasn’t very polite for me laugh at you, was it? And I wasn’t angling for your name, though it must have looked as if I was. It was amusing at that—your being frightened just because you were broke. Really, I doubt if there’s another place in the world where you'd be as safe, broke, as right here in Porcupine. “The men are a rough lot, all right enough, but it’s all on the surface, and they'll divide their last dollar with any- body but a snob. And the girls—there isn’t a girl here that wouldn’t dig up her last four-bit piece for a friend in distress, or an enemy either, for that matter. And these people will never pry into your past— 2a : = Adventure to find out whether you are worthy of help. You’ve got to eat; you need something, need it now, not next week, and what you did with your Summer’s wages hasn’t a thing to do with it. Get the point? Oh, I’ve learned a lot, since I came here!’’ They called for another waltz, and when it was over and the crowd slipped to the bar for their drinks, Zeb turned to the girl again. He was interested and wanted to know more about her, so in his odd-like way he puts the direct question. “low do you come to be here?” he asks serious-like. ‘“‘You don’t look-~you don’t seem to belong here.” Perhaps I don’t,” replies Madge. “But it was the best I could do, and it isn’t so bad when you come to know these people. They’re just folks, ike you and me. A bit reckless, perhaps, or out of luck in choosing their parents, or something, but they have courage, and are democratic and _ free- hearted—really generous, Their talk is rough and free and easy—careless. But after all, when you come to think it over, the language taught in colleges is not really the American language at all. These people speak the real American language—the language of ninety-five of every hundred everywhere. And I rather like it, now that I’m getting used to it.” “But you haven’t told me how you came to be here,” Zeb reminds her. “That’s so,” the girl admits. “But there isn’t much to tell. My father was killed last Spring, over in Sunnyside. Murdered, you know, and “Murdered?” Zeb whispers the word. “Yes, murdered. You couldn’t call it anything else.” “Who did it?” “Nig Peets—that is the name he goes by. He’s a notorious gun-man, a killer, you know. You'll see him soon enough, for he’s stopping here in Porcupine, just now. Came here to kill the Smilin’ Kid, they say.” “He might come in here!” the boy ex- claims, with a scared-like glance toward the front door. “No fear!’ exclaims the girl. ‘The Smilin’ Kid is one man that Peets don’t want to mix it with. He came here over a month ago to kill the Kid; but when it comes to a show-down he simply hasn’t got the sand to face the music. The Kid killed his brother, in a fair fight, and he’ll kill Nig too, if they ever meet, and Peets knows it. GEomichooks (ECO) Se