Adventure, December 3, 1920 — page 117: what you’re looking at

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

Grim Jokes high laced boots against boulders to convince himself he was awake, and finally regained his equilibrium. He piled the nuggets and esti- mated there were forty pounds. He emptied the bean-bag and put the gold into it. Supper consisted of boiled beans, corn pone and an upland quail that he had lassoed with his whip. Afterward he sat by a snappy fire in the thin, crisp, mountain atmosphere and cast about in his thoughts as to his future pro- ceedings. All at once he tensed with a new thought: “Well I'll be jiggered! Where’s my wits been? I can go back to Texas now.” And there flashed through his thoughts the memory of that old crime—once he had smug- gled three Chinamen across into the United States—for which a Federal judge had fined him one thousand dollars. On the way to the coun- ty jail in San Antonio where Federal prisoners were kept frequently, he escaped. “By heck!” he ran on. “‘T’ll pay that fine now, and I'll buy me a place. for a polo-farm out on the Bandera road from San Anton’, and [’ll marry me some old gal that ain’t found a man yet, and have regular home-made eats and kids to work. No jail for me. I’m goin’ back to the States and paint ’em red! Hi, donk, hear that?” He went out into the darkness away from the fire and slapped the mule on the sides and wooled its muzzle. “Old boy, you got to get me and that yellow stuff to the Grande, savvy? You got to get us past the prowlin’ Mex soldiers like we was thin air, see?” And the mule, happy and about full of grass, sighed long and deep. Then with M/’lord back at the fire he resumed his grazing. Jones didn’t sleep so well, what with his plan- ning over the gold, like a maid on her wedding eve. Far beyond midnight, by the moon, he sat up with a start, as if a shot had awakened him. He listened. It dawned on him that the munching of the mule at the grass had stopped. He fancied the big fellow out there somewhere with cocked, listening ears, Then unmistakably a shot sounded a long way off. Jones’ first thought was of Mexican soldiers, or ruffians of some sort. His second thought was to escape before day came and get the gold to safety. He began to circle the fire-site in search ‘of the mule, which he fancied was standing asleep near by. He circled farther and farther without find- ing the animal, all the time growing frantic, for day began to come on as certain as the tide. But no mule moved among the crags, and when day was full flush across the peaks there was still no saddle-animal. But by the light Jones picked up the trail of the little hoofs and followed. 107 A mile distant the tracks dropped down into an arroyo, and when he started to descend after them he almost stepped into a nest of gray, warm ashes under the bank. Near by was the carcass of the mule. A square of hide had been stripped off the hind quarter and a chunk of meat removed. But no man was about. M’lord set out for his camp and the gold at a trot, for the nuggets had been left in the cement-sack by the fire when he started search- ing forthe mule. % AS HE drew near his heart fell, for a See man was squatting by the cold ashes clawing through the nuggets. M’lord picked up a heavy rock and advanced, but when he was close enough to sling the weight, the man looked up. _He was Big Enough, the smith, the near iant. He got to his feet, a good-natured expression over him. “You’re Jones,” he said. “I’m Barley.” Jones, unbending, looked around him, The man carried a canteen, a moist roll of mule’s skin, and an automatic pistol and cartridges on a belt. They were in a heap, where he had dropped them. “What you doing here?” M’lord demanded vexedly. “They run me out down below.” “How about my mule?” Jones gritted belligerently. ; “By golly! Was he yourn? Say— I aes him, I thought he was a bear in the ar »B ] He shoved fingers under his wide hat and scratched his head ruefully. “T sure am regretful, Jones.” M’lord’s cheeks slowly turned a black red, like a Bing cherry. He squatted and put the nug- gets back into the sack without speaking. Then he tied the mouth with a buckskin thong; he tied the middle also, dividing the golden rocks into the ends of the bag to make it easy to carry. He closed the bean-pouch too and filled the two canteens, a storm gathering with- in him all the time. “What’s in that?” he asked, pointing to the fresh hide. “A chunk of mule meat,” Big Enough an- swered. “I thought——” “This gun loaded?”’ Jones took up the pistol. “Five or six ca’tridges in it.” : Jones laid the things down together, except the pistol. He looked Barley up and down with smoldering eyes. Barley, with a neck like a bull and shoulders like hams, fidgeted under the hot scrutiny. All at once Jones brightened. ““How’d you come here?”’ he asked. “Horseback——” COPMICLOOOKS (E@)