Adventure Magazine Cover — page 136: what you’re looking at

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

134 the granite shoulder. Then at last the fallen tree wedged and lay still. Their eyes sought each other; then Pete laboriously climbed the rock, and they sat down to rest. “‘That’s her,” said Pete; he spoke loudly that he might be heard above the voice of the deep-laid river. “The hardest part’s over, Eben!”’ “It’s a good thing,” answered Eben slowly. “I never see sech walkin’ as you led me an’ Baldy over last night. No trail, no light, no landmarks; nothin’ but leg-breakin’ windfalls, an’ steeps, an’ brush fit t’ stop a moose. How yuh knowed the way beats me.” “I didn’t,” said Pete. ‘““Wha-at?”’ “I never see this place before, except from the far side,’ Pete chuckled. “I jest guessed at how to come here, an’ hit out. I knew yuh’d never come along, if yuh reelized what a slim chance we had o’ makin’ it.”’ Eben shook his head slowly, but let it pass. ‘“D’yuh s’pose Fiddlin’ Ben’s discovery is as rich as he said ’twas, Pete? I know he wouldn’t be braggin’, just when he was dyin’ that way. But he might o’ been mistook, or—”’ ‘‘Nope,” said Pete decidedly, “Ben knew rock. Never was one to overjedge a find, Ben wasn’t.” They were silent a bit, weary old men who had traveled all night. “We was lucky to be with Ben when he cashed in,’”’ said Eben. “It shore set me down when he told us about his strike, an’ begged us to go stake it thataway.” ‘He only done that to spite Stingaree, Shadd,” Pete commented, and Eben nod- ded. “A right mean skunk, that Stingaree. Looks like when Ben told him about the strike, he jest couldn’t wait to go get his dirty hooks into it. I jest can’t figger a man that’d run out on his own pardner thataway, an’ leave him dyin’ alone. Must be purty stinkin’ low, an’ that’s a fact.” “Reckon Fiddlin’ Ben will rest easier in his grave,” said Eben,“ if we beat out Stingaree.”’ ““He’s got thirty hours start,’’ Pete pointed out. ‘An’ good horses,”’ Eben added, “real good.” “But look,” said Pete, sitting up. ‘He Alan Le May has to go way down to the south through Telegraph Pass. Ain’t a soul knows a shorter way to get a horse across old Snow- beard—’cept us, an’ we wasn’t right shore of a way ourself, until that tree struck an’ held solid. All we got to do is cross over, an’ work out o’ the Tall Rock country in two hours. Then Baldy has to push twen- ty-five miles through the upper meadow country in less’n four.” ‘An’ if she can—”’ “We'll beat Stingaree to the strike by a good half day,” Pete concluded. “Baldy has a lot o’ tough miles in her, Eben, an’ I ain’t much for her to carry. I'll have time to stake the claim, an’ get ready to fight, an’ have the upper hand easy. All you got to do is foller along packin’ some grub!”’ “Sounds good,”’ Eben conceded. Pete roused himself; they had rested too long already, these aged men. Eben’s great awkward strides as he climbed after Baldy were lighter and more hurried, now. Into the plodding determi- nation of his rocky face had come a keener gleam, and beneath their grizzled brows his flinty gray eyes shone like pin-points of steel. Pete, too, had changed, but in another way. His movements were quick and sure, but in his face had appeared a peculiar un- certainty, as if he were a little dazed at the success of his own plan. Into Pete, for the first time in many a long year, had crept the shadow of a haunting fear. Perhaps long forgotten hopes were re- awakening in the minds of the old men. All their lives, separately in their early years, and toward the last together, they had sought gold perpetually, cannily, shrewdly. In the long twisting mountain and desert trails they had learned the irony of perpetual failure, and the bitterness of defeat. They were near the end of the trail, these two old men. Wealth would mean a secure haven at the end, and a comfortable peace peopled with the memories of their youth. Now it seemed actually within their grip at last. Pete gained a foothold upon the opposite rim, having chopped off such branches as interfered. He instantly turned and started back to help Eben with Baldy, but his partner waved him on. “You find the way through that rock rubbish!”’ Eben yelled. His voice was lost in the growl of the COMmMiCoooks Cc “Til fetch Baldy!” (C@