Adventure Magazine Cover — page 187: what you’re looking at

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

THE FALLACY OF FARO belching flame, wheeled and bolted down the draw, reins dragging. Another roar, not thirty feet from where Faro, crawling on hands and knees, searched for his .45. Something hot seared the flesh on his shoulder. He sprawled forward on his face and lay motionless. Something hard lay under his ribs. He wondered if that hard object were his gun. Yet he dared not risk moving to find out. His eyes fixed on the black brush from which spot the shot had come, he waited, trying to breathe slowly. His body went tense as he lay there, hoping that Manton would not shoot again. He knew that the yellow eyes were watch- ing him and that one little move would bring a lead slug tearing and ripping its way into his flesh. Fear gripped him. A shuddering, hor- rible fear of pain. He fought back the al- most overpowering impulse to leap to his feet and run. His whole body seemed to go numb with that fear. His limbs seemed like leaden weights hung to his trunk. He wanted to shriek but knew that all power of speech had left him. It was as if he were suddenly stricken with paralysis. It was the nicker of Manton’s horse that drove the panic from his heart. That commonplace sound brought him back from the night- mare of fear and he lay there to play out his hazardous game. A hundred yards away Faro’s horse gave an answering nicker. A faint sound from the brush. Some- thing heavy crashed against his back. Man- ton, short on cartridges, was heaving rocks at the man who lay there, to test signs of life in the motionless form. Faro shut his lips in a tight line to sup- press a groan of pain as the rock struck him. Another rock struck him with a sickening thud, sending terrible pains along his spine. It took every shred of his will power to keep from flinching. Another rock. Then, after a moment that to Faro seemed an hour, Jack Manton stepped quickly from the brush, a Colt swinging in his hand. Man- ton stepped across his body and out of Faro’s limited vision. “Git up!’ came Manton’s husky com- mand, followed by a kick that seemed to crush Faro’s ribs. But the man on the ground neither groaned nor spoke. “You, eh?” He heard Manton’s voice again. ‘You, eh?” A knee, bearing the man’s weight, was on Faro’s back, crushing him. The shadow 185 of an upraised arm passed across Faro’s narrowed eyes. With what strength he could muster, Faro snapped his head back just’ as Man- ton’s gun barrel struck the ground where his head had been a split-second before. Out went Faro’s two hands, gripping the wrist, jerking the younger man off balance. His teeth sank to the bone in the man’s gun hand. As Manton jerked away and on to his feet, Faro covered him with his own gun. “Reach fer sky!’ barked Faro hoarsely, “er ll kill yuh!” Jack Manton’s hands, one of them streaming with blood, lifted slowly. “One funny move outa you,” warned Faro, “an’ I'll bust both yore arms. [I’m takin’ you back tuh hang.” Manton’s yellow eyes glittered, shifting like the eyes of a trapped wildcat. Each time their gaze flickered to a shining bit of metal at Faro’s feet. Tom McDonald’s gun that had been jolted from the old cow- puncher’s hand. Faro saw the shifting eyes and his boot toe touched the gun. He grinned into the set face of the trapped man. “T’ll bust both yore arms, Manton, if you make a move fer that gun. Then, jest to show yuh my heart’s in the right place, yuh bushwhackin’ son of a yaller-hided hoss- killer, I’d earmark yuh.” And when Faro Furnell, his blazing blue eyes never leaving Manton’s face, stooped and filled his left hand with the six-shooter that lay on the ground, the man with the yellow eyes did not move. EN made of barbed wire and raw- hide are hard to kill. Chinook’s doctor told Turkey Track Tolliver that he reckoned the only way the town would ever get rid of him was to build a gallows. Turkey Track, propped up against snowy pillows, grinned at the physician through the blue smoke of his cigaret and asked concerning the whereabouts of Faro Furnell. “Furnell?”’ snorted the old doctor, who shared the opinion of the sheriff and the majority of Chinook’s residents regarding the old cowpuncher’s character. ‘Forget him, Tolliver. You’re out a good horse, that’s all. He won’tequit drifting till he hits the first saloon south of the Missouri. You’ve seen the last of that old rascal. Good riddance, I call it. No back talk out of you, either.”’ comiclboolk CO