Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

28 “Most likely, most likely. Yuh needn’t bother ’bout matches. I got some.” “TI s’pose yuh’ll be able to smoke it too without my help. Hey! I don’t mind yore rollin’ a reg’lar cigaret, but yuh needn’t go tearin’ no pieces offen a newspaper an’ rollin’ a cigar. Hey: I want asmoke, too!” “Well, yuh got it. Here y’are. Catch.” “Yeah, I got it all right. There’s only one smoke left in the bag! Yuh-yuh-yuh—” Jimmy, searching desperately through his vocabulary for a word to properly exemplify Chuck’s perfidy, finally wound up with— ‘*‘vampire!”’ What would have eventuated from these small beginnings one may not say, for the sudden appearance of Racey Dawson effec- tually calmed the squabbling pair. “Howdy, Chuck. Howdy, Jimmy.” Racey made easy salutation, pushed his hat back from his perspiring forehead, and hooked a knee round his saddle-horn, woman-fashion. ‘‘Don’tcha do nothin’ but peel ’taters, Jimmy?” “*“F’you was feedin’ a gang o’ hawgs you'd peel ’taters, too,’’ chuckled Jimmy. “Light an’ rest yore hat. Most dinner- time, anyway.” “That shore listens wel]. I could eat some reg’lar shore’nough food. Our cook said he used to cook in a restauraw in Kan- sas City, an’ I don’t wonder he had to come out here. Them Kansas citizens chased him most o’ the way, likely. Which I’ve often felt like it myself. But praise Heaven -an’ all the little angels, I won’t have to eat that grubnomore. Yessir, I’m foot-free an’ fancy-loose, a-huntin’ me a new job.” “Why don’t yuh see the old man?” was Chuck’s suggestion. “Not me. I’m bound for the Cross-in-a- Box. Seen Johnny Ramsay last month in Farewell, an’ he said then Jack Richie was lookin’ for two more riders. He may have got ’em by now, but if he ain’t, one of ’em’s a-goin’ to be me, y’betcha.”’ Followed then the casual gossip of cow- land. Racey, obeying the dictum of West- ern etiquette when any one or all of the principals in an affair are present in com- pany with another, made no reference to the events at Moccasin Spring. The conver- sational ball was tossed about among the three while Chuck stitched and Racey smoked and Jimmy peeled, till the latter reluctantly tore himself away to return to his stove. Adventure *“‘Lanpher still got his back up?” queried Chuck when stove-lids began to rattle in the kitchen. “Hotter’n a wet wolf,” replied Racey. “Yuh want to sort 0’ keep to the low ground for a while, Chuck, till yuh can ventilate him. I’m tellin’ yuh, the l’l old bobcat is a-layin’ for yuh one way or another, an’ seein’s he ain’t none partic’lar about the way, he’ll get yuh if yuh don’t get him first. Why, say, I hadn’t done nothin’ to him really ’cept call him a hawg an’ all the way to the 88 he kept a-lookin’ at me like he wanted to plug me. I watched him al- mighty sharp.” “We-ell,”” drawled Chuck, waxing his thread, “T’ll kind o’ have to look out for my- self like yousay. An’I will. I’ve doneita matter o’ twenty-eight years, an’ I’m still here, an’ I’m aimin’ to be here another twenty-eight or so. I ain’t got no fault to find with Fort Creek County. Climate, country, an’ job suit me forty ways from the Jack, an’ that’s whatever.” “Yore health,” smiled Racey, and tilted an elbow in the manner of one who drinks. I shore would like to know the ins an’ outs o’ that dead cow deal. It’s shore funny.” “Tt’s worse’n that.” ‘Yeah, an’ when that stranger stopped at the ranch late in the aft’noon day before yest’day an’ told Lanpher ’bout the skinned cow an’ all, I says to myself ‘Now that’s almightyful neighborly o’ yuh to come out 0’ yore way to ae “Did you say some stranger told yuh about the cow?” interrupted Chuck, his brain busily dovetailing and joining frag- mentary facts. ‘‘Shore,’”’ nodded Racey, intent on the telling of his story. ‘Goin’ to Farewell, he said he was. An’ he couldn’t no more’n just stop he was in such a tearin’ hurry, an’ I didn’t think nothin’ of it, till this mornin’ when I run up on the same jigger camped over by Little Slue on the Lazy. In camp, mind yuh, an’ by the looks o’ the ashes he’d been there two nights. An’ him in a blazin’ hurry to get to Farewell. He didn’t know me neither, so I didn’t try for to rake up the acquaintance, though ’twas me he asked when he come to the 88 huntin’ for the manager. I sifted right along, but I says to myself, ‘Maybe now, old-timer, yuh know more ’bout that dead cow than yo’re tellin’.’ What do you guess?” “I gotit,’’ Chuck observed with emphasis. COMmiclsoo (©