Adventure Magazine Cover — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

Burro Bells averse to more violent and less furtive mea- sures if his cupidity and hatred were coupled by an overt act. What was to prevent Nunn acquiring the gold? There was close to five thousand dollars worth of the stuff, but little silver, twelve or fourteen per cent. possibly. Red had been carrying the twenty pounds with- out undue discomfort for a month. | ose] CHAT night at supper there was no ie banter in Red’s tone— “We re going out to Kingman in a few days.” Nunn betrayed his astonishment with an abrupt glance upward. He had that bland look many men are able to summon when they are trapped. “T thought you was goin’ to stay to Thanksgiving,”’ he said deliberately. “Tt get worried about my brother,” re- turned Red. ‘He’s headstrong, and he talks about coming in ere. I’m afraid he'll try it.” “He couldn’t find us,”’ observed Nunn. Red eyed his companion, wondering if any significance lay behind the words. ‘““Ves, he’s been in here,” he lied. “TI thought you said es “T did,” Red cut in curtly. outsiders. Butch is claim.” “Oh.”’ “You get ready to leave day after tomor- row. I'll pay you for your full time to Thanksgiving when we get out.”’ Nunn ignored this liberality. - “T think yer crazy to go out when yer washin’ fifty-sixty a day out here.” “My brother is worth more than fifty or sixty a day.” “Oh, ocak ” said Nunn in a deprecatory tone. He did not cease for several days to press Red to remain, and when he did it was in a manner further to arouse Red’s suspicion. He wanted to purchase Whitesock, said he desired to turn off at the Silver Basin sup- ply shack and prospect in the Great Bend. His plan was to weigh out the cost of the outfit at Silver Basin. Red flatly refused. “Man alive,” he declared, ‘‘it takes five years to teach a burro his name. I’m figur- ing on having a phonograph record made to call these babies.” Nunn was sullen at his inability to pierce the armor of Red’s good nature. He moped “But I meant half-owner in this 47 about for two whole days with hardly a word. They made good headway going out to the desert. They were descending from the great plateau and the pitch of the dry water- courses favored them. Nunn seemed to have lost his dilatory way and some of his surliness. He seemed charged with an un- wonted nervous activity that was almost delirium as the late afternoon of the first day wore along. They made a dry camp, and the next day descended into the desert. Though Silver Basin is off the trail to Kingman, the trav- elers were obliged to visit Red’s supply shack in the Basin to replenish their water- bags, there being a fresh spring half a mile from the shack, and none other for many miles. The going was bad that afternoon. In the northern reaches of the desert are several mesas, scattered about like round tables on a cabaret dance-floor. The sun was sinking over the saw-toothed mountains when the two swung into view of Silver Basin. Red’s shack lay at the foot of a gentle slope leading into the Basin, diminutive down the olive-gray distance. In the twi- light it appeared farther from the two men than it actually was; perhaps it was two hundred yards distant. Nunn suddenly sat down upon a rock. ‘Guess I'll rest a minute,”’ he announced. Red noted that there was a singular tense- ness about the other that denied his plea for relaxation. But any significance in this tenseness eluded Red for the moment, and he had taken several steps with Cub, the lead burro, when wonderment flashed in his thought that Nunn should rest in sight of the shack. He started to turn for a sec- ond glance at his companion, who was now a hundred feet behind, and as he started | he heard the short, dry cough of a gun. He felt a sting in his thigh, a little above the knee, and it wrung from him a gasping smile. For he knew ina twinkling what had occurred, and in the same twinkling there came to him the ludicrousness of the sting, which was little more than irritating. It might have been a sharp thrust from a stick. He started to slip sidewise, and there was & 222-2-2—2—Z—— *———-z, quite like the dying tone of a violin. His hand went out to Cub, and he gripped a heavy thong on the pack saddle. Cub, like all Arizona burros, was a shy beast. He commenced to run. Red never knew why he hung on. Go DOOK 1 @)