Adventure Magazine Cover, October 1911 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

The Freak the more admirers she had the broader was his grin—speaking generally. For there was an exception, and we’ll call him Kinyon. We call him Kinyon because his real name is known now to you who read. Even then he could write stuff that got next to you. Moreover, he was a lovely talker—one of the men who require only a few minutes’ start of the handsomest man living to win with women—and somebody had _ intro- duced him to the Girl. Neither Trainor nor I was responsible, for we didn’t like him; but there he was on the porch—and what to do about it? Seeing that he was getting a hold, I pro- posed various crude “‘alleyby’”’ schemes (like the elder Weller’s) for his abatement, but Trainor vetoed them as lacking subtlety and finish. ‘‘No! No!” he protested vigorously, ‘“not fora minute! Make a martyr of him, and he’ll win in a walk! What you want to do is to make a bore of him.”” [Note how newly woman-wise.| ‘‘ You want to defer to him—ask his opinion! Listen reverently to his long words! It’s the only way, and it’s bis weak spot.”’ But Mr. Kinyon saw us first. He slum- bered not nor slept; just let one of us say, ‘Now, Mr. Kinyon, as a student of philos- ophy, should you say And we would be left staring at Mr. Kinyon’s wide-spaced tracks leading to the tall timber. It was annoying. Mr. Kinyon was fast making good as the fascinating villain of the piece, for all his blond whis- kers; and it seemed as if he had the luck. For instance: It was a lovely Spring eve- ning. On the North Avenue porch Kinyon, little Bill and I were talking to the Girl; and Trainor sat on the end of the porch with a gun across his knees, watching for maraud- ing pigeons. After a long space there was a break in the talk, and Kinyon turned to Trainor with a gleaming-teethedsmile. ‘‘ Well, Mr. Train- or, how are the pigeons?”’ “Some still scratching—some dead!”’ Trainor answered cheerfully, without turn- ing. ‘““Ah-h!”’ [rising inflection] ‘‘Then you have shot some?”’ [in a good-little-boy tone]. ‘Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!” The Girl smiled, and it looked like an even break; but who can see as the high gods? (You'll notice all best-sellers mention the high gods at least once.) 957 “You’ve not met Mr. Nutting yet, per- sonally?’? Kinyon’s voice was velvety. The Girl sensed trouble, and her gracious tones were a relief: “‘But you just ought to have heahd him cussin’-out somebody when he found two dead birds in his yahd last evenin’.”’ “Why? What aboutit?” Trainor turned steely eyes on Kinyon for the first time, as if he had not heard the Girl. ‘“‘Oh, nothing! Nothing! I was thinking that a personal interview might be——”’ Bang! Bang! The whir of wings had caused Trainor to turn and fire from the hip, and two birds dropped dead in the yard, just at the edge of the garden. The smoke had hardly blown away when out of the next house burst the irate Nut- ting, about ten inches ahead of a wildly excited cur. Trainor had stepped into the small side yard. The cur was under the low fence, at Trainor’s legs, and kicked over the fence in a yap-yowling parabola in about the time required to do a drop-kick from the field. Then the two men approach- ‘ed the fence and each other, walking stifl- legged like scrappy young roosters. Nutting, though not over six feet, was noted as a two-fisted bully. He leaned over the fence to shake his fist in Trainor’s face and make statements. He had just got going smoothly on the high, when Trainor drew air into his lungs and spokel The sheer force of his utterance drove Nutting’s words back down his throat: ‘““See here! I shot your pigeons because they were a nuisance! I kicked your dog over the fence because he was a nuisance! If you will come over that fence——” “Hold on!’’ I shouted with all the power in me, and started for the spot on the run. Too late. Nutting had vaulted the fence, emitting purple language. | “You There was a dull aay And Nutting lay on the green turf, white as marble, and his muscles twitched in a fine tremor. I got before him, to hide the sight from the porch, but a glance over my shoulder , showed the Girl standing with hands clenched and a fire in the dark eyes. ‘“‘Of course there wasn’t anything else to do!’”? came in a purring voice from behind her; and she turned with a quick flush. There was an instant of silence, then she bit her lip and hurried into the house. cComicloooks (©