Adventure Magazine Cover — page 156: what you’re looking at

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

146 do. You show us Conroy didn’t play it low an’ dirty on Wethers, an’ show us quick. Ii you don’t, he’s guilty! Am I right?” he asked of his companions. The men rumbled their approval of his words. “That’s right,” cried the Weasci, “don’t let ’em fool you with talkin’. They bin cookin’ up somethin’ in that back room. Make ’em prove it to you. They can’t do it an’ they know it.” A silence fell while McMurtry studied the situation. The faces of the men were set in grim determination. Further re- monstrance against their decision, the sheriff realized, might easily prove worse than useless by fanning the smoldering anger of the assembly into white-hot, reck- less rage. “All right,” he said at last. ‘‘We’ll show you, if you’ll come up to Conroy’s place tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, I’ll keep an eye on Conroy and Wethers, both.” The men, in little groups, had begun to wander out of the building when Conroy on a sudden thought, rushed to a window and looked out at the sky. Then he talked excitedly to the sheriff, who immediately swung around and threw up his hand. “Boys!” he shouted. “It’s makin’ up to snow! If you want to see the proof that Conroy’s innocent, you'll have to trek up with me right now to his cabin. We can’t. take a chance on waitin’. Come along!’’ In a few minutes the whole crowd was under way. The sheriff would not consent to leave Wethers with the factor, so they hauled him along on a toboggan. Mc- Murtry and Conroy were in the lead, and the latter set a tremendous pace. He realized more and more keenly the need for haste. had already broken as the party halted on the shore of Wapiti Lake in front of the cabin. McMurtry spoke: ‘‘Now, we’re here to show you fellows somethin’. You said you was took blind at Bear Portage?”’ He turned swiftly to Wethers. ‘Yup!’ snapped the Weasel, positively. But he stirred uneasily. “Tf,” said McMurtry, ‘‘we prove to you that this Weasel ain’t blind at all, you’ll believe then that he’s a liar an’ a skunk, won’t ye?” . on his toboggan brought up the rear. Adventure Wethers started, fidently. 3 ““Go ahead an’ prove it,”’ he jeered. McMurtry walked in the thickening snowfall toward Bear Portage, directly across the lake. He was gazing intently at a tangled trail. The men shuffled along behind, guarding Conroy closely. Wethers He then laughed con- was alert, furtive. The snow fell more and more swiftly, gradually blotting from sight the forest across the lake. McMurtry at length stopped and pointed ahead. “Look there!’ he yelled in triumph. “Could a blind man make a trail like that?” He pointed to Wethers’ tracks of two nights ago. They wavered and wandered near the shore, but they stretched across the lake in a bee-line from the direction of Bear Portage. The men stared. ‘An’ if you'll take the trouble to follow that trail you’ll find where the white- livered weasel put skunk-juice in his eyes to make ’em swell up. Oh, he’s a clever lad, all right, but he made a mistake this time— an’ it’ll be his last, too!’’ added the sheriff with emphasis. He turned upon Wethers, but that in- dividual, trusting to his legs rather than the clemency of justice, had torn the bandage from his eyes and was making for the woods. Rifles were up in an instant, but Con- roy, with a roar like an angry bull, had leaped in pursuit and the men could not shoot without hitting him. The Weasel’s misshapen figure was fairly flying through the storm. Conroy, however, now at last thoroughly awake and at a white heat of rage, gained on him with great, uneven leaps and bounds. At the shore he caught him. He roared again, incoherently, as his hands closed upon the Weasel. And the Weasel screamed in shrill terror. Once Conroy struck him, then his fingers closed over his throat and he shook him as one would shake a rat. Wethers tried to fight him off, then of a sudden he gave a spasmodic jerk and sagged limply. Conroy tossed him to the snow and stood over him, waiting for him to rise. But the Weasel lay strangely flat, with his head askew at an unnatural angle. Sprawled out like a blot on the face of nature, he was a horrible and grotesque figure. The sheriff ran up, looked at Wethers, DOOK (©