Adventure Magazine Cover, August 18, 1921 — page 173: what you’re looking at

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

Ghost-Pipes serenade a hundred or more bucks who’d ride up to jest outside range, all decked up in paint an’ feathers; an’ there they’d set like wooden dummies on their ponies until Fergus comes to the end of his piece an’ lets the wind outen the bag. “Thet seems the bit of the performance the Injuns likes best—when he lets the wind die out an’ them pipes makes an expirin’ noise like eighty-seven dvin’ kiotes. Then the varmints gives a yell an’ gallops away. “Some of the traders is a’gin’ the pipes, believin’ it’s them is keepin’ the Injuns on the trail. But the others maintains the pipes is good medicine if they keeps the reds too amoosed f’r mischief. An’ as they ain’t alwavs the same reds—or the same kind o’ reds—it’s clear none of them follows the pipes very far an’ then always gives up without attackin’. “But it ain’t over the bagpipes the traders falls out. ‘It’s the old story. “Maybe ye knows, Irish—which is to say ye don’t!—that the arrangement them traders us’ally makes when thev jines up for protection is that when they gets fifty miles from the Missouri line each trader takes control of his own men. ‘“‘Well, there’s some fallin’ out over the general supervision, an’ the upshot is this caravan splits in two. The military escort is sorter up a’gin’ a problem—which half to escort without dividin’ themselves, which they ain’t strong enough to do. “They finally goes with the bigger outfit after failin’ to make a patch-up between it and the smaller, among which is the trader that has Young Roy uv Arden-Keppel an’ his servant along. “Anyway with ordinary luck there warn’t much to be afraid of, as there ain’t more ’n a few miles between the two caravans all the way to within fifty miles of Point of Rocks. If the smaller caravan is attacked an’ c’n hold off the reds a while, the escort ahead c’n hear the shootin’, even if they don’t see the mess, and ride back. “But ye know how it is gettin’ within hailin’ distance of trail’s end. The cara- van ahead makes Point of Rocks early in the day. They decides to travel on to Wagon Mound and camp there instead. They pushes ahead while the caravan behind slows up, takin’ it easy so as to make camp at Point of Rocks, where there’s always plenty of water and feed—an’ Injuns for jest that likely reason. a 167 “Everybody but Irish knows how Point of Rocks in them days is about the most dangerous spot on the whole Santa Fé Trail. With its big, cold spring gushin’ out of the rocks it’s jest too good to be healthy. [ reckon there’s been more ha’r lifted there than anywheres west of the Missouri. ~ “But the boss of the hinder caravan is a hardnead. It’s him that causes the split in the beginnin’. But Young Roy of Arden- Keppel ruther fancies the danger, an’ then thev’ve hed luck with them all the way. “They camps at Point of Rocks—a right nice spot if ye happen to be bald or bought yer ha’r in a store. Along about daybreak them Apaches, jest rises out of nowhere an’ begins circlin’ an’ shootin’ an’ yellin’ like kiotes in moonlight. “The trader an’ Young Roy of Arden- Keppel puts up a great defense. Seems the Scot has been in some real fightin’ in Yurrup an’ is a soldier by trade. They caches the women an’ children and places every pas- senger that wears britches whar he'll do the most good. They fights like man, an’ would ha’ beaten off three times their own strength; but they’re up a’gin worse ’n that. Them Apaches seems to Jump up double for every one they drops. whole tribe is out! “But they fights on, all the time expeckin’ to hear the escort pound in from the west an’ take the Injuns in the flank an’ rear. They ain’t dreamin’ that the bigger cara- van’s now forty mile away, well beyond — Wagon Mound an’ headin’ for Taos—the ~ escort jest as keen for trail’s end as the traders, they thinkin’ the smaller outfit ’Il come through all right anyway. “Well, that’s about all the story. Only Fergus comes out of it alive. How? He don’t know hisself. He’s crazy as a locoed jack-rabbit when Bill Comstock an’ the rest of us picks him up wanderin’ among the mesquite an’ catclaw. Mebbe that’s why the Apaches doesn’t kill him. They’re plum scared of a loco. Then there’s the way he’s dressed. Maybe they takes him for a sperrit. “He disremembers everything frum that p’int. When it looks like the jig’s up, he useter tell me, his master calls him to his side. “ ‘Fergus,’ savs Young Roy, ‘you an’ me will gang oot thegither.’ (I don’t get the hang of their tongue, but it’s something like that.) ‘Get on the wagon-tree there, m’lad, C© It’s as if the oe EloOOLkKS CO S|