Adventure Magazine Cover — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

Born to be Hanged, But— 15 sight, the fingers above the edge of the table—but the thumbs were not. He hesitated to see what was happening, then shot—too late. When Delaney and some of the people in the saloon came on the bound, they found two men facing my gun with hands lifted. The man called Smith lay crumpled and limp on the floor, face down—in a witch’s mirror of blood. He was dead. — ee] | WAS cornered. The room had no windows and but one door. It was a small room, a poker room, and the one door was filled. Delaney stood In it, a gun in either hand and behind him rank on rank of men—risking their lives for the chance to crane a neck over the shoulder of the fellow in front. “Spike,” I said, “you’ve trapped me. Shoot if you want to commit suicide.” He might have been able to ki me—but not before a bullet would have been on its way toward him. He started to speak, but I cut him short. There was no time to lose. Quickly, sharply, I told him that if he did not want to commit suicide to turn around, face the crowd with leveled guns and clear a way for me, for I was going to follow him with a gun pressed against the small of his back. I let it be known that if anybody made a move at me, I would get him, Delaney, first. Spike Delaney turned his back and filled the door, and he put a lot of feeling into the words that he spoke to the crowd. But there would be three men behind my back the moment my face was turned. I knew they were armed—or at least I never found out that they were not. There was no time to search. “Down on your knees and face that way,” I said, indicating the wall. They went down and grotesquely as- sumed an attitude of prayer. Perhaps they were praying, as cowards do. Then I realized that after I took five steps out into the saloon I would have even more men behind me, some of whom would not be cowards. “Step slow, Spike, and step carefully,” I said and pressed my shoulders against his own. One gun, which I had recovered from smith, I poked against Delaney’s side; with the other I kept the people through whom we passed, not covered exactly, but bluffed. Spike was roaring right and left. “Can’t you see he’ll kill me if you don’t get out of the way—get, you ie Spike was eloquent when aroused, but his words were not choice. People in that part of the town were used to obeying Spike De- laney; and, too, none of those around about appeared to be friends of Smith’s—and it is only the police who go out of their way to fight with the victor of a duel. So we got through to the alley door safely enough. “God, that was a clever stunt!” said Spike when we had cleared the crowd. “Drop those guns. Face about.” He did. “I never thought you would double-cross me,” I said. “T’d ’a’ shot quick,” he said. “You’d better go through. Keep up the bluff— - tell me to beat it back toward the bar!” It dawned on me that Spike Delaney did not know that he lured me into a trap by asking me to take the place of his house- man in that poker game, and I understood why with so much alacrity he had cleared the way through the crowd for me: he was gladly helping me make a getaway. There was no time to parley so I sent him toward the bar and sprang through the alleyway door and was gone. Let some one who knows explain why it is that a gambler always carries all the money that he has. I do not know. I only know that they all do it, and one of the things I was long in getting used to was a checking account. My bank was my inside vest pocket. If I happened to be pretty well capitalized, I used both vest pockets and the hip. All the money that I had was on me; and when one is departing in a hurry that is the main thing—money. I knew that I had to keep out of sight for a while. ‘The three witnesses had been there ready to have sworn that Smith murdered me in self-defense; and they would as readily declare that I had shot him when he wasn’t looking. Such evidence would have convicted a more innocent man than myself, a man with less powerful enmity directed at him from James Thrope. Delaney’s friendship was valuable, but he could not without trouble for himself have bucked a combination such as I was up against. Besides, his regard for me was one only of friendship; his relation with Thrope and the police and judges was one of business. Eomicbooks.co