Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 140: what you’re looking at

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

—-138 would be the best shot in Montana. I bought this gun. ‘“‘When I felt the longing for a spree coming on I rode over the foot-hills and practised shooting with this gun. It took me out in the open—away from the chance to get the stuff—for shooting in town is popular no more in the sagebrush country. The thing was: it took my mind off booze and put it on something else till the fever passed. So I cured myself from the inside, instead of hearing lectures on Francis Willard. That’s the way every man must cure himself, Jimmy—from the inside.” Sanders fondled the gun. “I know you’re the best shot in Mon- tana,’ acknowledged the lad. “When I’d controlled myself, I took up law, built up this practice. But Art still swears the day will come when he’ll get me. Drink drives me mad the same as it does you, Jimmy, so ll take your case because indirectly it’s my own.’ -} AT TWENTY minutes past eleven of the same Montana forenoon, a hatless, breathless, white-faced youth banged into the office of Sheriff Cole. He cried:. ‘All hell’s broke loose down to Art’s! There’s a gun-fight on and it’s a walloper!”’ A dull, sullen roar came on the droning sunshine, punctuated by three sharp cracks. For the first time the grizzled old sheriff noted the street without, deserted. ‘“‘All Sago’s down there. That roar is the crowd, excited!” The sheriff lifted two ugly revolvers from a drawer of his desk. They were the guns of the Western yesteryear. It had been a long time since their wicked muzzles were aimed at men. The side street connecting Main with the depot was sardined with humanity. Through it plowed the man of law, profanity and devastation behind him. Midway of this street some one in the crowd shouted and the words struck the kindly old sheriff harder than a knotted fist crashed against his forehead: ‘“fArt’s got Sanders!” From the open square at the end of the street, across the tracks to the one-storied saloon, was a bullet-swept area of destruc- tion where a sizzling noon sun beat down. The plate-glass front of this saloon had been shattered. Out of the low-studded Adventure door drifted smoke of exploded cartridges. Even as the sheriff paused, a man staggered out, clutched at the door-casing and fell on his face. Two more shots banged in the dark interior. Came a long, agonized cry, a plea for mercy, the tinkle of glass, another shot, the whole trailing off intoinarticulate blubber. ‘Sanders went to see Art about a case at law,’’ cried a breathless barber. ‘One of my men was gettin’ a drink and saw the whole thing. Art doped the soft drinks, little at a time. Sanders tumbled off the wagon without knowing it. Thought he was fixin’ up the matter all sociable with Art and every drink was makin’ him worse. Art got a good stiff whisky down him and the man’s gone mad. He’s shootin’ Art into little pieces!” mses SAGO CITY was in an uproar. ( Stores had been locked. Proprie- - tors had bolted for the depot. A mob surged dangerously near the limit of the buildings’ protection. Above the bedlam came the steady paragraphing of shots from the depths of the depot saloon. One of these hit an arc lamp. The globe crashed in a thousand slivers on the asphalt. Another struck the window in a block on the far side the square and bored within to do what damage might later be discovered. Something like a sob escaped the sheriff. He knew the heroic fight that Sanders had made to keep clear of the hellish saloon- man’s machinations. There was but one redeeming feature. Art might have made good his threat. But within those dark depths was being enacted a frightful retri- bution. With a juggernaut of emotion, the old sheriff saw and understood. But there was his duty. The glint of the old fighting West leaped in his eye. He faced the dan- ger of the situation with the battle-light on his features that will ever enshrine the land of the copper sage in song and story. As he made the depot tracks in safety and headed for the doer, an ashen-faced young man stumbled out. One arm hung useless. The hand of the other was held up tragically to keep the sheriff away. “You ain’t goin’ in!’ declared Jimmy Baggs in a terrible whisper. ‘I’m an officer of the law,’ swore the Sheriff. ‘“‘I’m in office to stop murder—and Tl do it!” 99 COMGIOO CO