Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 116: what you’re looking at

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

Pe s' \ 1) ny, \3 \ \\ \ ~ \ Ag ee tom A Vey Za Cf fy AFIVE-PART STORY , Part2 Sy Wilkam Patterson White HiddenTrails Ly, “gle ui - a As fie aoa oe oc ‘o. SSS Author of “Paradise Bend,’’ “Longhorns,” etc. The first part of the story briefly retold in story form N THE longhorn country, when one gentleman bestows baneful glances upon another, it be- hooves the innocent bystander to be vigilant. So when Johnny Ramsay, of the Cross-in-a-box, observed a red-headed individual glance sourly in through the door of the Happy Heart Saloon at a brown-bearded stranger drinking at the bar, he sat upright. A few minutes later the red-head entered and sat in at a game of poker. One of the players being forced to retire, the red- head invited Brownbeard to take the empty place. Brownbeard would rather not. Red-head insisted and insinuated. Brownbeard strode to the table and sat down. The deal passed around the table and came to Brownbeard. As he flipped the first card to the red-head, the latter’s gun flashed while he sent the cards flying. Brownbeard sank in a heap. ‘“‘He tried to skin us, the ——tinhorn! Didyasee him deal from the bottom of the deck?” exclaimed the red-head indignantly. No one had—but no one could prove otherwise. “Slim”? Berdan, the town marshal, settled the case quickly. “Stranger,” said he, “yuh got twenty minutes to pull yore freight out o’ Farewell, or we'll hang yuh some.” Before the body was buried Jake Rule, Sheriff of Fort Creek County, arrived and identified the dead man as Mat Neville, a Wells-Fargo detective, a man who had never been known to cheat in his life. REAK and jangle! Hoofbeat and bump! The through stage from Paradise Bend to Marys- ville pulled in with the guard killed and ‘‘Whisky” Jim, the driver, creased on the head. ‘“Road-agents again,’ he explained simply. This was the tenth time he had been stopped. An hour later Bill Stahl, Sheriff of Sunset County, arrived and posted notices to the effect that the Territory would pay one thousand dollars apiece for the delivery, dead or alive, of the bandits who were operating in Sunset County. The Wells- Fargo Company duplicated the offer. At Sheriff Rule’s home, Johnny interviewed both Rule and Sheriff Stahl, but learned nothing more of the road-agents. ‘““Yeah, she sounds a heap interestin’. I guess I'll just go after that reward,” he concluded. Then entered smilingly Racey Dawson and Tele- scope Laguerre. ‘We heard yuh through the window,” they an- nounced, ‘‘an’ we decided to go with yuh, so we can sort o’ look after yuh an’ horn in on the two thou- sand wheels a bandit.” So they laid their plans. The sheriffs were to tell nothing of the scheme to any one, but just to greet the three casually as before. Two of the trio were to secure jobs as stray men, probably from ‘Scotty’? Mackenzie, of the Flying-M; the third was to work at the stage depot. Already they were counting the reward-money. Two days later the three met again and Johnny Ramsay took the road to Paradise Bend, the others to follow at intervals. As he was picking his way along a difficult trail three mornings later, three shots cracked ahead of him. Where the trail turned into a grove of cotton- woods he found their cause—two dead men in a buckboard, and a dead horse. In the distance three riders were rapidly fording astream, Johnny aimed and fired, but the horses, two chestnuts and a black- tail dun, were already out of range. The murdered men he found had been robbed. Just as Johnny discovered the place from which they had been ambushed, hoofbeats sounded on the II4 IElLOOOKKS (C@