Adventure Magazine Cover — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

90 minstrel show’s interlocutor. “If every- body’s comfortable, we'll proceéd to busi- ness.” “T thought you said this wasn’t a trial,” objected Luke Tweezy. “An’ so it ain’t a trial,”’ the judge rapped out smartly. ‘The trial will come later.” Luke Tweezy subsided. His furtive eyes became more furtive than ever. “Go ahead, Racey,” said Judge Dolan. Racey, still holding his six-shooter, leaned hip-shot against the door-jamb. “It was this way,” he began, and told what had transpired that day in the hotel corral when he had been bandaging his horse’s leg and had overheard the conver- sation between Lanpher and Jack Harpe and later, Punch-the-breeze Thompson. “They’s nothin’ in that,” declared Jack Harpe with contempt, twisting his neck to glower up at Racey. “Suppose I did wanna get hold of the Dale ranch. What of it?” “Shore,” put in Luke Tweezy. ‘What of it? Perfectly legitimate business proposi- tion. Legal, an’ all that.” “Not quite,” denied Racey. “Not the way you went about it. Nawsir. Well, gents,” he resumed, “what I heard in that corral showed plain enough there was some- thin’ up. Dale wouldn’t sell, an’ they was bound to get his land away from him. So they was figurin’ to have Nebraska Jones turn the trick by playin’ poker with the old man. When Nebraska — They switched from Nebraska. to Peaches Austin, plannin’ to go through with the deal at McFluke’s from the beginnin’. An’ that was where Tweezy come in. He was to get the old man to McFluke’s, an’ with the help of Peaches Austin cheat Dale out of the ranch,” “That’s a —— lie!” cried Tweezy. “T suppose you'll deny,” said Racey, “that the day I seen you ride in here to Farewell—I mean the day Jack Harpe spoke to you in front of the Happy Heart, an’ you didn’t answer him—that day you come in from Marysville on purpose to tell Jack an’ Lanpher about the mortgage havin’ to be re- newed an’ that now was their chance. I suppose you'll deny all that, huh?” “Yo’re—yo’re lyin’, sputtered Luke Tweezy. “Am I? We'll see. When playin’ cards with old Dale didn’t work they caught the old man at McFluke’s one day an’ after Adventure he’d got in a fight with McFluke an’ Mc- Fluke downed him, they saw their chance to produce a forged release from Dale.’ “Who did the forging?” broke in the judge. “T dunno for shore. This here was found in Tweezy’s safe.” He held out a letter to the judge. Judge Dolan took the letter and read it carefully. .Then he looked across at Luke Tweezy. “This here,” said he, tapping the letter with stiffened forefinger, “‘is a signed letter from Dale to you. It seems to be a reply in the negative to a letter of yores askin’ him to sell his ranch.” & round the room. Then his celd eyes returned to the face of Luke Tweezy, who was beginning to loek ex- tremely wretched. “Underneath the signature of Dale,” cen- tinued the judge, “‘somebody has copied that signature some fifty or sixty times. wonder why?” “T dunno nothin’ about it,” Luke Tweezy denied feebly. “‘We’ll come back to that,” the judge ob- served softly. ‘G’on, Racey.” “T figure,’ said Racey, “that they’d hatched that forgery seme while before Dale was killed. The killin’ made it easier to put it on record.” “Looks that way,” nodded the judge. “Lookit here,” boomed Jack Harpe, “you ain’t. got no right to judge us this- away. We ain’t on trial.” “Shore you ain’t,” asserted the judge. “T always said you wasn’t. This here is THE judge paused and glanced ‘just a talk; a friendly talk. Ne trial abeutit.” “Here’s another letter, judge,” said Racey ~ Dawson. The judge read the letter, and again fixed Luke Tweezy with his eye. “This ain’t a letter extily,” said Judge Dolan. “It’s a quadruplicate copy of an agreement between Lanpher of the 88 ranch, Jacob Pooley of Piegan City an’ Luke Tweezy of Marysville, parties of the first part, an’ Jack Harpe, party of the sec- ond part, to buy or otherwise obtain posses- sion of the ranch of William Dale, in the northeast corner of which property is los cated an abandoned mine-tunnel in which Jack Harpe, the party of the second part, has discovered a Bers bearing fees 4s comichook (E@) 5}