Adventure Magazine Cover — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

24 Brick slid down to the creek-bed and began casting around. About fifty feet from where he struck the creek he found footprints of three people—two men and a woman. The half-wet sand had caught and held the prints perfectly. “Men wearin’ about number nines,” muttered Brick. Half the men in the country wore about that size boot. The woman wore what Brick would designate as‘a fair average size. The tracks led across a sandy spot, all three prints well defined, especially those of the woman, whose heels. made small cir- cles. The tracks all led to a rock, which jutted up in the center of the sand-plot. The marks showed that the three had stop- ped for consultation or to wait for some one. Brick studied the jumble of prints as he started to light a cigaret. Suddenly he stared at the tracks, while the match burned up and scorched his thumb. He dropped the match, circled the tracks and sprang to the top of the rock, where he perched like a buzzard, staring down at the sand. The woman had walked to the rock, but had never walked away! Her footprints came up to the rock, but none went away. A jumble of men’s tracks led to the opposite side of the ravine, but there was no sign of a woman’s tracks. Brick lighted his cigaret and pondered over this. | “My !’ he exclaimed to himself. “She must ’a’ just e-vaporated.” _ He studied it from every angle, but shook his head. Then he walked over to a big boulder, which he climbed, and looked around. He happened to glance down the far side of the big boulder, and there he saw the iron treasure-box, half-covered with brush. Brick lost no time in getting down to it. The padlocks had been forced; one of them still dangled from the staple. Brick lifted the lid and stared down at a jumble of black cloth, which resolved itself into three black masks. Brick shook them out and then looked down at the untouched con- tents of the box—untouched except for examination. Brick dropped on his knees beside it and lifted one of the heavy bars, weighing it in his hands. Then Brick closed the box carefully and examined the masks. They were made of cheap material—sack- like affairs, with rough circles cut for eye-_ Adventure holes. An examination proved to Brick that they were not all made by the same person, as the sewing was crude, each one a different stitch and with different-colored thread. He started to put them back into the box, but changed his mind and placed them, folded, inside his shirt. ‘Then he piled more brush on the box, climbed back across the ravine and went back to his horse. “Glory,” he confided to the gray, “I’ve found out more in ten minutes than all the rest have since the hold-up, and—and I don’t know a danged thing, yet. That’s the of bein’ a detective.” Brick did not stop im Marlin City; neither did he hurry through. The main street was not over three blocks long, and Brick walked his horse the full length of town, looking neither to the right nor left but seeing everything. Several cowboys in front of the Dollar Down looked expectantly . at Brick, and voiced their disappointment when he passed the hitch-rack. Three Star Hennessey saw Brick ride through town. Three Star was strong for self-preservation, so kept right on reading a year-old magazine. Bunty had _ boasted that he was going to arrest Brick as soon as he came into town, but that was all right with Three Star. He had made no boasts. Le Blanc was fitting a hot shoe on a mule when Brick rode past, but the Frenchman forgot business long enough to go outside. The shoe was cold when Le Blanc came back in, and he swore fluently at the mule. “Ba gar—’ Le Blanc got confidential with the mule as soon as his disappoint- ment was past—‘‘ba gar, dis Breek she’s ain’t afraid for scare, an’ I’m wonder why she don’t stop. Pm mak’ you little bet dat pretty soon dere be gut for de bear to chew. She’s ride wit’ Winchester under her leg. Somet’ing be do pretty soon, you bet me.” Topaz Tyler saw Brick, too. Bunty Blair was sleeping after a hard-night at | poker, but it did not take him long to wake up when Topaz sent a swamper from the saloon to tell him about Brick Davidson. Bunty conferred with Three Star. They went over to the saloon, where Brick David- son was the topic of conversation. King Cleeve grinned at Bunty, and Bunty grew explosive. “He walked his horse through town,” King informed Topaz. CommicloolkSsee)