Adventure Magazine Cover — page 110: what you’re looking at

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

TOO somebody else a chance,” Alvorn said, as he walked away. The two gazed after him. Their faces were flushed. The prosecuting attorney clicked his teeth: “That —— Letare’s hog-tied everything with his alibis, but he’s going too far. Go tell him, Darnell, he’s rushing things too fast!” The sheriff exclaimed— “Go tell him yourself!” “T don’t have to—but you do!” ey, IT WAS six months before any- AS } thing else happened. Then one = night as Alvorn rode across the tim- ber-bridge over the Stone-wall fork of the main highway, the whole thing collapsed. The automobile was smashed. Alvorn broke his leg. Mrs. Alvorn escaped without injury. Timbers had been sawed. While Alvorn was lying in his new sod house, waiting for the injuries to heal, and the bone to knit, Mrs. Alvorn worked the tractor, and cared for the stock. She car- ried two steers in the truck Alvorn had bought, and sold them to a cattle buyer at the railroad. On her way home in the dark, she was held up, the money taken away, the truck crippled by breaking the spark plugs. She walked five miles to the nearest house, borrowed an automobile and rode to Cor- beau. There she told the sheriff, who rode out to the scene, taking an automobile mechanic and spare parts to the crippled machine. One man had held the woman up and robbed her. Darnell went on to Letare’s ranch and found all hands there. “Letare,”’ Darnell said, “I didn’t suppose there was a bandit or holdup west of the Missouri who would attack a woman.” “Nor I,’ Letare replied. ‘‘What’s hap- pened?” Sheriff Darnell told him. Letare listened, then summoned all his cowboys and they rode all day long looking for the lone mis- creant. Darnell, riding with them, seeing the cowmen drag the washes, ransack the Bad Lands, and make their search could not doubt the evidence of his eyes. Yet when he left Letare that night, he said: *“You’re a fool, Letare! Nobody is being fooled!” “Yes, they are, sheriff,” he replied. “‘What have you these suspicions against me for?”’ Darnell looked at him, and then rode “volver cartridges. Adventure away. He told the prosecuting attorney about it. Habrey cursed. “A man don’t get away with molesting women out here,” the lawyer said. ‘“Le- tare’s a fool!”’ “Except you can’t catch him,” Darnell grumbled. ‘What’s his game, anyhow?” Habrey looked at him for a minute, and then said: ; “‘Self-defense. He aims to nag Alvorn till the homesteader makes a break.” “He can’t get away with it!’’ “He can if he waits till Alvorn draws his gun first.” “But Alvorn will bush-whack him!’ “That’s the worst of it. Alvorn’s clean. He came from the Ozark mountains where they never shoot a man from the brush, but spring all clear before they draw their guns.”’ “‘Can he shoot?” “T don’t know. Probably not—at least not with Letare. Letare bought five thou- sand forty-five caliber revolver cartridges three months ago. Yesterday he came in and bought five thousand more. He’s practising every day.” “The son of a gun!”’ Darnell exclaimed. ‘“‘There’s not a chance against him. You know that.” ‘“Yes—and you can’t prove anything. There isn’t even decent circumstantial evi- dence!”’ Two days later, Jet Letare rode into town. He went to the hardware store and bought five thousand more forty-five caliber re- It was all the place had in stock. ‘““What’s the matter, Jet?” Sheriff Darnell asked, happening in. “Doing a little practising.”’ “Must be getting ready for a little war out there! You took five thousand shoots on Tuesday.” | ““A devil of a note—the box slipped out the back of the truck, and we didn’t miss it till we reached the ranch. Went back after it, but couldn’t find—um-m.”’ Sheriff Darnell turned. Mrs. Alvorn had entered the store, to buy a flap-jaek grid. She smiled a bright recognition to all the men but one. She gave Letare a cold, ex- pressionless look different from any she would have directed at a mere stranger. A whisper had begun to run around. Jet Letare was nagging Bob Alvorn. The homesteader was a stranger in those parts, NOOK He knew the rancher was grinning. (C@