Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 119: what you’re looking at

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

Creepin’ Tintypes the jail, where my cinch slid down around the bronc’s hind legs and I got kicked in the belly with both hind feet. Then the bronc whirled sideways, and slammed Dirty against the corner of the building. He just lets loose and drops like a suit of clothes, while the bronc whistles again and hits for the open country. ‘I ain’t got no ambition left, but I’ve got sense enough to throw the saddle and Dirty Shirt Jones inside the jail, and then fall in after him. I kicked the door shut, but Piperock cometh not. There ain’t no sign of pursuit. Pretty soon Dirty’s lips open and he begins singing: ‘— le-e-e-ft up your voice and see-e-e- e-ng. Ho-o-0-0-0-sa-a-na-a “Shut up!” I croaks. yet.” 9 “Vou ain’t dead— HE SETS up and licks his lips while he feels of his head. “What did yuh say?” he asks, weak-like. ~ “T said, you ain’t dead.”’ “Feller, there’s a lot of things that you don’t know. Where are we?” “In the jail.” “Thank the Lord! This is better than I expected. What are we charged with?” “How much did yuh get in the bank?” ‘There wasn’t anybody there,” he wails. “I left one boot. It hung in the cashier’s window and I didn’t have time to get it loose. How did we get here?”’ I told him all I knew about it, and he marvels exceedingly. “‘We obtained money under false pre- tenses, Ike,” says he. ‘‘We agreed to rob a bank and there wasn’t nobody to hold up.” : ‘‘He agreed to plant a couple of horses for us,” says I, “and he either has a danged poor idea of what a feller rides to a bank-robbery or we picked the wrong steeds.”’ “‘Prognostications don’t alleviate the crack in my head,” says Dirty. ‘‘’Pears to me that my brain is runnin’ out.”’ “Cast aside all fear,” says I. ‘You never could hit that hard. I’ve got a splintered wish-bone and my stummick has _ been turned wrong side out. What will we do next, Dirty?” “Get away from here,” says Dirty, which shows that his brains ain’t leaking to no great extent. “How?” I asks. ‘‘Looks to me like this 109 quiet little jail i is about the only safe place for me and you.” “Well, why in don’ t somebody come along and chide us?” complains Dirty, nervous-like. ‘It ain’t like Piperock to do things like this, Ike. Why don’t ee kill us and have it over with?”’ ‘“‘Want to die, feller?’ I asks. ‘‘Pinin’ away for death, are yuh?” — ‘No, I ain’t, Ike, but if I’ve got to die— hurrah for ! -Who’s afraid of fire?’ “Shall we sneak back to the shack and get our disguises, Dirty?” “Not me! If I’m goin’ to die, good. Tl die as Dirty Shirt Jones, not as a buzzard- headed bug-hunter who is lookin’ for some- thin’ that crawled away and died a million years ago.” “Well, what yuh goin’ to do, Dirty? Figure a little, can’t yuh?” “Figgers be ——! I’m to campright here until dark, or until some figger of vengeance cometh along and herds me hence. Sabe? Give yourself up, go out and get shot, choke yourself to death with your own fair hands —do what you think best, Ike, but old man Jones’ little fair-haired child is goin’ inside a nice cool cell and sleep off a headache.” “T can’t do nothin’ but foller yuh,” says I, sad-like. “Your attachment for me is sweet,” says he. ‘I’m all choked up with e-motion, and if I didn’t feel so bad I would ery.” Sometimes I wonder who left that quart of hooch under that bunk. We moved the bunk over, so nobody could see us from the sheriff’s ‘office, and there she stood, brave and bold. Me and Dirty surrounds it, in- hales the odors of Araby, originated in Kentucky and fixed with equal parts of alkali water, copperas, chewing-tobacco and coal-oil, for the consumption of Pipe- rock’s leading citizens. Then we humps up on the bunk and wishes each other a great deal of pleasure m the future. I reckon we done a lot of wishin’. JI. dreamed of a whole danged string of wishes hanging on a line like laun- dry out to dry, and when I woke it was dark. Dirty Shirt sounds like a dry saw going through a greasewood butt. I’m about to wake him up, when I hears voices. I jabs my heel into Dirty’s shins, and he ‘sets up like one of them mechanical toys. “Yeah, and I hope yuh gets ninety-nine years and the balance of your life,’ we hears Scenery Sims saying in his rusty COmicloo \ ) CO