Adventure Magazine Cover — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

The Lord of the Stony Rises to you. Ain’t you been my friend and raised me from the gutter? Why should I turn against you? ’Course I admit, I been awnry at times, but that’s because I ain’t been well, and yesterday I ’ad a touch of the sun. I felt it coming on, and——”’ ‘‘Do you mean to tell me,” exclaimed Rushton, mildly incredulous, ‘‘that you have already found an alibi? Resourceful Mitcham! Splendid Mitcham! But I am holding you up. Forgive me, I chatter like an old woman when I am excited. Do go on!” “He’s a liar,”’ said Lund, who, think- ing the affair lacked dignity, tried to inject into the proceedings a more suitable tone. “T heard him talking in his sleep and I’ve watched him careful. He’s bad——” “Don’t listen to ’im, Mr. Rushton,” begged Mitcham. ‘’E’s young, ’e don’t properly understand. It’s the —— truth what I’m telling you. After the touch of sun I felt all giddy and my eyes started to play me tricks—like when I met you that time in Melbourne. All day it seemed to me Burdette was ’anging about - ‘““What—again? You’re sure it wasn’t one Rushton who was hanging about?” “No, no, no!” Mitcham forced himself to smile sadly. ‘It was old John and ’e drove me mad, but I didn’t want to say nothing for fear of troubling you. And today it got worse and worse. Awful bad. I fought it tooth and nail—but, I dunno, it got the better of me out there while I was riding herd. There ’e was, sort of jeering at me and about twenty feet away, standing like ’e used to with his ’ead shoved forward and is fists on his ’ips. And when I started to drive ’im off, he ’ops another twenty feet, and I got so mad I tried to stalk ’im quiet- like, just to tell ’im to go away, and first thing I knew, so help me, Mr. Rushton, you was sitting on my back and I kind of woke up all dazed and trembly. I dunno nothing else and I swear——” Rushton listened to the outpouring with- out so much as the flicker of an eyelid, then he said: “Mitcham, I’m going to let you go. I don’t believe a word of your yarn but I’m going to take a chance. You know as well as I do you stand to lose in the long run if you try that again. It won’t work and it’s foolish. Lund knows and I know. Two to one. Kill us both and still you lose. You lose your chance to settle with Bur- 103 dette, you lose the cattle—everything, even your life eventually. ‘“‘And I need you, Iadmit. You are indis- pensable at the present moment. I can’t drag you about tied to the wagon like a barbarian at a Triumph. I don’t want to. Lund, what do you say?” “Tie a stone to his neck and sink him in the lake. And the tea’s brewed,” an- swered Lund, thoroughly disgusted. “Aw, Lund,’’ pleaded Mitcham, ‘‘we’ve been good friends 2 “Yea! We have! Who’s been picking about the grub and the harness and the water and . ‘Just trying to teach you a few things, Lund. I’m an old ’and at the game and I thought you might like to learn vs “For pity’s sake don’t whine,” Rushton said quickly. “If you do I'll follow Lund’s advice. Just try to be reasonable and make allowances for the things you don’t like about me. I'll do the same where you are concerned. Lately you’ve been acting like a lunatic. Think it over: Can you drive the cattle single-handed? Would Lund stay with you? Could you reach the Shaw without any help? Don’t be a fool!”’ “T see it now,’ admitted Mitcham. ‘So help me, I do. I’ve been rank bad. It’s Burdette’s fault, him! Before the trouble with ’im I was different, I swear I was, and if you’ll gimme a chance——” The strange thing about Mitcham was that he meant exactly what he said. He was completely reformed. Because he had failed, because Rushton had landed on the small of his back, he saw his actions—tem- porarily—in a totally new light and sin- cerely desired forgiveness. He didn’t under- stand Rushton and was beginning to be afraid of the quiet little voice and the un- winking eyes. Lund’s disgust was obvious. He had ex- pected heroics and bloodshed, something to talk about for years to come. Well, he couldn’t talk about this show. It was a frost. “He’s harmless,”’ he grunted. “It’s just as you like, boss, let him go.” Rushton severed the prisoner’s bonds. Dawn was in the sky, the steaming surface of the lake had turned steely-gray, the shadows were rolling back off the plains. An hour later the wagon-wheels screamed as the oxen bent to their yokes, and the dust began to eddy up above the tossing horns as the cattle milled and bellowed and conmiclool 1 @)