Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 159: what you’re looking at

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

THOUSAND head of beef, three- year-old steers, sleek and fat, the first drive of the season from the upper Verde, came slowly in a mile-long string down the desert trail, On either side a half-dozen riders paced their horses back and forth, holding the cattle to the road, for it was mid-forenoon, and the herd, having been grazed forward from the night’ s bed-ground at Grass Creek for several hours in the cool of the morning, was now being trailed to the next water, that at the Sand Springs at the edge of the desert, which lay a few miles ahead. Ahead, ‘“‘on point,” holding the lead _ steers to a steady walk, rode three men. The middle one of the three was Frank Gorham, owner of the Boot outfit, the largest one of the upper valley. Of me- dium height, spare in build, with red. hair and weatherbeaten face, burned to a brick red, from which looked humorous blue eyes, he had been known and feared on the bor- der for twenty years as a man of reckless courage and daring and deadly skill with weapons; a good friend and a dangerous enemy. -On one side rode Buckner Ewing, a slen- der, black-haired youngster, whose father owned the Square and Compass; on the other Dick Lloyd, who held one-of the smaller ranches. Far down the trail a horseman came over the top of a rise and down its slope as fast as his horse could lay foot to the ground, a cloud of dust floating away behind him. As he drew nearer Gorham spoke: “The Closed Trail,” copyright, 1922, by Wm. Wells. 157 The Closed =~ Trail A. Complete Novelette by . WM. WELLS Ma, *‘Here comes the night wrangler like —— beating tan-bark. Now what do you reckon is up—wagon tipped over and killed the cook, or what?” For the mess-wagon, together with the remuda of nearly a hundred saddle-horses had gone forward to make camp at the springs. ‘“‘What’s the matter, Lengthy?” he asked the long-legged youth ‘who pulled his pant- ing horse up in front of him. ‘You seem in an awful sweat to get somewhere?”’ z “We can’t get to the spring,” the wran- gler told him._ “‘There’s a fence across the trail'and a big outfit camped at the spring and they say that the trail is closed.”” Gorham stiffened in his saddle, “‘What’s that?” he asked sharply. can’t get to the spring.’ “Boys,” said Gorham, “DPve got a hunch that ’s broke loose again.’ He turned and swung his hat to the men. behind, who came forward on the run, swinging well out so as not to startle the cattle. | Gorham ran his eyes over the group. “Bert,” he said, ‘“‘you and Fred and Billy stay here and hold the dogies. talk,” he snapped, as the three luckless ones started to remonstrate. ‘The rest of you come with me and we'll go have a talk with these gentlemen that say the desert trail is closed.” As the little bunch of riders topped the rise over which the wrangler had appeared | they stopped. what I say,” the wrangler told him; “we m5 . . ' Pt Ps i ne 4 ? os vy. ; y oO s* COM sk GO , , vyvete a aN No back ~ Ahead.of them the desert ran tothehorizon, — ¥ comicbooks.com