Adventure Magazine Cover — page 111: what you’re looking at

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

wife out and in— To Make It Self-Defense after a fashion. He was a hard worker, steady and ambitious. Luck had been with him, finding that fine water, and his wheat had brought him a little fortune. He was out of the worst of his agriculture difficulties, having broken the sod, and his possession was assured, if he could live to take out his final papers. Three times in the next four weeks, Le- tare rolled into Corbeau while Mrs. Alvorn was in town. Shortly after she took her departure, he followed her. People could think what they pleased! Bob was nursing his broken leg at home. The road winding away from the railroad, across the prairies, and into the Bad Lands was a long, lonely trail. Great hills rose to flat-topped buttes. There were great val- leys that were miles wide. At one place, where the road dipped into the Yellow River bottoms, the Bad Lands extended for a hundred miles toward the south. A few had homesteaded on the road to the Yellow River, but beyond this stream there were only two little ranches, besides that of Letare and the homestead of Bob Alvorn. For a score of miles or more, the road was under no one’s eyes, and people wondered if the rancher and the home- steader’s wife ever met to talk out there in the wide spaces? Letare was well satisfied. He had suc- ceeded in his enterprise. His men listening around, heard the gossip, which was inevi- table. The rancher knew when Alvorn began to move around on crutches; he knew when Alvorn discarded one of the crutches; he knew when Alvorn merely eased his game leg by carrying a cane; he thought he knew all there was to know about Bob Alvorn. Bob rode with his wife in to Corbeau in their truck. They carried a ton of wheat with them, which was sucked up into the Grangers’ Elevator. Bob went down to the hardware store, to buy some hay-bale wire, for he had some alfalfa to pack. The store-keeper was alone at the moment. Having made sure of this fact, the gray little man leaned over the counter and said: “Bob, Jet Letare’s been following your They say he ’lows to get you!”’ “He ‘lows to get me?” , “That’s so! He dasn’t to bush-whack you, account of that being murder. He ‘lows to git to nag yo’ to pull your gun fustest, an’ then— You see?” IOI “TIT see—now! defense.” ‘Jes’ so! He’s bought a sight of shoots from me, but he’s no friend of mine. Eighteen years ago, he killed my brother, who was scouting down on his ranch. It was cold blood.* I never said a word. You're a good man, and I’ve given you fair warning—which few of his dead men ever had.”’ ‘“‘And he wants me to pull first, eh?”’ Bob asked, eagerly. ‘Just so—sh-h! No ’fense, suh—but yo’ wife— He’s talking——”’ “It’s all right—about my wife. Never doubt it,” Bob whispered, as he gathered up the fifty weight of hay-bale wire. Bob put the wire into his truck, and tied it fast. Then he went over to the sheriff’s office, to sit d6wn. “Have a cigar, sheriff?’ Bob asked. “Sure thing, Bob!’ ‘“‘T came to tell you, sheriff, that two of my horses died yesterday. I cut them gpen and found they’d been fed glass and oat- meal.”’ “That’s a exclaimed, angrily. ‘You didn’t find the men who sawed off those bridge beams, when I was to be the last man through the trail that night?” ‘“‘Bob, so help me I searched——”’ “All right, sheriff. I know you did. I don’t bear any hard feelings against any man in the world. Don’t forget that. I am peaceable. If I could prove who is after me, trying to drive me out of the country, I’d doit. As long as I can’t, why that’s my fault. A man has to protect himself, up to a certain point, and I sup- pose I’m the one who’s to blame. Keep watch, will you?” “T surely shall!” the sheriff promised, and Bob rose to take his departure. He limped a little as he walked out ahead of the sheriff. Darnell followed him. As they cleared the doorway and stood on the jail office porch, Bob stopped short. Across the street, about a hundred feet distant, was Jet Letare. Down the street was the automobile he had just driven in to town. He was walking to meet Mrs. Alvorn, who was carrying some packages in her arms toward the Alvorn truck. Letare stopped in front of her, as she tried to avoid him. But the rancher was Wants to plead self- shame, Bob!”’ Darnell _ looking across the street at the jail, as well DOOK C©@