Adventure Magazine Cover — page 109: what you’re looking at

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

To Make It Self-Defense ranching and grazing, for homesteading. You know that. They think the cattlemen were to blame.” “Ves, but——”’ ‘“‘No buts about it, Letare. If you shoot Bob Alvorn, you'll hang, if I’m prosecutor. Don’t forget that. We aren’t going to have this country all shot up by a lot of murder- ing old-timers. We can’t afford it. Why, nobody is going to come out here, to settle down, if you can go in and shoot anybody that takes land legally, when you’re hold- ing it, grazing it, and grabbing it. You know that, don’t you?” “Yes, I know—but if I kill him in self- defense?” “You'll prove it! If it isn’t on Bison street, with a crowd looking on, every one seeing you in danger of your life, you'll hang. That’sall. The circumstantial evi- dence that you’ve killed him will grow stronger, the further back you doit. Under- stand?” ‘But on Bison street—he draws first, he starts to kill me?” “Oh, then the grand jury, over my de- mand, will likely enough exonerate you!”’ Prosecutor Habrey laughed. Jet Letare rode away in his big automo- bile. A little smile flickered on his lips. He felt that he needed a little excitement. In his day, he had ridden alone; he could do it again; he knew the Bad Lands as they feel when a scouter listens beside a bit of a chip fire, when the coyotes howl in the hills, their voices making echoes among the sliding faces of the buttes. A week later he rode away to the train, a score of people seeing him take his depar- ture. A week later, the sheriff and three deputies were at his ranch, and talked half the night with the cowboys. They were all in the big bunk room. In the morning, eleven of Bob Alvorn’s cattle were lying in their pasture, their throats cut, their hides cut to ribbons, and their meat slashed be- yond use. , Alvern was hit a body blow by that trick. The sheriff and deputies rode over to see what had been done. ‘There were witnesses that not one of Letare’s men had beenabroad that night. Letare was registered in a hotel in St. Louis. He returned a week later. When he stopped in Corbeau, the prosecut- ing attorney looked him in the eye and said— ; “You son of a gun!” Letare began to entertain sportsmen, hunters from down east who enjoyed killing prairie chickens and shooting wild fowl in the sloughs, of which there were a few in the Bad Lands bottoms in old stream beds. Five of these perfectly reputable people were ready to swear that it was impossible for any of the Letare outfit to have blown up the west end of Alvorn’s sod-house. Dynamite did it—but by a freak, left one small room of the four the homesteader had put into the building. Ten pounds of nails in the old prairie school trail up the basin of Curly Grass was only a little thing, but it ruined four tires on the flivver that Bob Alvorn drove. He picked up a hundred of the wire stubs, and drove to Corbeau to show Attorney Habrey what had happened. “You know what I’m getting,’’ Alvorn said. ‘Eleven head killed, my house dyna- mited, and now this trick.”’ “I’ve heard about it,’”’ Habrey admitted. ‘‘Want to swear out a warrant?” “T have no evidence. I came here to tell you I want protection. You call the sheriff!” Habrey hesitated. Then, without a word he called Sheriff Darnell, who came right over from the jail. To him Alvorn recited his list of misfortunes. ‘‘Sheriff,”’ Alvorn said, “I want protec- tion. I am peaceable. My house was blown up when I was with my wife here in town.”’ | “T’ll arrest any man in the world, if there’s a warrant out for him,” the sheriff declared, virtuously. “But you won’t protect a homesteader who’s being blown, butchered, and nagged out of house and—and homestead?” Alvorn asked. ‘‘What can I do?” ‘“You are the sheriff, and this man is the prosecuting attorney,’ Alvorn said slowly. ‘““You were elected to protect people in this county from rascals. I’m square. -I never stole a head of cattle to sell to a railroad contractor, never killed a man to get his lands, never sucked around the politicians to find protection—if I did meanness. I’ve brought here a written request, stating the facts to you two men. It’s up to you to give me protection.”’ “What if we don’t—I mean can’t?” the attorney demanded quickly. “T think you’d better—or resign, and give MICLOOOK 99 C©@