Adventure Magazine Cover — page 171: what you’re looking at

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

When East Met West | Mrs. Gonyer lands on her knees, with that one hand still up in the air. Then Victory and Progress hits the East. They knocked Gunga Din loose from the street, but they didn’t remove him. I got Mrs. Smith in my arms, but Mrs. Mighty Jones went past me so fast that I didn’t have no chance to make a collection. Then Gunga Din got his four feet on to the terry- firma agin’ and started out. He bowed his head, put it against that float: and started for Buck’s saloon front. I seen Magpie’s head come up from among the wreckage and he starts hammerin’ Gunga Din over the head with a piece of two-by-four, but he might as well ’a’ kissed him, for all the good it done. te Smith comes gallopin’ alongside of yellin’— = eve my wife! Leggo my wife! Dang you, Ike—leggo her!” “Tell it to her!’ I yelps back at him. “You fool, I ain’t doin’ the holdin’.” The rear wheels of that equipage hits the sidewalk, lifts up real sudden, and we begins to shove that whole works plumb through Buck’s saloon front. It was then that I managed to get loose from another man’s wife, and proceeds to fall backward off that elephant. { dunno what in —— Sahara was doin’ right behind Gunga Din, unless he was sup- posed to be there; but I do know that [ lit kinda folded up across his long neck, and he starts torun with me. We went around ina circle three times before I fell off, and that —— camel walked all over me. Then I sets up in that dusty street and tries to see what is goin’ on. Horses are runnin’ around like they was in a circus ring, and some of ’em are draggin’ wagons and buggies behind *em, which makes the street a dangerous place for to be. One wagon circled the street twice before I no- tices that Dirty Shirt is standin’ up in the wagon, kinda balancin’ himself, with his arms spread out wide. Then the wagon hit the sidewalk and Dirty turned over twice before landed sit- tin’ down on the sidewalk. I managed to limp and crawl over to him. His good eye is plumb closed, and the bad one won’t keep still. He’s singin’ soft and low, and kinda beatin’ time with that jiggly eye. I has to listen real close, but above the roar of de- struction I hears his singin’— pa DO at eat at oS et One a ona TR ES Re ale a es ai tee SR ne ees po ete poate bien i Sele. ere ny — > r. me 4 “ a \ - . 169 “Littul birdie in the tree, in the tree, in the tree; Littul birdie i in the tree-e-e-e-e, sing a song for me- e-e-e-e.” “There ain’t no tree, Dirty,” says I. “‘Ain’t there?” he asks soft-like. “There ort to be—there’s so —— many birds.” Over around Buck’s place there’s folks yellin’ to beat four of a kind, and some mis- guided jigger starts shootin’. I can see that there ain’t no regular doorway left in Buck’s saloon—just an openin’ about ten feet wide. Just about that time Gunga Din comes around the corner. He ain’t got nobody on his back now, but he’s got a chair hooked around one hind leg. He runs imto the hitch-rack, tried to go under it, and lifts it plumb out of the ground. This kinda makes _ him sore; so he wraps his trunk around one of the posts and starts for us, packin’ and draggin’ it along with him, while on the far end of it is tied a piebald bronc from Para- dise. The most of the crowd stampeded for the Mint Hall, Wick’s store and other places of safety, and it sure don’t take long to clear the street of spectators. I sabe that Gunga Din is on a regular bust; so I picks Dirty Shirt up in my arms and staggers toward Buck’s place. I ain’t in no shape to pack anybody, cause my right leg acts too short, which makes me circle a little to the right and ’m close to Gunga Din before I realize it. There’s just a whap and a rip, and out- side of Dirty’s headgear he’s as naked as the day he was born. Gunga Din shucked him like an ear of corn. But Dirty don’t know it, and I don’t care; so we staggers on through the haze. We fell into Buck’s place, and it don’t take a normal man to see that everythin’ ain’t right in there. Old Testament Tilton is settin’ up on what used to be the back-bar, squattin’ there like a wise old owl, lookin’ over the world; settin’ there like a statue, sayin’ nothin’. Piled up against the bar is what is left of the float. Buck is flat on his back, with his feet up over the pool-table, which has been moved over against the wall. All to once that mass which used to be the float begins to heave upward, and from among the busted two-by-fours, twisted wires and colored cloth, cometh Sahara. How in —— that camel got mixed up in that float, I don’t know, but there he is. He comes out of there, plumb decorated, ecomicbooks.com Ce Wl, ere Peee