Adventure Magazine Cover — page 76: what you’re looking at

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

62 He was sunburnt and freckled, and his hair was of the yellowish-white color that is the result of living in the open without a hat. Fiddlin’ Jim did not strive to connect the presence of the boy with the money he had just uncovered. He rose, went to the door and closed it, took off his old, wrinkled, moth-eaten coat, returned to the fire and sat down. “Shed them wet clo’es, son,’’ he drawled good-naturedly, ‘‘and put on this whilst ye’re a waitin’ fo’ ye clo’es to dry.” He held the coat out to the fire to warm it. The boy eyed him stolidly and silently for a long minute; then he turned his back to Jim Braden, unbuttoned a few buttons and let his faded waist and short jeans trousers fall to the floor. He looked a slim, beautiful, pale bronze statue of enviable youth. Jim Braden draped the little figure with his coat, turned its face toward him and buttoned the garment all the way. The boy smiled faintly in his gratitude to the good Samari- tan, spread his wet clothing out in order that it would dry quicker and sat down on the hearth. “Y’m much obleeged to ye, shore,’ he said finally. “I got lost in the starm and I seed the light. I hope ye don’t mind it about me a comin’ in, mister.”’ “Sartinly not,” declared Fiddlin’ Jim. “Tt ain’t my cabin, nohow. It ain’t no- body’s in pa’tickler, I reckon. I jest stopped in here a hour or soago. I’m plum’ glad to see ye, son. I was mighty lonesome! Most o’ folks ’pears to be afeard 0’ me ’cause I’ve been to the penitenchy. I never killed nobody, son, honest I never. I got ketched in a sort o’ net, son. I stayed fo’ twelve years. The gov’nor, he pardoned me or J might ha’ had to stay fo’ life, ef I'd ha’ lived that long.” “T’m sorry fo’ ye, mister,”’ said the Jad. “Thankee! But I shore l’arned somethin’ in the penitenchy; I made the most of it, shore,” Fiddlin’ Jim continued with unusual garrulousness. ‘“The chaplain—it was him, I reckon, that reelly got the gov’nor to par- don me—the chaplain, he said I’d l’arned to look up, fo’ one thing.”’ “Look up?” wondered the lad, drawing the coat closer about his bare legs. “How do ye mean, look up?” “Why, to see where the acorns comes from,” laughed Fiddlin’ Jim, “acorns, the manna o’ the hawg! A hawg never looks up, son; it hunts fo’ acorns under a syca- Adventure more tree or a poplar tree the same as it does under a oak. A hawg don’t look up to see the sun shine, neither. Also, I l’arned to be glad I’m a-livin’. New gold money ain’t any brighter’n life is to me, wi’ all I’ve bore. I shorely don’t know why I’m a talkin’ thisaway to you, son. I reckon I was so full of it, I jest had to say it. Id ha’ said it to myself, mebbe, ef you hadn’t ha’ come in to hear it. “Now s’posen ye tells me a little about yeself, son, eh? I like ye, m’boy; somehow ye ‘minds me o’ somebody I’ve knowed somewhere, sometime. Well, come along wi ye tale, buddy-boy; I’m a listenin’. Tell me whose boy ye are and would ye ruther be a senator, a congressman, or a good fiddler when ye’ve growed up to be a manp”’ The lad looked at Braden solemnly. “T’d ruther be,” he said quite earnestly, “‘a good fiddler, and I’m Lot Hupple’s boy.” Fiddlin’ Jim’s face showed a big, new interest. “The one,” he asked, “which used to be called “Bad Lot?’ Which used to wear ring- lets on his forrard jest to make people laugh at him so’s he could pick a quick fight the easier? Big as a skinned hoss and not afeard o’ the devil on Friday?” “That’s him,” said Lot Hupple’s boy. “He still wears them ringlets and he still fights, and they still calls him ‘Bad Lot.’ I reckon he is a bad lot! The’ ain’t nobody that can whip him, everybody says. He whipped a whole loggin’ outfit oncet—sup’- rintendent and all. My name is ‘Little Jim’ Braden.” “Little Jim Braden!” exploded big Jim Braden. ‘“What—how—how come it Lot named ye that, son?”’ “Dunno ’zackly. But I think he used to have a friend named Jim Braden, mebbe. What’s yore name, mister?” “Mie?” - Fiddlin’ Jim was again staring at a picture in the glowing coals. He saw the slender, barefooted young woman in calico; he saw himself; he saw Lot Hupple, his friend; and he saw Dana, the young woman, turn from Hupple and go with him. Following this, there came the officers, the accusation, trial by judge and jury, and, finally, imprison- ment—all within a few months after his marriage to Dana. “My name,” he drawled absently, “‘is jest Jim, Fiddlin’ Jim.” Then he asked: “What Gomichbooks. co