Adventure Magazine, December 10, 1924 — page 80: what you’re looking at

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

Stark of 2 eum 3 A coe | Author of “Peasant Wit,” “Come Home to Roost,” etc. "D NEVER tried it if I hadn’t been desperate. Every one in St. Pierre told me that signin’ on at Auburn was just the first step to signin’ off again. But I’d already applied at every other place in that part of Louisiana, and it was up to me to land a job or go back West, where I’d come from. Once I’d made up my mind and started, I was so afraid some one would beat me to it that I loped mighty near all the way. It was a fine place about five miles from town with a cypress swamp cuttin’ it off behind and the cane-fields reachin’ away as far as you could see on both sides of the road. The big house was in a grove of live oaks halfway between the road and the swamp with the stables and quarters ‘scattered round an old-fashioned mill. I turned in and started down the planta- tion road, which was built up above the level of the field with a ditch on the side. Halfway in I raised a man who was havin’ trouble with his horse. From what I could see the man wanted to jump the ditch, and the horse was puttin’ in an objection by kickin’ and buckin’ and spraddlin’ out on all four legs. The man was usin’ his quirt like a mule-driver and, just as I trotted up, he swung into line and flashed in a lick that sent the horse out from the road as if he’d been shot from a gun. It was nicely done, barrin’ the floggin’, and if the man had sat tight, he’d made it easy. But once in the air he slipped forward 58 on to the horse’s neck, and the two of ’em went down into the ditch. I was out of the saddle in a moment, but the horse was quicker. Almost before T hit the ground he’d scrambled to the level of the field where he begun croppin’ the grass as unconcerned as if he’d been let out to graze. The man didn’t make a move till I’d jumped down and hauled him to his feet. Then he got busy all at once, battin’ his eyes and stretchin’. his arms and legs, like he wanted to make sure he hadn’t broke ‘any- thing. He was a small wiry man with gray hair and eyes and a stubby gray mustache. His suit was gray and his hat likewise and, when you’d looked at him a little, he kind of blurred all together into a color that made you think of a hornet’s nest. There was hornet too in his thin-cut nose and narrow jaw and mouth and in the quick, sharp way he moved and handled himself. That he was the boss, Major Stark, I saw at a glance. That he’d taken a drop too much I knew a second later, although there wasn’t much to show it. He had a cold one, which is the worst kind. “‘Well,”’ he asks mighty short, ‘“‘what can I do for youe”’ This kind of took me back. I’d expected the first business in order would be what I’d done for him. “Come on,” he snaps. “What are you after? If you’re trespassing, the place is posted, and I’m looking for some one to Go book CO 5}