Adventure Magazine Cover — page 93: what you’re looking at

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

Oh, Lordy, Lordy! “T’m drifting out of here soon’s they get some harder asleep,” he explains, pulling off his boots slow and gentle. “Yeah,” I says, “I would.” “What makes your voice sound so funny?” he wants to know, suspicious as a weasel. : “Oh, nothing,” I told him, turning over on my stomach so’s he couldn’t see my face, *cause the moonlight through the window was light as a lamp, and him talking so confident of going away was surely a joke. I'd looked out the window before I went to bed, and he hadn’t—yet. Andy reached out the makings and smoked lugubrious for a half-hour. Then he picked up his boots and tiptoed to the window. I watched him swing one leg over the sill, and I watched him pull it back. ‘“What’s the matter?” I asks him. “Nothing,” he whispers without turning round. “Good doggie,’ he goes on, flapping a friendly hand outdoors. “Good feller.”’ I got up and-looked over his shoulder. “*T see the dog’s still there,” I says casual. ‘IT noticed him just before I went to bed.” Andy grunted and looked anxious at the animal. It ain’t much smaller than a good- sized calf, and it’s unfolded every tooth in its head and growling without a break. “Didn’t you know Ole had a dog?” I asks Andy. ‘He keeps it chained out in the kennel back of the corral as a rule. He must have turned it loose tonight for some reason.” “You think so?” says Andy. ‘‘You’re real bright for a young fellow. Good dog- gie!’”’? He switches to the animal and started to crawl out the window again. ““R-r-r-r-uff!”’ roars the good doggie and sprung at the window. - Andy fell back inside and cussed, so I turned in—to sleep this trip. I woke up sudden to see Andy sliding out the window slow and cautious. She was two hours later by the moonlight on the floor, and I got up and went to the window. I watched Andy, his boots in his hand, a tiptoein’ for the corral. The good doggie was nowhere in sight, you better believe, and the corral was only fifty yards away. Andy was half-way to the bars when there’s a howl at the back of the house and a black streak shot round the corner and took after Andy. Andy didn’t dally. He dropped his boots and ran like a jack-rabbit. But for all his 79 head start he only reached the corral a nose to the good. Andy didn’t climb the gate. He just sort of throwed himself at it, and before you could wink he’s jack-knifed over aad up and was roosting all safe on top the posts. And that dog was capering round below a-uttering the most frightful roars I ever heard. Andy was sure stuck, because Ole had built his corral as stingy as possible, and the bars were so wide apart the dog could sift through most anywheres he wanted. I saw him do it in seven different places just while I stood there. I looked for Ole and Susy to wake up and rescue the rooster, but they didn’t—rescue him I mean. Ole woke up all right, ’cause I heard a snicker two windows down. It wasn’t my place, me being a guest and all, to go calling off no dog as big as a calf, even to please a friend. Nawsir! I went back to bed, and the last I heard before I fell asleep was Andy calling the dog names and the dog a-worrying and a-teasing Andy’s boots. all to little flinders. | Next morning I was up in time to see Susy dragging the dog to his kennel and Andy climbing down mighty stiff and slow and looking after the dog every move he makes. “Das night air ban bad for folks,” says Susy at breakfast, spading fried mush out of the pan. ‘‘Mabbe you catch cold, huh, Andy?” = But Andy he hadn’t caught cold, only splinter which made him sit sideways, and he scraped up a nervous smile to go with his, “No, Susy,” that would have fooled most anybody. When she told him to come see her soon, his face got as long as a well-rope. “I'd like to, Susy, honest,’ he says. “T’m gonna miss you like my right eye, but we're so busy shipping feeders just now I don’t see how I can manage it right soon. You can see how it is, Susy.” “T tank more better you come,” she re- peats. “T tank so, too,” says Ole, and he wiped his mouth on his sleeve, got up from the’ table,-reached a .45 Winchester off the hooks behind the stove and begun to clean it. AE RIDING away from Ole’s place, tera Andy was blue and silent a lot. =a Being in his socks thataway—for them boots wasn’t worth saving for patches when the dog had finished with ’em—and GEomicbooks.co (@)