Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 178: what you’re looking at

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

_ like'a ship. 164 posite mass of the officers of everywhere ~ formed his great and relentless enemy. “Aw, don’t take it so hard,” he clipped. ‘His voice would have been shrill, had it not been so weak. “I ain’t been in the habit o’ carryin’ my stocks and bonds with me. Honest, I’m a rich Irish count in disguise. I just wanted to rest here for a minute or two, bo. I’m waitin’ for my Rolls-Royce; the chofers you get now ain’t to be depended on, 0’ course. Cain’t you have a little bit of a heart? You can tell without lookin’ I’m sicker’n a dog.” The latter sentence was only too frue, and Maddon saw it at once. Maddon withdrew his hand, the hand of the law; then he put a silver dollar on the window- sill between them. This sheriff was locally famous for his share of the thing we call sporting blood. Back in Ken- tucky he had lost a good farm in a bet on a county election. He owned a pair of ears on another man’s head; he won them in a bet on a horse-race in Ken- tucky. Maddon, bantered sufficiently, ‘would bet anything he had. “This dollar might help. Stay here the rest o’ the day if you feel like it,” he said slowly. Connie glanced at the coin; then he looked the sheriff straight in the eye again and twisted his thin lips into some- thing that was deeper and more-full of meaning than a mere sneer. To him, Maddon was not just Maddon ; Maddon represented his great and relentless enemy. : : “Keep your pin-money,” he replied, still with his thin lips twisted. “My chofer’s comin’ by way o’ the bank and he’s bringin’ me a couple o’ hundred thousand—my Rolls-Royce chofer. Say, did you ever see one o’ them Rolls- Royces ?” Madden soberly shook his head. Mad- don did soberly anything he did at all. “Tt’s a automob’le a hundred yards long with a steerin’-wheel on both ends,” ‘little Switser ran on. ‘‘Two decks to it, I’ll take you,” he finished witha grandiose gesture, “to Yurrope with ‘me sometime.” The crook turned from the window and his gaze once more sought that en- “trancing vision of femininity in the flower-filled yard across the street. She was standing beside a bougainvillea now, Adventure with a sheaf of fragrant roses in her arms. ‘ After a moment of staring solemnly at Switser’s back, Sheriff Bill Maddon shook his head, went to his scarred roll- top desk and sat down. The young woman went into the house and Connie frowned unconsciously when his eyes beheld her no longer. Then Connie stretched himself out on the bench again and pulled his slouch hat over his face to shut out a vagrant ray of sunlight. FEW minutes afterward a man drove up in an _ orange-colored buckboard drawn by a pair of half-wild, sun-scalded, young sorrel horses. He was not more than twenty-five, tall and strong, good-looking enough and tanned most beautifully. He wore the laced boots, broad gray hat and khaki. of a palmetto-land rancher or cowman. Con- nie Switser had seen him before, and one of his slyly peeping eyes recognized him now. It was “Rancher Tom” Alden of the Rancho Alden, which was on a big, slow river two miles west of Dale. Rancher Tom sprang from the vehicle and tied the reins to a peg of the hitch-. ing-rack, He glanced at Connie, who ap- peared to be sleeping as soundly as a boulder, and strode info Maddon’s office. Maddon went to his feet and the two men stood there staring at each other with the tiniest possible suggestion of anger in their eyes. = The little crook sat up noiselessly, watched and listened. It was the sheriff who broke the silence. 3 “IT wouldn’t get all worked up like that over it, Rancher. What is it?” Rancher Tom flushed and paled. He was hot-headed at times and this was one of the times. Rarely or never be- fore had he forgotten himself as he for- got himself now. Connie Switser’s lady of the roses was Alden’s sweetheart, and that same estimable little lady was Sheriff Bill Maddon’s one and only pet daughter. — . 3 : “Same old thing!” blurted Alden. “More cattle gone without a hoof-print behind ’em; disappeared the same as if the earth swallowed ’em. No fences down. All gates locked, and no cow- tracks anywhere near ’em. And,” he went on, narrowing his gray eyes at the "comichbook