Adventure Magazine Cover — page 95: what you’re looking at

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

Oh, Lordy, Lordy! one, “how you and Susy musta looked when the chair busted.”’ “Shut up!” says Andy, flushing red as paint, and then the young one near laughed his fool head off and pulled his freight. I seen Thompson running to head off the young one at the lower gate, but I didn’t let on. Pretty soon Andy slid over to me. ‘““Susy’s coming here next week,’ says Andy, shaking the letter. ‘She says if I won’t come to see her, she’ll come to see me. What kind o’ girl is she, pursuing a gent thisaway? Where’s her pride? Why can’t she take a hint? Why can’t she lemme alone? Coming here! Her and Ole!” “And maybe Faithful Fido,’ I chipped in, but he never noticed. “Lookit, Bill,” he wades on breathless, “you gotta help me. You're the only friend I got in this nest o’ lunatics. They all think it’s funny. Funny! My Gawd, them jacks would laugh at a lynchin’! it all, I don’t wanna leave, but I gotta if she’s coming here. I gotta. And there’s my cattle and my land. I[’ll have to let 7em go. I'll lose money, Bill, see? Tell you what now, s’pose you ride over there and tell her I’ve changed my mind and I wouldn’t marry her on a bet. That oughta fix her.”’ “Tt oughta fix me, too,” I says. ‘‘What Ole might miss with his Winchester that dog won’t overlook. And there’s Susy herself. If she’d ever lay a finger on me in anger just once, I'll gamble Id lose a year’s growth. You're sort o’ light in the heft, Andy, but she shook you that time like you was even lighter. Nawsir, Andy old settler, going over and breaking the bad news to Susy and her parent ain’t my idea of a pastime.” ; And that’s that, as the man says. Andy sags off slack and listless, a-sucking his lower lip mighty gloomersome. In the evening come supper, the boys was all talking about furniture and courtship. Was sofys stronger than chairs? Would a chair stand a overload? Should a gent hold a lady on his left knee or his right or both? Thompson says that all depends on the lady, and Andy lays down his knife and fork. “Tom,” says Andy, cold as a froze steer, “did Riley’s kid say anything about me?” “IT didn’t say so,” answers back Thomp- son, “but you can put down a bet Ole Svenson has been saying something about ee to Riley’s kid.” SI I dunno how Andy crossed the table, but he’s on top of Thompson anyways quicker than he jumped Johnny. Thomp- son had the luck to juke Andy’s first swing, and Andy’s knuckles skimmed past and nudged Sam Bleeker square on the kisser. So-it’s two to one, with Andy taking the short end and using everything from his feet to the crockery. Of course the folks most concerned, be- ing hurried thataway, hadn’t time to aim careful, and when the sugar-bowl shaved my ear I went outside.’ I think there was four of us tried to get out the door simul- taneous, but I know I was winner. “Lookit!”’ screeches Simmsy, combing condensed milk out of his whiskers. ““Lookit!”’ You’ve guessed it. There’s Susy and Ole in a buckboard. She’s.a week ahead of time. ‘“‘Where’s Andy at?” she wants to know. I didn’t need to answer that question cause just then him and the other two pin- wheeled out the door in a tangle. For all she was fat Susy could move quick. In no time she was off the buckboard and had Thompson by the hair. The riot calmed down abrupt. Sam Bleeker and Thompson crawled back into the bunk-house, and Susy hugged Andy till his ribs cracked. “T ban come take you home mit me,” she says. “I tank we skoll marry next veek.” “Lemme change my clo’es,” begs Andy, who’d lost most of his shirt. “Better hurry,’ advises Ole, and he snaked out that .45 Winchester from under the seat and laid it across his knees. “Tl be right back,” promises Andy, and he scrambles into the bunk-house imme- diate. I walked round the bunk-house and, sure enough, he was crawling through a back window. “Bill,” he whispers, pointing to the cot- tonwoods lining the creek, “I can make it to the creek if you'll keep Susy and Ole from getting suspicious. They didn’t fetch the dog along, so I’ll be safe hiding out by the flat rock in the box-elders, and by and by you come tell me what’s happened and we'll figger out what I better do next.” I thought to myself he wouldn’t do much figgering, but right then didn’t seem the proper time to tell him that, so I went back round the house again. I talked fast and easy, and Susy didn’t get Gomicbooks.co im