Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 110: what you’re looking at

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

108 Tom looked at her with sober questioning, and she threw back her head, a hand to her hip, and laughed. “Don’t worry, old-timer. I won’t be in danger. I’m going to bring Carns to you right here, and you’ll be hidden in the brush with your thirty-thirty.” She looked at the rifle, balanced with the true hunter’s touch in the hollow of his arm. ‘I guess I won’t be in any danger.” From the top of the ridge Tom saw her as she stepped, timid yet smiling, out into the little valley before the cabin. Her sweater was well open about the throat, a sprig of balsam was between her lips, and the lure of the eternal Eve in her brightened eyes, in the sway of her body, the hang of her open hands. She crossed the open space _ stepping daintily. She paused, touched her back hair with both hands, and went on. Then she knocked timidly at the door, and skip- ped mischievously to one side. The prompt- ness with which Carns opened the door proved that he had seen her and had been waiting. He stood in the doorway with a smile of bestial triumph distorting his bleak features, and Tom, studying him, mut- tered— “Yes, the boy was right in not giving that man an excuse to shoot.” The cabin was too far away from the ridge for Tom to hear what was being said, but he saw the balsam twig bob up and down between Ada’s lips as she looked at Carns with her head on one side. With a wink over his shoulder into the room the bad man stepped out and closed the door. He reached out a hand to take her arm, but she eluded him, moving playfully toward the ridge. Carns followed. She kept out of his reach; and Tom, waiting as long as he dared, slipped back down the slope, burrowed himself far back into the brush, and with his rifle cocked and pushed to the front, lay down to wait. He saw her head as it appeared over the ridge, then Carns. She sprang over the top of the hogback and down the slope toward the brush where the old hunter lay. “Yah came to me, after all, didn’t yah?” growled Carns, lurching after her. ‘‘Yah came; an’ I’m strong fer yah, kid, strong enough to take you along.” “How strong?” she said with a laugh, stopping in the open. Adventure His reply was a bestial laugh. He reached for her. “Duck, miss,” said Tom Pine, “I got him.” XIII Zz | CARNS whirled at the first word, Ny whipping a six-shooter from an inside belt holster. “Drop it,” said Tom Pine. “On the ground with it.” Carns looked into the muzzle of the rifle covering his heart, looked at the blue eye Squinting in businesslike fashion down the barrel, at the finger crooked over the trigger,andgaveup. The revolver dropped to the ground, whence Ada Adair snatched it up, and the bad man’s hands went hopelessly into the air. ‘Just in time,’’ said Tom Pine, stepping into the open. “I was counting three, and would have let you have it. I’d got to two. There’s another gun under his left arm. Get it, miss; that’s right. Now, Mr. Carns, you’ve got just one chance of living another half-hour. Turn my partner, Gaston Olaf Francois Thorson, over to me, safe, sound and undamaged and do it quick, because so help me God! I’d blow you to pieces like a dog with hydraphoby. Is he all right?” Carns’s fear-dried tongue and throat struggled for seconds before the word came. ‘Ves,’ ‘‘Are you the boss man of your crew?” Vy og. 7? “Will they do what you tell them?” Ves,.”’ “Sure? Be awful sure, because your life is going to depend on whether they will or not. They’ll obey you, prompt?” Ves,”’ “Then turn around.” The muzzle of his rifle plunked firmly against the bad man’s spine. *“March.”’ Up the ridge they went, the woman following a few steps behind, over the top, down the other side; and not once did the wicked little barrel lose touch with Carns’ back. Across the open they went, Carns with his hands up, his large body almost hiding Tom Pine. “Halt!” They stopped ten paces from the door. “Call ’em out; tell ’em the play’s gone wrong; tell ’em to come with their hands in the air; ’cause if they don’t a soft- COmicloo CO