Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 121: what you’re looking at

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

Hidden ‘Trails sidewalk, and strike the street on the back of his neck. “Lookit, lookit!”? he urged delightedly, prodding Scotty. “Veah, that’s Lotta Wallace,” said Scotty, who was looking in the opposite direction. ‘‘Kind o’ fancy, ain’t she?” “Huh? Who?” puzzled Johnny, think- ing of the unwelcome customer. “She'll strike the light again in a shake,” Scotty continued to stare across the street, and Johnny, following with his eyes, got the range in time to see a woman step into the light from the doorway of the Golden Rule —a woman of dark and brilliant beauty, whose alluring black gown revealed and emphasized the charm of throat and shoulders, shoulders that should have been covered by the white shawl she trailed over a bare and perfect forearm. Johnny watched the slim figure shuttling through the light and darkness of the street till it disappeared within the entrance of the Broken Dollar. | “Lookout?” was his question. “Sometimes,” Scotty told him. ‘But mostly she spins the wheel. She’s Slay’s sister, Mis’ Lotta Wallace, an’ a widow— she says. Yuh can’t tell, it might be true. Me, I always like to look at her. She makes me think o’ when I was a bar’foot kid back East in MacPherson an’ the cir- cus come to town an’ for the first time in my life I seen a leopard. Yessir, it’s shore amazin’ how Mis’ Wallace reminds me 0’ that leopard.” “Did she come here with Slay?” “Yep—all the way from Cheecawgo— if yuh believe what they say. Me per- sonal I got a idea they’re a long time from ‘ Lake Michigan—a long, long time. They was nothin’ tenderfooty about either of ’em when they come. Yessir, a gent don’t learn to pull a gun like Slay can pull her, back East. It ain’t a city trick. An’ that Lotta gal was born on a hoss. | “Johnny, I seen her ride Dan Smith’s pitcher one day. Which that wall-eyed cayuse gave her all he knowed from sun- fishin’ to changin’ ends an’ djuh think she pulled leather? Nary a pull. She stuck to him like grim death to a dead nigger an’ loped him through town at the finish like nothin’ had happened. But just the same,” he added hastily, ‘‘she reminds me o’ that leopard.” “Veah,” said Johnny, thinking of some- 119 thing else. ‘An’ so Slay’s been here about two years, huh? Was it before or after he come that they had the first hold-up?” “Aw ——, yo’re ropin’ at the wrong cow, Johnny!” declared Scotty. ‘I don’t like Harry a-tall, but I’ll say he ain’t inthem hold-ups. Why, every single hold-up ’cep- tin’ this last one he’s been here in town. I know it, ’cause I thought o’ him that way once, an’ I took the trouble to find out. Whoever they are, Harry Slay ain’t one of ’em. Le’scross over, Johnny. Yo’re stay- in’ at the hotel with me tonight.” CHAPTER VIII DOROTHY BURR Eo BURR was lining pie-pans when Johnny Ramsay stuck his head through the kitchen doorway. ‘“‘You’re a nice one,” was her response to his greeting. “Here I waited up half the night expecting you’d come and tell me everything was all right, and you didn’t. And I had to hear it all from Mis’ Mace this morning. Lot of consideration you have for your friends, I must say.” She stared at him with resentful eyes. “But, ma’am,” he protested, reddening slightly at her naive: announcement, “‘it was late when we rode in—almost mid- night.” “T sat up till one.” “Tf I'd only knowed! I done what I thought was best. I just brought yore hoss back. He’s in the cor- ral now. I’m shore obliged to yuh for lendin’ him to me, an’ for takin’ care 0’ mine for me. Which that li’l red hoss was shore dead-beat.”’ “Dead-beat!”’? She smiled whimsically at the recollection. ‘I guess he was. The poor chap tried to lie down twice between Main Street and here. He’s all right now. He was trying to kick Twinkles when I watered them this morning.” Dorothy pushed back a falling lock of brown hair with a floury hand, and reached for the bowl of filling. She had a dab of flour on the bridge of her pretty nose, her waist was open at the neck, and her rolled- up sleeves made manifest the dimples in her attractive elbows. She looked a very delectable young person, as she sat there, her smooth cheeks pink with the heat of the kitchen, COnniclooo® SS (C@) But not knowin’, ©