Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 161: what you’re looking at

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

The Closed Trail out a bunch of Indian Territory gunmen that Rivers sent in to help out. It’s no cinch that they won’t lick Jim Newton, for all that he’s got the law on his side, for, you hear me, they’re a tough crowd.” ‘What sort of a boss have we got, any- way?” asked a_ hard-faced youth. “I wouldn’t have taken what he did from any man.” : “Yes, you would, kid, or be out there on the flat with a chunk of lead through your ribs, along with a lot more of us,” was the answer. “Tifferent times quite a lot of people got the idea that they didn’t have to listen to Frank Gorham when he was talking right earnest, like he was today, and before they found out their mistake they was knocking at the Pearly Gate. Anybody that thinks they can beat that guy on the draw better — take it out in thinking, because them sort of thoughts haven’t been healthy up to date. “Tid you notice him settle over in his sad- dle and bring his spur up in the bronc’s flank before he handed the boss that jolt? If Crawford had taken a shot at him he’d have socked in the spur, and when the bullet got there he’d have been elsewhere, and Craw- - ford ’d have had a hole in his back-bone as big as your hat, and he knew it. Besides, you all heard Newton’s orders to let the Verde bunch make the first break, and when Jim Newton says a thing he means it; he’s a bad hombre himself.” Il GORHAM and his companions drew rein on top of the vari-colored cliffs of sandstone which hemmed in the mile-wide bottom-land of the Verde. Below them the river swung in long loops across the flat, bordered with clumps of cottonwood-trees and patches of brush, and in one of these horseshoe bends stood the great ranch-house of the Broken Bow. This bend was thickly wooded, except that in front and at the sides of the house the trees and brush had been cleared away for a distance of several hundred feet, the road to the house winding through the trees. Built according to the ideas of the En- glishmen who came over to play the part of feudal lords in the boom days of the cattle business thirty years before, the house was of stone in the shape of a hollow square, two 159 stories high. The only openings in the outer wall were a row of narrow windows SE ih a ? ; heavily barred with.iron in the upper story, and an archway with heavy gates opening into the inner court. > TAGLE Leno 100 FE OFEET ABOVE AWER BOTTOM In the keystone of the arch was‘cut the. Broken Bow, an old brand of the Cheyenne Indians, and back of the house, in the toe of the bend, stood the stables and corrals. “Regular fort, isn’t it?” said Gorham. “T 2. haven’t been here since the big fight, when — we came down to explain things to the En- glish, after we’d showed ’em nice and peace- ful that we wasn’t going to walk out and give ’em the upper country for a Summer _ range. Queer people. We’d smashed *em flat and they-knew it, but you’d ’a’ thought — ‘ from the way they acted that we was a © bunch of tramps asking for a bite of grub. And for all they knew we was going to hang the last one of them. “1d heard that a mining man from Ari- __ zona had bought the place, but that didn’t bother me any, because if we could lick the English, with Rivers back of them, we sure could lick a mining gent that didn’t know anything about cows.” Dick Lloyd laughed. ; . “Looks as if the mining gent had made an - awful strong play forastarter, Frank. Ifhe can make it stick how are we going to get our beef to the railroad, let alone having no Winter range? You know there isn’t half Gomicbooks i ~ Ss ay iGO ae