Adventure Magazine, March 1916 — page 180: what you’re looking at

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

Wa Wilt ee eed a Wily te Sent ‘ty . i ff J Na OE AS iS “¢ Mes Tek) . iA 178 South Africa. He was in the Cape Mounted Rifles.” | “You were with Lynch,” I said. “Ves. But we didn’t meet. I got hit. When I was well, the war wasover. He had gone gold-digging in the Klondike. After- ward he was in Nevada.” “And you followed him?” “When they ran me out of Tonopah that night I had been trying to get a commission as deputy sheriff. He might have—done something. It was some time afterward that I heard he was in Mexico.” “Did you meet him?” . “Never. I kept perfect track of him for two years. He broke no law. He did noth- ing to warrant punishment.— Oh, yes, I could have sent the rurales at any time and told them to apply the Jey fuga—the law of attempted escape—but that would be mur- der. Also I had to—do it myself.” “Did you, finally?” . “Not yet. He was with the Cientifico crowd after the Huerta coup. That was when I went—perhaps you heard—with the Carranzistas. Then, when the break came, and Huerta fled, he shifted to Car- ranza. He is with Carranza now.” An- other pause. “Did Birch tell you I was working with the Villa people?” “He didn’t know. Are you still?” “TV’m—” he laughed surprisingly — ‘“‘to- day I’m with the State of Texas against all invaders. I’m a man-hunter.” He got up and walked across the room and ~ back. He was still laughing, as at some con- cealed joke. | “Go out with me tomorrow morning,’ -he said. ‘We shall start early. We will hunt, you and I. Tonight—’ he began strapping on a belt with the heavy, low-hanging hol- ster of a forty-five—“I must practise a bit, just as I was practising that last time we were in my room together. It is practise that makes perfect, yes? I might have need for speed when we hunt. Goii! Eight- een years! And you here, too!” I went out and left him. A trifle un- canny, that disjointed talk. But think of the man who had followed his enemy all that time, and never met him! It was barely daybreak when Fritz knocked on my door. Armed, we went out into the brilliant morning together. “See,” he said cheerily, showing me the edge of a folded paper in his pocket. “It is the commission. You are under the pro- Adventure tection of the law.” We had secured horses the night before. He led the way north from the town and then. turned toward the Rio Grande. Either he had been over the road before or he had good directions. He knew where he was going and why. My attempts to find out gained me no satisfaction. “Is it not fine to ride out on a morning © like this?” he countered, when I had hinted for the second or third time that I would like to know his plans. ‘‘We ride toward the river, and breathe God’s fresh cool air —I think it will be hot later, with thunder, perhaps—and do our duty to the State.” Then we came to a little rise, and saw the golden-brown river, with the mists just ris- ing. On the other side, nearly a mile away, was a group of mounted men. Fritz looked about carefully to see there was no one on our side to notice, and waved a white hand- kerchief three times. The group came down into the water and began to wade toward us. There were four men. The river is wide at this point, some three miles above Hidalgo, but the channel is narrow. A few strokes, in August, will cross it. When the men came to the channel they slipped off their horses, which began to swim. Each man held rifle or revolver high and dry above his horse. They remounted when they came into shallow water, and I made out that one of them, in advance of the others, was not a Mexican. Fritz was beaming. z “Tt goes well,” he said. ‘‘Let us dis- mount and leave the horses. We go to meet our friends.” “T don’t know what it’s all about, but T’ll do anything once,” I remarked, with an idea that this was a time for humor. ‘Hello! What does that mean?” The three Mexicans had suddenly turned and were swimming their horses back toward the Mexican shore. They had nearly reached the bank before their companion noticed they were not with him. He hesitated, shouted something un- intelligible to them, and then came on. They were scrambling up the bank on the other side when he reached shore, dis- mounted, and turned as if puzzling out the cause for their conduct. He had replaced his pistol in its holster at his belt when he remounted in shoal water. Gomichbooks (E(9)