Adventure Magazine Cover — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

04 head. Nanah was sitting against the wall, her eyes goggling out of an impassive face. Marion had got to her feet and was reaching for something to steady herself with, while Jimmy had backed against the wall, his arms outspread against it, his feet braced. “‘What was it?” whispered Marion, star- ing wide-eyed at Hashknife. ‘Somebody dynamited us, I reckon.” He strode to the door and flung it open, while the others crowded close behind him. Where once had stood the adobe bunk- house, there was only a pile of adobe bricks, twisted timbers. The patio was a mass of adobe. On the porch of the ranch-house was the splintered door, torn from its hinges and flung across the patio. Hashknife ran across the yard, vaulted across the débris and went out through a gaping hole in the patio wall, heading for the stables. Through some freak of dyna- mite explosion, the force seemed to have been in the opposite direction to the stables, with the result that none of the stock was injured, and the stable still intact. It did not take Hashknife long to find that nothing had been injured in the stable. A decidedly feminine shriek from the patio sent him running back through the broken wall, where he almost ran into Apollo, the ancient burro. “He was under that pile of stuff,”’ yelled Sleepy. ‘‘Rised up like a darned ghost and almost scared Marion to death.”’ Marion was laughing foolishly, almost hysterically. zy good thing I see man,’ declared Nanah solemnly. “You bet it was!’ agreed Hashknife warmly. “If yuh didn’t see that man, we’d be in bad shape now, Nanah. Good gosh! Can yuh imagine what would ’a’ happened to us, if we’d ’a’ been in. that bunk-house?”’ ‘“‘Veah, and we’d better look a little out,” said Sleepy nervously. “The little side- winder that touched off that blast will prob’ly want to see if he done a good job.” “He’ll not come back tonight, Sleepy. He’s high-tailin’ it out of this section right now. I’ll betcha yuh could hear that ex- plosion in Blue Wells.” Marion shivered in the cold breeze, as she looked at the moonlit wreck. “Oh, what will happen next?” she won- dered aloud. “Somebody,” said Hashknife, ‘is goin’ W. C. TUTTLE to hear the echo of that blast, and it sure is goin’ to ache his ears.” They tried to find their bed-rolls, but the outer wall of the bunk-house, which was about two feet thick of adobe, had fallen in on the floor, and it would require much digging to get down even to the bunk- levels. They went after their horses and put them in the stable, after which they bor- rowed a few blankets from Marion. Jimmy insisted that he be allowed to stand guard with them, but Hashknife decreed that Jimmy sleep in the house, while Sleepy rolled in his blankets at the hay-mow win- dow of the stable, which, since the bunk- house was no more, gave him a fair view of the patio and rear of the house. Hashknife went out about a hundred feet from the front of the house, and coiled up in his blankets in the cover of a mesquite, where he could watch the front of the ranch-house. But nothing came, except the cold, gray dawn, which was a long time coming. There was an exodus from Blue Wells, when the news of the dynamiting reached there, and the Double Bar 8 held a great gathering of the cattle-clan, who came to view the ruins and to give an opinion. Some of them seemed to think that perhaps Apostle Paul Taylor had had some dynamite stored in the bunk-house, and that it had exploded. | Tex Alden came and viewed the ruins with gloomy eyes; Barnhardt perched on a pile of adobe and crumbled the clay be- tween his fingers, and looked wise. The sheriff talked to every one who seemed to have any kind of a theory—and knew no more about it than he did when he came. The women grouped around Marion, and “Oh’d” and “Ah’d,” like a lot of old hens clucking over a sudden fright. Hashknife said nothing, but listened much. Le Moyne came to him and tried to find out what Hashknife thought about it, but went away with the feeling that this tall cowboy knew less than any of them. With Le Moyne was Dug Haley, who quarreled loudly with Al Porter over what dynamite would or would not do. Sleepy Stevens horned into the argument with a dissertation on “the dynamic principles of combustion,” in which he used the words “epiglottis,” “atomizer” and “dogmatic” numberless times; much to the confusion of Al Porter, who was forced to admit that COMmMiCoooks Cc (C@