Adventure Magazine Cover — page 64: what you’re looking at

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50 and drink and gorge until they lay cramped - and vomiting upon the sands. These were - not true men of the desert. They had lived to grow fat from the labor of others. Four days later—the seVenth from El Oro —their search led up a*small cafion, one of hundreds that came down out of the Jackear Mountains. Following this, they reached a blind wall, a sheer white cliff jut- ting abruptly from the cafion floor. Carver eyed Moore calculatingly. “This is the cliff Henry Blane told us about,” he said. “Sure is,” replied Moore, his hand upon the butt of his heavy six-shooter. “Go ahead.” “What about him?” Spade. Moore indifferently regarded the swollen face and dull eyes of the once héarty lead- ing citizen of Oro Gulch. Spade was be yond hope of being able to appreciate the great consequences of the moment. Moore’s Carver indicated — eyes roved over the emaciated, puffed figure and he scratched the back of his hand reflectively. “He’s all in,” he remarked lightly ‘“Let’s leave him here.” _ “All right,” agreed Carver. “Fifty-fifty?” “Sure, fifty-fifty. Just right!” ‘Half a million,” gloated Carver. goin’ up.” He started to climb. “Not too far ahead of me, you ain’t,” SMarled Moore painfully dragging ‘his injured foot into step. “T’ll set the pace, pardner; you can go ahead, but see to it you don’t go too fast. We're close to taw “T’m an’ I don’t stand for no monkeyin’.. ’m goin’ to see that my name goes on that ‘discovery notice whether we either one of us ever makes it back to El Oro or not, sabe?” Za WORDLESSLY they climbed over 7 the cliff. Then for a quarter mile “ they followed the sand wash that, during the rainy season, poured its flood over the break behind them. Rounding one of the countless crooks, they came in sight of an open glade with a sprifig and a grassy spot about it. Two burros nodding under the thick mesquite put their ears forward in- quisitively. “Henrys burros,’ exulted Carver. ‘We're in the right place. Henry left his jacks at the spring. “Tis only a step to the big find.” Adventure : “Not so fast, there,”’ warned Moore. “Y’m dry. That spring looks like a million dollars to me. I’m goin’ to drink first.” “Yis, an’ me, too. Shure I’m as dhry as a conthribution box, almost. Il drink wid ye.” “But we ain’t goin’ to run for it.” They approached the spring and, flat on their bellies, they drank of the cool trickle. Presently Moore raised his head and peered intently at a reflection in the water. What he saw caused him to look about, and there, on the side of the huge rock that over- shadowed and was reflected by the spring, appeared in the big, boyish letters they had learned to know so well: Be not Deceived; God is not Mocked. A few steps farther up the wash, where the cold ashes of a day-old camp-fire spread white against the smoke-blackened base, a great boulder bore the holy legend: God giveth Power to the Faint. To them that Have No Might, He increaseth strength. Isa. 40. In silence the two men stared at each other. Moore broke the spell. “Tf he’s up there Ill shoot him like killin’ sheep,” he whispered hoarsely, jerking his head in the direction of the ledge. Carver nodded approvingly. In silence they arose, their six-shooters naked in their hands, and stole up the wash to where a ledge of inestimable richness cut across the rock-ribbed canon, its gleam- ing content seemingly mocking them in their. utter powerlessness, for their quarry was not there. Minutely they scanned all that was visible of the place. The rock monuments and discovery stake placed by Henry Blane were in view to the right, and to the left were the neatly erected monu- ments of another locator. On the huge, rounded boulders about the ~ discovery stake were printed righteous sentences: Thou art my Hope. Exalt ye the Lord. Carver stooped to pr a nugget from the rich vein. “Goin’ to take a sackful?’ inquired Moore, himself breaking off a huge chunk with a stone. “Sack, nothin’, exploded Carver. “I got all I c’n do to get back to Oro. I’m out o’ grub, almost.” Regretfully he gazed GEomichbooks: co