Adventure, December 3, 1920 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

The Law Comes to Singing River ‘An’ ridin’ like mad,” said Condon quickly. “What was his hurry?” “Which way did he go?” cried the trio in chorus. “Why, what’s the matter?” asked Condon in mock surprize. “A killer, you fool,” shouted the deputy. ‘An’ it jest happens he choosed too big a man this time; if it was just that mean little scrub | I wouldn’t be in such a scramble.” He paused as if irritated that he had taken time to give vent to this reflection. “What way did he go?” he roared. “Up that way a short piece an’ then struck due south,” said Condon, pointing first south- east and then south. “Makin’ for the Missouri probably; come on,” yelled the deputy. The posse vanished southward in a cloud of flying dust. But Condon, reaching the upper rim of the dip in the prairie, saw another cloud of dust swirling eastward toward the Teton and The Knees. This was a small cloud, barely discernible, such as would have been made by a single horseman; and he started swiftly in pursuit. V IT WAS nearly dawn of the following day when Lang Rush crossed the Teton and made his way to his ranch. He had regretted the natural impulse which had prompted him to flee up the river toward home, but now he believed he had done a wise thing in coming to the very last place where those a were looking for him would expect to find im. In the first light of the breaking day he rounded up two horses. “Hate to change mounts,” he said aloud. But it was a case of necessity, for Dandy had been ridden hard during the night and Rush had a long way to go. He picked out a tall, rangy roan to ride; not a speedy horse but one possessing great powers of endurance. Also, this horse bore no brand. The second horse he selected—a snfall, sturdy bay built for travel and accustomed to carrying a pack—was another animal which was un- branded. Lang saddled the roan and slung his rifle from the horn. He put the pack-saddle on the bay and filled two pack-sacks with food-stuffs from the meager supplies remaining in the ranch-house. Over the top of the sacks he placed a piece of stout?tarpaulin and a heavy blanket with a few cooking-utensils inside its folds. Then he threw a single diamond and drew the pack fast in the hitch. He spent ten minutes finding an ax, which he twisted under the tight rope. 4 On his saddle with the yellow slicker he tied an old but serviceable mackinaw. He crammed II his pockets with cartridges for both rifle and revolver. Then he vaulted into the leather and swept the far-flung landscape with a searching gaze. His eyes sparkled fire—the dangerous, daring, glinting fire of the range-rider who senses the approach of trouble and welcomes it with a devil-may-care laugh and burning guns. This was a different Lang Rush from the man who had talked quietly with Ferguson, the banker, a few days before. He swung his mount, pulled gently but in- sistently on the rope attached to the snug halter of the pack-horse, crossed the.open space between{the house and barn, passed through the main gate, and rode to the edge of a deep gully which had held the water-supply used for the stock but which had now gone dry for lack of rain. Here he hesitated a minute with his face turned toward the glory of the sunrise on the horizon eastward beyond The Knees. He made a half-gesture of farewell and shifted his gaze to the north. In this direction the rolling prairie stretched like a gray blanket to three purple peaks some hundred and fifty miles away. “The Sweetgrass Hills,” he muttered and shook his head. ‘Too far without cover.” There were but few homestead shacks in this direction, for there was a wide strip of broken ground, gullies and coulées and vast areas of gumbo—the thick, sticky Montana mud which bakes hard and cracks in the sun and is’virtually impassable when wet. Lang urged his horse down into the gully with the pack-animal following, and, thus con- cealed from view of a y one except whoever might be on the rim immediately above him, he began his journey north. Hardly had he disappeared when two riders appeared on the horizon. One was coming slowly from the south—from the direction of the river beyond the ranch; and the other was cutting across from the southwest, riding fast and furiously, aiming apparently for a point in the north which Rush would have to pass. VI em) THE noonday sun shone through a tai fleecy haze of clouds down upon a deep a4) depression in a torn and gullied section of t “the prairie and its rays slanted through a growth of thick willows and glittered upon. still water. Lang Rush stepped out of the cool, cleansing 2 pool known as Sixty-Mile Spring and the drops upon his naked body sparkled like diamonds. He shook his lean, perfectly proportioned limbs and arms in an ecstasy of luxury and then stretched his full length. The gods must have smiled! For here was a Gomichbook GO