Adventure Magazine Cover — page 88: what you’re looking at

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

By Harry G. Huse DOZEN men had seen the pliers, half-buried in the dust among the ruddy splinters, before James Farney came along and picked them up. He was late on the scene, and had missed the first stark details. Doc Edwards had come and gone. Lawton was closing the doors of his car on the long wicker basket. There was nothing to see now but a jagged hole in the ‘‘safety”’ fence, one post teetering drunkenly over the slope, the wrecked car in the coulee-bottom—and the pliers. They lay in the gray dust where the road- edge fell away to a hillside all leprous with sagebrush—hurled there from the shattered tool-box, or fallen from the driver’s pocket. Farney turned them over curiously with his toe. They were bright and new, with un- usually strong jaws. Pliers not nearly so good sold for fifty cents at the general store in town. He turned them over again, and stood for a moment appraising them. A good strong pair of pliers, almost new! He stooped and picked them out of the dust, weighing them thriftily in his hand. The motion drew a sudden, startled attention from the little group still gaping at the scene of casualty. Under this sharp regard Farney went faintly sheepish. “Here’s a right good pair of pliers.” tried to say it in a disinterested manner. He 82 “Yeh, I see ’em when I first come.” This was Painter, the town pool-hall keeper. He had discovered the accident, and was still making the most of his dis- tinction. ‘I see ’em right off, when I first got here, ’fore anybody else’d come. Poor Buck was still a-hangin’ there on that post. He wasn’t even cold yit! I let ’em lay!” Farney missed the nod of approval which flickered through the group. “A right good pair of pliers,” he repeat- ed, in his slow, frugal way, ‘“a-goin’ to waste there in the dirt. I gotta notion to chuck ’em in my car.” Painter’s eyebrows came up sharply. The men around him, already huddled in the face of tragedy, edged closer together. ‘“‘They’re better layin’ there in the dirt! I’d let ’em lay!’ Again Painter was en- couraged by sagacious nods. “Dead man’s pliers,”’ he pronounced ominously, “ll bring you dead man’s luck.”’ James Farney laughed quietly. “Tain’tskeery ’boutsech things. I’m need- in’ a pair of pliers. These won’t do nobody any good, a-layin’ out here on the ground.” “They won’t do nobody no good no- wheres,” scolded the pool-hall keeper. “That car down there turned over once be- fore, ’nd killed aman. It ain’t more’n two weeks sence Buck bought it in ’nd said he wasn’t skeered to drive it. If you’d see what I see when I first come ’nd poor Buck was still a-hangin’ there on that post—” (COUNNAKCLIOO) SH C©@