Adventure Magazine Cover, March 20, 1925 — page 162: what you’re looking at

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

144 recognizes the voice as belongin’ tuh High Pockets. That there smell gits stronger. “Ruined! Plumb ruined,” groans the Dutch-oven rassler. ‘‘Fer ’s sakes, light a match. Mebby we kin save a hatful anyhow. Dad-gum it, I shoulda stuck to the rules I had, ’stead uh drappin’ in that last handful uh raisins.” I reckon more’n one gent has recognized that there raisin brandy smell by now, fer half a dozen matches flares up and there’s a stampede in the direction uh where that liquor keg has blowea up. High Pockets like tuh knocked a hip down roundin’ the tent pole. Butit ain’t no use. The sand has soaked ’er up pronto, and a sand lizard coulda lapped up what’s left uh that joy water. It’s a sad procession that files back into the tent. “Better stick tuh lemon extract, High Pockets,” says Bill kinda nasty like, fer I reckon he was a-thinkin’ how a big horn uh licker ’ud he’p things tuh look brighter. “Stick tuh extract and leave the makin’ uh moonshine tuh them that ain’t punched dough so long that what little brains they had as a baby has been used up learnin’ how tuh make a kidney stew. How many yeast cakes did yuh put in?” “Five,” admits the ol’ pot-hook warrior, defiant as “And the rules says one. Wonder we wasn’t some uh us killed,” growls Bill. “And you was roarin’ the other day be- cause yuh wasn’t mayor uh EI Paso instead uh a round-up cook. It’s mistakes like that that’s put yuh where yuh are.” “She’d uh been plumb potent,” sighs High Pockets, a-lookin’ like a mammyless calf at a round-up. “Plumb potent. I throwed in a dash uh liniment fer flavor- in’.” And he kinda sniffles. But he gits nothin’ but hard looks. ev es I WON’T try fer tuh tell yuh about “al how we sets around that night a-waitin’ fer the shots that means that Wyoming has been stopped. Them hours was shore long drug out. Come day- light and not a shot had been fired, and we knows that the boy’s made the grade. Follers a day and night uh waitin’. And Pancho and his hombres makes a few charges which nets ’em nothin’ but poco plenty hot lead. We’re madder’n a pack uh yaller-jackets by now. Grazin’ on short rations and smokin’ gittin’ low. So when- Adventure ever a Lazy Y gent looks along his carbine sights he gits hisse’f a peon. We taken a heap offen this same Pancho from time tuh time, as the sayin’ goes. A-dodgin’ and runnin’ some tuh keep him offen our trail. But we’re plumb through runnin’, and we tells him so every time we pulls a trigger. Tells him in the only lan- guage he savvies. He makes a play at compromisin’. Says he’ll stake us to a horse apiece and let us hit fer the border. It’s our cavvy he wants, he explains. Bill tells him how we feels about it. ‘These hosses,”’ says Bill, bawlin’ it out from behind the big boulder where he’s lay- in’, “is ours. Every hoss in the cavvy packs a Lazy Y. And nobody but Lazy Y boys fork ’em. And the low-lived, yaller- hided polecat of a greaser never drawed breath that’s man enough tuh take ’em off us!”’ He backs up his words by drillin’ a hole through Pancho’s high-crowned hat. And mind yuh, Bill’s a-makin’ that fight talk on a empty belly. But he had kin-folks at the Alamo, Bill had, and hates Mexicans wuss’n pizen. We cheers him vigorous, and the Quaker-doctor Texican downs a careless peon jest tuh show he’s agreein’ with the boss. And thus the peaceful hours flops by, as the po’try gents says. Come daylight uh the follerin’ mornin’, and yon side uh the Devil’s Basin opens up with what listens like the battle uh Bull Run. Only more louder. And a hour later the Federal troops rides down tuh camp a-singin’ handsome. There’s a undersized, gold-braided, red- britches general a-ridin’ in the lead. There’s red on his coat sleeve that ain’t been put there by the tailor, and the nigh side uh his face is opened up neat by a Mauser bullet, but he’s a-grinnin’ like he was on parade. Even Bill and the Quaker-doctor gent owns up that there’s some Mexicans that’s —— game gents. Which Bill tells him, right out. That half-portion li’l ol’ cuss of a general bows stiff like, then flops over on his hoss’s withers, fer he’s fainted. Bill and the Federal doctor patches him up neat and business-like. Then the doc works the Ranger over. ‘What ’come uh Wyoming?” we asks as the general sets fire to a ’dobe cigaret. _ Since the general ain’t got no idee uh who Wyoming is, he kinda looks like as if he’s done heered us wrong. But seein’ the COMiIcoOoe (©