Adventure Magazine Cover — page 82: what you’re looking at

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

"2 passed out,” said he in a hard, dry voice. “But Honey Hoke’s heart is beatin’ regular enough. Guess he’s only fainted from loss of blood.” The judge nodded. “They do that sometimes.” Here he looked at Doc Coffin’s body lying humped over the table, an arm hanging free, the head resting on the table-top. “Was they rowin’ together?” was the judge’s next question. Racey gave him a circumstantial account of the shooting and the incidents that had led up to it. The judge heard him through without a word. “They asked for it,”’ said he, when Racey made an end. “‘ ’Sfunny Punch didn’t pick up a hand. Tell yuh what you do, Racey. You come to my office in about a hour. Nothin’ to do with this business. I got no fault to find with what you done. Even break an’ all that. Somethin’ else I wanna see you about. Huh’ What’s that, Piggy?” The place was beginning to fill up with inquisitive folk from the vicinity, and Racey decided to withdraw. He went out the back way. Closing the door, he set his shoulder against it and remained motionless a mo- ment. His eyes were on the distant hills, but they neither saw the hills nor anything that lay between. “T had to do it,” he muttered bitterly. “T didn’t want to down him. But I had to. _ They was gonna down me if they could. An’ he—they—they asked for it.” CHAPTER XXVI THE QUARREL “i ‘T°: PEACHES, ain’t you afraid of get- tin’ sunburnt?” Peaches Austin, gambler though he was, flickered his eyelashes. He was startled. -He had not had the slightest warning of Racey Dawson’s approach. “TDidn’t hear me, did yuh?” Racey con- tinued conversationally. “T didn’t want yuh to. That’s why I kept my spurs off an’ sifted round from the back of the black- smith shop. An’ you was expectin’ me to come scamperin’ down the trail over Injun Ridge, wasn’t you? Joke’s on you, Peaches, sort of.”’ Still Peaches said nothing. He sat and at Racey Dawson. aes “Don’t be a hawg,” resumed Racey. Adventure “Move over an’ lemme sit down too. That’s the bov. Now we're both comfortable. Peaches, yuh mean to sit there an’ tell me yuh didn’t hear no shootin’ up at the Star- light a while back?” Peaches Austin wetted his lips with the tip of a careful tongue. “T heard shootin’,” he admitted, stiff- lipped. “An’ what did you think it was?” “T didn’t know.” “Didn’t you see Thompson ride away?” *Shore.”’ “An’ didn’t you think nothin’ about that either?” “Oh, I thought, but “But you had yore orders to sit here an’ wait for li’l Willie. An’ you always obey orders. That it, Peaches?” “What are yot drivin’ at?” “VYo’re always askin’ me that, Peaches. Try somethin’ new for a change. Look.” Racey extended a long arm past Peaches’ nose and pointed up_ the street toward the Starlight Saloon. A man was backing out through the doorway. Another followed, walking forward. ‘Between them they were carrying a third man. The hat of the third man was over his face. His arms, which hung down, jerked like the arms of a doll. Even at that distance Peaches could see that there was no life in the third man. “That’s Doc Coffin,’ Racey murmured without rancor. “I wonder where they’re takin’ him. He used to bach with Nebraska Jones, didn’t he? I guess that’s where they’re takin’ him to. Yep, they’ve done gone round the corner of the stage com- pany’s corral.”’ ““Where’s Honey?” queried Peaches in a still, small voice. “In the Starlight. He aint hurt bad. - Foot an’ arm. Lucky, huh?” Peaches Austin considered these things a moment. _ “Doc Coffin was reckoned a fast man,” he said in the tone of one who, after adding up a column of figures, has found the cor- rect total, “‘an’ Honey Hoke wasn’t none- slow himself. An’ you got ’em both.” “T didn’t get ’em both,” corrected Racey. “Honey is only wounded.” “Same thing. You could ’a’ got him if you wanted to.. Yo’re lucky, that’s what it is. Yo’re lucky. An’ you been lucky from the beginnin’. I ain’t superstitious, but—” Here he lied. Like most gamblers EOmicboo <5} (E(0)