Adventure Magazine Cover, March 20, 1925 — page 160: what you’re looking at

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

142 trimmin’s. And son, don’t go worryin’ no more about that gent yuh downed seven years ago. Mebbyso he weren’t much ac- count noways, and yuh like as not saved him from a bad end. And if McCloud takes yuh back to the States tuh stand trial the Lazy Y will be on hand tuh see that yuh gits a square shake. Good-by, son, and God bless yuh!” He bends over and grips my hand with- out sayin’ a word. I hears him kinda sob. Then he whirls his hoss and is gone. Some- thin’ small and white flutters down and lands at my feet. Somethin’ that’s dropped outa his pocket. Kinda absent-minded like I picks it up and walks back to the tent. P where I'd left em. Nobody is sayin’ a word. Fer oncet that wind-jam- min’ ol’ biscuit builder of a cook ain’t run- nin’ off at the head, and I can’t he’p but recollect that old sayin’ that it’s a plumb bad wind that don’t do some good some- where. “Vuh told him?” asks Bill anxious like. “T told him we was prayin’ fer him. And pray we’re goin’ to,” says I, lookin’ around at the crowd. “Well, yuh needn’t look so danged desp’rit about it,” growls Bill. ‘A man ’ud think from the way yore a-lookin’ that it was a shootin’ scrape instead of a prayer meetin’ that yuh aimed tuh start. And whatever is that yo’re holdin’ in yore hand? Yuh drawed the queen uh hearts, but yuh don’t need tuh go packin’ it around the rest uh yore life.” And I realizes that I’m still packin’ that card that’s dropped out Wyoming’s pocket But it ain’t no queen uh hearts that I’m holdin’. No,ma’am! It’s the ace uh spades! Fer a minute I stands there stupid like, starin’ at that card. How come Wyoming is packin’ that ace uh spades? Then, like some gent has prodded me with a hot iron, I savvies. ; Bill’s deck uh cards still lays on the kyack box. I grabs them cards up, and my hands ain’t none too steady as I runs through ’em. A second and I finds what I’m huntin’. Without a word I tosses the card on the table. It’s the deuce uh spades! “‘What’s the idee?” asks Bill, no doubt thinkin’ I’m goin’ loco. “‘There’s a deck uh cards in my bed,” says I. “Fetch ’em quick.” THE boys is all a-settin’ right Adventure Which he does. I runs through the pack. The deuce uh spades is missin’. '““Wyoming played a cinch, gents,” I tells ’em. “‘Afore he comes into the tent tuh draw his card, he slips the deuce uh spades outa my deck. Mind when he upsets the candle? It’s then that he switches the cards on us, shovin’ the ace into his pocket and showin’ us the deuce uh spades. We only sees the face uh that deuce, mind? He shoves it in his pocket because it has a red back instead uh blue, like Bill’s deck has. No, boys, Wyoming didn’t aim tuh be cheated outa his ‘chancet,’ as he calls it. “By rights then I’m the man that should uh gone,” says Bill like he’s talkin’ tuh his- se’f. And I knows he’s a-thinkin’ uh that wife and kids in El Paso. ‘God!’ “Amen tuh that,’ sings out the cook, who’s kept quiet so long that he’s swole up like a hop-toad. Don’t let no hand try tuh tell yuh that ol’ High Pockets ain’t a shore top round-up cook, fer he is; and he builds the grandest son-of-a-gun-in-the-sack as ever give a cow- hand the bellyache. But his mammy should uh ex-tracted his voice apparatus when he’s a yearlin’. My spur rakes up along his shin bone accidental like, and fer the time bein’, as the feller says, High Pock- ets’ mind is kinda took off his speech. He’s a-puttin’ in the next ten minutes a-wieldin’ of the liniment bottle and cussin’ scan’lous. And that gives Bill a chancet tuh say his say, which he couldn’t never uh done lessen he knocked ol’ High Pockets between the horns with a neck yoke. Bill looks at me grateful like, gits his line on the idee that’s millin’ around in his system, takes his dal- lies and drags out a mouthful uh words. “Ary gent here got a Bible?” he growls at us. “Speak up, dang yuh. It ain’t nothin’ tuh be ashamed of.”’ But there ain’t nary Bible in camp. “Lorenzo was a-packin’ of a set uh them rosary beads,” says some boy, “but they was planted with him.” “Don’t know as they’d do us ary good noways,” says Bill sorry like. ‘‘None uh us bein’ of the same faith as Lorenzo, we wouldn’t know how tuh work ’em.” Don’t get the idee that Bill’s speakin’ light uh ary man’s religion. Fer he ain't. Cow-hands is like Injuns thataway. If a man’s got religion, he’s respected fer it. And while we don’t none of us say grace afore we tackles our grub, bein’ ’most always GOmiGcdoo (©