Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 136: what you’re looking at

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

134 ‘‘___”” was Racey’s answer. “Lute Holloway’s downed and Slim Berdan’s shot through both legs an’ his shoulder. ” “Ts that why se “You wait. Lemme tell it my own way, will yuh?” “Shore, but yore way is such a —— funny way, Racey. Y’ always travel ten mile to go two.” ‘“‘Aw, shut up, I’m travelin’ straight now. An’ speakin’ o’ travelin’! Say, if you’d done the ridin’ I been doin’ these last three days you’d cash, yuh hear me talkin’. My hoss is down to a whisper an’ I don’t feel like much more’n a short stutter myself. Say ” ‘“‘There yuh go, a-whirlin’ that wide loop! I’m shore sorry to hear yo’re tired. I’d cry for yuh if I could. But I don’t see why yuh didn’t wait till it was time to start like we planned. The stage’d brought the news about Holloway an’ Slim.” “Gimme a chance, gimme a chance! My Gawd, yuh want the whole thing all at once. You lemme alone—who’s talkin’ loud? I ain’t. Yo’re doin’ the bellerin’. Well, Telescope he sifted out o’ town four days ago in the mornin’. I stayed. That ‘night Bill Lainey an’ me are in the Blue ‘Pigeon about one o’clock listenin’ to Mike Flynn gas about them South Sea Islands o’ his, when Bangety-Bang! goes a rifle down street a ways. Bangety-Bang! goes an- other, then a couple more mixes in, an’ they’s a whole hatful o’ noise. The South Sea Islands stopped immediate, an’ we sits down on the floor where the counter’s thickest. An’ a good thing we did. A 40-65 comes in a window, grooves the counter over my head, busts a can 0’ peaches on the opposite shelf an’ sticks in the wall. An’——” ““A 40-65, yuh say?” “Shore, a 40-65. Lemme tell it, lemme tell it—huh? O’ course I know. Mike he dug the lead out o’ the wood later an’ he told me. Well, that one bullet was all that come our way. They’s only a few shots, not more’n thirty at the outside, then tuckety-iuck, tuckety-tuck up the street come four jiggers a-ridin’ an’ a-quirtin’ an’ a-spurrin’ like they hadn’t a minute to live. They wasn’t out o’ town before they’s a pile o’ hollerin’ down in front o’ Slim Ber- dan’s house. The three of us goes down, an’ they’s the two Holland boys carryin’ Slim Berdan, bleedin’ like a stuck steer, Adventure into his house. Across the sidewalk Lute Holloway’s lyin’ on his face. They’s five holes in Lute an’ one o’ them holes is in his heart.” “As good a deputy as they ever was in Fort Creek County, Lute was,” put in Johnny. “Shore. Jake Rule was worse’n wild. Well, what with Lute downed an’ Slim shot up, they’s all kinds o’ friskin’ ’round, but we got started in maybe fifteen minutes— Jake Rule, Kyle, his. other deputy; yores truly, ‘Two Spot’ Riley, ‘Piney’ Jackson, maybe they’s twenty-five of us—an’ we hit the breeze. We knowed they’d headed north on the Bend trail an’ that’s all we did know.” “Didn’t nobody see ’em close?” “Slim did, but she was too dark to see much. They was all on their hosses, any- how.” : “What did they try to do—rob the ex- press office?” “They did not. They come in to get Slim, an’ Holloway, ’cause he lived with Slim, got into the muss.” “Howdja know?” “Why, they all four come a-gallopin’ up to Slim’s house, an’ one of ’em rides up on the sidewalk an’ hammers on Slim’s door, an’ yells for Slim to come out quick, he’s wanted. Slim he says he thought right away they was a fraycas in town, so him an’ Holloway jumps out o’ bed an’ runs for the door. Lute reaches the door first an’ runs out. They got him instanter before he can even pull. Slim had time to pull all right an’ flip the hammer twice before they shot the gun out of his hand and throwed three bullets into him _ other places.” “Then what?” “We rode after them killers like I said, an’ it’s night an’ all an’ we over-rode their tracks. So we had to work back an’ when it come daylight we found where they’d left the trail just south o’ Bear Mountain an’ headed northwest. That settled it for Jake Rule. Northwest meant them killers couldn’t be bound nowhere else but the Emigrant Hills on the Dogsoldier. So we spraddled right along, losin’ the trail an’ findin’ her again, an’ bimbey we lost her good an’ proper like I knowed we would in a creek. “Shore, they rode the water like ducks, an’ we never did pick up the trail again. GomiiGcsvoo SoG)