Adventure Magazine Cover — page 110: what you’re looking at

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

Fe Te IP A be 5 abe Mall ‘ ofa Phat, Aas i? Ar coe a Pi yn “Gol” says Magpie, and they went, while the orchestra played, soft and low, “What Shall the Harvest Be?” Somebody cusses soft-like, and I hears Mag- pie say— “Easy, Tombstone!” They seems to all stop together and their heads are at least three feet ahead of their boots. I seen Half-Mile’s hand relax from his gun and it fell on the floor. Old Testament tried to pick his teeth with the fork-handle. Tomb- stone hitches up his belt and scratches one knee with his other foot. “According to that, we’re candidates for the cemetery,” observed Judge Steele sickly-like. ibs passed?”’ whispered Ornery, who can’t read. “Dirty Shirt Jones!’ yelped Half-Mile. “Where is Doc Milliken?” howled Buck, but Doc had gone hence. They just sort of mills around and looks at each other. “Well,” says the judge, “what will we do now?” “You might kiss and make up,’ suggests Magpie. “Piperock is getting as bad as New York. You fellers won’t kill nobody unless you gets paid for it.” “Am I a Lizard or ain’t I?”’ asks Dirty Shirt. “You ain’t been initiated yet,” squeaks Scenery “Whatfor kind of a thing is that?” “We'll show yuh,” grins Magpie. “It’s lots of fun. We ain’t got all our things to do with yet, but we sabe a few simple things.”’ 5} Magpie and Scenery gets Bill Thatcher ey and Frenchy to-help them, and the xe SS}, rest of us sets back to see the fun. They takes off his boots and puts a can of Cayenne pepper in each one. Then they waltzes him up and down the hall until it gets to work- ing good. I feel sorry for poor old Dirty. He gets past with that, and then Scenery an- nounces that he is about to be presented with the Royal Girdle of the Crippled Crawlers, and he hands Dirty a live bull snake. Poor Dirty lets out a war-whoop and _ tries to get loose, but the four of them hang on to him. The poor feller is blindfolded so he can’t see nothing and he don’t know it wasn’t a rattler. Then-they picks him up off the floor by the arms and legs. “Brother Lizards,” says Magpie, “‘we will now cast him into outer darkness, that he may obtain meekness and learn to crawl.” Dirty yelps and tries to get loose, but they raises the window, Magpie yells, ‘““Tim-m-m-m- ber-r-r-r-r!” and they threw him out bodily. “My Gawd!” gasps Tombstone. ‘“You’ve killed the poor coot!”’ Magpie turns from the window and grins at the crowd. Adventure “That was a danged inhuman thing to. do,?= 3 BS : states Half-Mile. street.” Just then we hears somebody yell: “Whoo, hoo! Magpie!” Magpie opens sonrher window and leans out. Muley Bowles yells up. “Hurry up! We can’t wait all night.” “My !? gasps Magpie. “They had the blanket at the wrong window!” Then I cut the rope off the goat’s neck. Mighty saw it first. He knew what he knew when he yelled— | “Look out for John L. Goat!” Man, they looked out. That goat was all primed to do the duties he was supposed to do in a lodge, but the floor was slippery and most of them got past. John L. Goat skidded and blatted and hit Tombstome Todd as he dove for the door, and Tombstone went into the wall against the side of his head, and I saw all the ambition die out of his eyes. “It’s thirty feet to the The goat hit him once after he was down, and. then went tiptoeing around the hall while I hid behind a chair. It hopped up onthe plat- form, pulled down the notice, picked up a sheet of paper off the table and seemed to make ‘itself a sandwich. Then it came down and went out of the door. I rolled me a cigaret and pondered deep-like on lodges. Suddenly I hears a scraping noise and into the door comes Dirty Shirt on his hands and knees. He’s got an expression on his face like that of an old dog looking for a place to die. He crawls plumb over to the window and I walks beside him, patting him on the head. Once he licked my hand, I think. Still, maybe he tried to bite me—I don’t just know. Over by the window he hauls himself up and peers outside. ‘The bunch are lighting the lamps in Buck’s place. I put my arm around Dirty to keep him from falling out, and he says— “{—fell—for—a — mile — and — then —I — bounced.” “Bounced?” “Don’tcha—believe—me?” Biff! I had forgotten that goat. The universe seemed to hit me just below the point of balance. I scraped my knee-caps and felt my toes hang for a second—then space. on to Dirty Shirt. “It seems years after the landing before I can breathe, and. then I sets up in the road beside Dirty Shirt. I says— “Did—you—bounce?” ~ “No,” says he weak-like. “I didn’t have a chance, ’cause you was on top.” It took us about an hour to get home. Dirty had one leg that wanted to go north and I had one that wanted to go south; so we cov- ered a lot of useless territory on the way. Doc COnMiCcloookKs , I hung” com