Adventure Magazine Cover — page 97: what you’re looking at

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

* : The Heart of the Range levered a cartridge into the chamber, and trained his rifle on the bridge-head. The galloping horsemen were not a hun- dred paces from the stringer when the dyna- mite let go with a soul-satisfying roar. Rocks, earth, chunks and splinters of wood flew up in advance of a rolling cloud of smoke that obscured the cleft from rim to rim. - Acrash at the bottom of the narrow cafion told Racey what had happened to that part of the stringer the dynamite had not de- stroyed. Racey lowered the hammer of his rifle to the safety-notch just ‘as the posse began to approach the spot where the bridge had been. It approached on foot by ones and twos and from tree to tree. Racey could not see any one, but he could see the tree branches move here and there. “T guess,”’ muttered Racey, as he craw- fished away from the windfall, “I guess that settles the cat-hop.”’ BBs sun was near its rising the fol- lowing day when Racey and Molly, their one horse staggering with fatigue, reached the Cross-in-a-box. Racey had walked all the distance he was humanly able to walk, but even so the horse had car- ried double the better part of thirty miles. It had earned a rest. So had Racey’s feet. “My ——., what a relief!’ Racey mut- tered, and sat back and wiggled gingerly his toes. Soe shame yuh had to cut ’em up that- away,” said Jack. Richie, glancing at Racey’s slit boots. ‘“They look like new boots.” “Tt is an’ they are, but I couldn’t get ’em off any other way, an’ [ll bet I won’t be able to get another pair on inside a month. Lordy man, did you ever think natural-born feet would swell like that?” “You better soak them a while,”’ said Jack Richie. ‘‘C’mon out to the kitchen.” “Shore feels good,”’ said Racey, when his swelled feet were immersed in a dish-pan half-full of tepid water. ‘“Lookit, Jack, let Miss Dale have her sleep out, an’ tomorrow some time send a couple of the boys sith Mer over to Moccasin Spring.” “Whatsa matter with you an’ one of the boys doing it?” “Cause J gotta go to ae City.” Auh?”’ “Yep—Piegan City. I’m comin’, back 87 though, so you needn't worry about not gettin’ back the hoss yo’re gonna lend me.” “That’s good. But “An’ if any gents on hossback should drop . In on yuh an’ ask questions just remember that what they dunno won’t hurt ’em.” Jack Richie nodded understandingly. “Trust me,” he said. ‘As I see it, Miss Dale an’ you come in from the north, an’ Soe ttt? O 2 “Only me—you ain’t seen no Miss Dale— an’ I only stopped long enough to borrow a fresh hoss an’ then rode away south.”’ “T know’ it all by heart,” nodded Jack Richie. “In about a week or ten days, maybe less,” said Racey Dawson, “‘you’ll know more than that. An’ so will a good many other folks.” CHAPTER XXX THE REGISTRAR R. POOLEY,” said Racey Dawson, easing himself into the chair beside the registrar’s desk, ‘‘where is McFluke?” Mr. Pooley’s features remained as wooden as they were fat. ‘ His small, wide-set eyes did not flicker. He placed the tips of his fingers together, leaned back in his chair, and stared at Racey between the eyebrows. “McF luke?” he repeated. “I don’t know the name.’ “T mean the murderer Jack Harpe sent to you to be taken care of,” explained Racey. Mr. Pooley continued to stare. For a long moment he made no comment. Then he said— “Still, I don’t know the name.” 3 “Tf you will lean back a li’l more,”’ Racey told him, “you can look out of the window an’ see two chairs in front of the Kearney House. On the right we have Bill Riley, a Wells Fargo detective from Omaha; on the left Tom Seemly from the Pinkerton Agency in San Francisco. They know somethin’ but not everythin’. Suppose I should spin 7em all my li'l tale of Sea Ls then, Mr. Pooley?” “Still—I wouldn’t know the name Mc- Fluke,” maintained Mr. Pooley. “T’m sorry, Mr. Pooley,” said Racey, ris- ing to his feet. “I shore am.” “Don’t strain yoreself,” advised Mr. Pooley, making a brave rustle among the papers on his desk. CORIIG OOOLK< (E@)