Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 41: what you’re looking at

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

Longhorns “Guess I’ll stop at the Injun’s camp an’ get a string o’ jerky,” said Chuck, and swung up. The camp of Willie’s Old Brother-in-Law consisted of three lodges. For he was an In- dian of family and substance. The family consisted of one wife, her two grandmothers, his two grandmothers, five miscellaneous aunts, and his half-breed niece, the Rainbow. The substance was made up of a horse-band of eighty or a hundred ponies, many dressed skins, and two dozen dogs. The latter could not be termed an asset. There were no women in sight when the roan, desperately nervous by reason of the furiously yapping curs, tittupped in among the teepees at the mouth of Soogan Creek. The only individual in sight was Willie’s Old Brother-in-Law, and he was lying on his back in front of his lodge entrance. As Chuck stared one knee was suddenly drawn up and as suddenly lowered. The lips writhed apart, displaying the clenched white teeth. The Indian’s hand tore feebly at his buckskin-clad chest. Then suddenly Chuck saw that there was blood on the buckskin and blood on the Indian’s hands. Chuck dismounted, kicked-the dogs out of the way, and knelt beside the Indian. The latter had been shot twice—low in the shoulder and at the base of the neck. Even as Chuck bent over him the Indian lapsed into unconsciousness. The puncher tore off his neckerchief, made a compress and fastened it on the wound in the neck with a strap. He tore off the right sleeve of his shirt and served the shoulder wound front and back the same way. In the business he was greatly hampered by the circle of snarl- ing and barking dogs that surrounded him and the senseless redskin. ‘“Who did this, Chuck?” asked a voice at his elbow. He turned his head. Beside him knelt the Rainbow, the Indian’s half-breed niece. Slung across one shoulder, bandolier fash- ion, was a string of fish. So quietly had she come up that he had heard no sound. She repeated her question, her good-looking face hard with anger. “T dunno,” he replied. “I heard three shots up this way after I’d just forded the Lazy, an’ I come here for some jerky an’ found him this way. Could he ’a’ shot himself?” he added, doubtfully. “I don’t see no gun.” “There are no powder-marks on his cloth- 39 ing,’ said the Rainbow impatiently. “Help me carry him inside.”’ They carried him inside and laid him on a soft heap of bearskins two feet high. Then the Rainbow got to work. She took off Chuck’s compresses, washed the wounds, and put on fresh compresses made of her best dress-up petticoat and liberally daubed with a sweet-smelling sticky salve. “‘He’ll do, now,” she said, settling back on her heels, and regarding her handiwork with professional pride. ‘“‘Now I'll get you your jerky, Chuck.” A sunbeam, shining through a small hole in the sloping 'skin side of the lodge, made a round spot on the Indian’s forehead. Chuck perceived that the hole was not more than four feet from the ground. Unconsciously his eye traveled across the lodge. There, directly opposite the first hole, was a second, also small and round. Chuck touched the Rainbow on the shoulder. “‘Look,”’ he mumbled, with his mouth full of jerked beef, indicating the two holes. The Rainbow looked. “ it all!’ she exclaimed heartily. “Why didn’t I think of that? Three shots! Of course one of ’em missed!” The Rainbow was a handsome girl witha complexion no darker than that of the average brunette, her figure was very good, and she had spent six years in a convent, but in her language she was as unrestrained as in her life. She never acted like a true Indian. Her stoicism, among other ab- original attributes, had almost completely vanished. = Now she seized Chuck by the wrist and dragged him outside. ‘‘Here!’’ she cried, whipping up her fishing-pole and thrusting it into his hands. ‘‘Hold this in front of the bullet-hole, and I’ll go round to the back and look through the two holes and line up the pole.” The puncher did as he was told. The Rainbow, squinting through the two holes called to him to move the pole this way and that till holes and pole were in line. Then she ran into the lodge and looked through the second hole and past the fishing-pole. “He was in those box-elders on Soo- gan,’ Chuck heard her say in muffled tones. Chuck looked over his shoulder. The box-elders were not more than five hundred yards distant. The Rainbow ran out of the lodge, a rifle in the crook of her arm. She COmicloo C©