Adventure Magazine Cover — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

46 possibly fearing she had underestimated their hot-cake ability, and said: “Somebody say Peeler rob train. lie! Too lazy.” “And that’s the most perfect alibi I ever heard,” laughed Hashknife. ‘‘Nanah, I'll bet any jury in Blue Wells would turn him loose on that kind of evidence.’’ “What do you think of the case?” asked Marion. Hashknife shook his head. “T dunno, Miss Taylor. It kinda looks to me as though the sheriff had kinda gone off half-cocked. That old judge ought to be restin’ in a cemetery. I dunno how any community could stand for an old mummy like him. He ain’t human. There ain’t nothin’ against ’em, except that darned dog, and the fact they were not home that night.” “But they surely couldn’t convict on that evidence.”’ “Mm-m-m-m-m!”’ Hashknife masticated thoughtfully. “I dunno. I’ve seen queer things happen. I ’member a case where one man was suin’ another for stealin’ his wife, and the cow-jury brought in a verdict of manslaughter against the prosecutin’ at- torney.”’ ‘“‘A-a-a-aw, don’t lie like that!’’ protested Sleepy. ‘You never seen nothin’ of the kind.” “Well, I’ve seen things just about as bad. I don’t trust humanity—not cow-jury hu- manity. If I was goin’ to win that case, I’d do it out of court, Miss Taylor.” “But how could that be done?” asked Marion eagerly. “Find the men that done the job.” “An easy thing to think about,” ob- served Sleepy, leaning back to let Nanah slide a pile of hot-cakes on his plate. “But the sheriff won’t do anything now,” said Marion. ‘He feels that he has done his duty.” “Prob’ly a good thing he won’t,” grinned Hashknife. “Any man that wears a mus- tache like Olson does, couldn’t find his own socks inside his boots. That man has all gone to hair.”’ “Samson wore long hair,” reminded Sleepy. ‘‘He was strong.” “Strong—yea-a-ah! But did he have any brains? He didn’t. If he had any brains he wouldn’t have let that woman monkey around him with a pair of shears. Just to prove that he was thick—he slept through W. C. TUTTLE the hair-cuttin’. Can yuh imagine that?” “T think Wade, the railroad detective, was more responsible for the arrests than Olson was,” said Marion. “T’ve seen him,” nodded MHashknife. ‘““He’s one of them kinda jiggers that don’t care whether he gets the guilty man or not, just so he gets somebody. That feller used to be a policeman in Los Angeles. They take the uniform off a policeman—and he’s a detective. “Do yuh know that the idea of numberin’ houses in a city was started by a police de- partment? It was. Their officers was al- ways gettin’ into the wrong houses; so they numbered ’em. Nanah, you make gosh- awful good hot-cakes. Yuh do so. You Navajo?” Nanah nodded quickly. “Do you speak Navajo?” asked Marion. Hashknife shook his head. “Nope. Speak a little Nez Perce, Flat- head, Sioux, English and Profane. Yuh have to wear a rag around yore head to learn Navajo.” ‘“‘And pack a snake around in yore teeth,” added Sleepy. Marion laughed at the expression of Nanah’s face. “TI not bite snake,’ declared the squaw seriously. “That’s right,” said Hashknife. cha do it, Nanah.” They shoved back from the table and rolled cigarets, while Nanah and Marion cleared away the dishes. “If you were going to try and find the men who held up that train—where would you look?” asked Marion. Hashknife smiled over his cigaret. “That’s hard to say. Id have to do a little addition, subtraction and division. Didja ever get far enough in school to work on problems where they let X equal the missin’ numbers?” = Marion smiled. “Ves, I have, Mr. Hartley.” “Well, then, don’t call me mister. My name’s Hashknife. Now, that yuh know me well enough to call me Hashknife, I’d say that I’d let about four X’s equal the missin’ bandits, and work out the problem from there. We’ve got the dog. Workin’ back- wards from a dog, yuh ought to get quite a lot. “In the beginnin’, I’d like to ask yuh what yuh know about a feller who is workin’ ‘*Don- COmiclhoo SS C©@