Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

filled with stars; there was no moon. wall, as they came around the corner of the. house, shone palely here and there where a’ “Blenham did that sort of thing?” de- manded Packard sharply. It would have done Bill Royce good to ees the look jin his eyes then. Royce nodded. “Blenham did whatever he could think of,” he muttered colorlessly. ‘An’ he could think of a good many things. Just the same—maybe some day——”’ “And yet you stayed on, Bill?” when Royce’s voice stopped. “T’d promised your dad I’d be here—with the coin-—when you come back. He knew an’ I knew you might blow in an’ blow out an’ never get word unless I was right here all the time. An’ ol’ man Packard, after I was blind I went to him an’ he promised I could stick as long as I just obeyed orders. Which I’ve done, by ——, no matter what they was. “But the end’s come now; ain’t it, Steve, ol’ pardner? But to get this tale tol’ an’ the money in your hands: I didn’t know who’d tried to do for me, but I guessed it must have been some one who’d found out somehow about the ten thousan’ an’ thought Ihadit on me. When I come to at the cabin an’ firs’ thing tried to get a chaw of tobacco I foun’ my pockets all turned wrong side out. It might have been Johnny Mills himself; he didn’t know about the gun bein’ fooled with; it might have been Blenham; it might have been Guy Little; it might have been somebody else. I’ve thought all along an’ I pray God I was right an’sthat some day I’ll know, that it was Blenham.” He rose suddenly. “Come ahead, Steve,” he said, his voice matter of fact as of old. “It’s up to you to ride herd on your own simoleons, now.” “You've left it in the same place? In the rock foundation-wall?”’ i “Yes. I couldn’t find a safer place.” ‘“‘And you hayen’t been back to it all these months?” “Not until las’ Saturday night. It was jus’ six months then. I figgered it out I’d make sure once every six months. I went in the middle of the night an’ made sure nobody followed me, Steve. ahead.” =<" — } Packard slipped his arm through Royce’s and they went side by side. The night was The Come white surface glinted vaguely = the shadows. \ x 2 wn ~ - aur o* “/ a : - » Ie ig NS a pete or ae a Man to Man : But “Nobody aroun’, is there, Steve?” whis- pered Royce. “Nobody,” Packard assured him. “Where is it, Bill?” Royce’ s hands, groping with the wall, rested at last upon a knob of stone near the base of the wall. He tugged; the stone, rudely squared, came away, leaving a gap- ing hole. Royce thrust his hand in, searched briefly and in a moment breught out a flat wallet clutched tightly. “Yours, Steve!” he said then, a quick, palpitating note of pure joy in his cry. “Blind as I was, I put it over for you! Here’s ten thousan’, Steve. An’ the chance to get ol’ Number Ten back.” Packard was taking the wallet preffered him. Suddenly Royce jerked it back. “Let me make sure again,” he said hastily. “‘Let me be dead sure I’ve made good.” He fumbled with the wallet, opened the flap, drew out the contents, a neat pack of folded bank-notes. He counted slowly. “Ten of ’em,” he announced trium- phantly as he gave the waflet over to its proper owner. Packard took them and they went back to the house. The rays of the lamp met them; through the open door, back to’ the living-room they walked side by side. The table between them, they sat down. Pack- ard put the wallet down, spread out the ten bank-notes. “Bill,” he said, and there was a queer note 21 in his voice, “Bill, you’ve gone through-—— ___ for me. Don’ tI knowit? And you say I’d do as: much for you? Are you sure of it, Bill?” | Royce laughed and rubbed his hands to- gether. “Dead sure, Stevie,” he said. Packard’s eyes dropped to the table. Before him were the ten crisp bank-notes. Each was for one dollar. Ten dollars in all. His heritage, saved to him by Bill Reyce. “Bill, old man,” he said slowly, ‘‘yeu’ve taught me how to play the game. Pray God I can be as white with a pardner as you © have been.” And, crumpling the notes with a sudden gesture, he thrust them into his pocket. VI T WAS perhaps eight o’clock, the morn- ing blue, cloudless and still. Packard had conferred briefly with Barbee; the GEomichboo cS mies yg Oe