Adventure Magazine Cover — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

42 draw a card to fill after diggin’ into Mac- Dowell for I.0.U.s as high as possible. “Tt was just the same frame-up as we used on Carsley up to Nogales. The only differ- ence was that this here MacDowell had been tipped off—how I ain’t the least idea —and had guts enough to buck the ante. He caught the switch in decks, but bet his four aces up to a couple o’ thousand dollars worth o’ I.0.U.s before the draw. “T guess, bein’ a keen kid if there ever was one, he knowed it would be too raw for Beers to have a pat straight flush against four aces, and he figured the lay right— that the first two cards on top o’ the deck would fill either.end o’ Beers’ flush. The boy throws away one ace and draws two cards, so Beers don’t fill. “Then he pulls a gun before anybody could recover, has his partner, Ransom, that was sittin’ there lookin’ on, scoop in all the money in sight, and fades—a couple o’ thousand winner. Of course I wasn’t workin’ the deal myself—just sittin’ in to follow your orders, but you can’t blame Beers. No man in the world could know that the kid had been tipped Off and that he’d deliberately get into the game, figure the deal right and then throw away four aces for the sake o’ drawin’ two cards.” ‘“Fe’s a chip off the old block,” remarked Fitzpatrick. ‘And he’s got two thousand dollars of mine that I figure to make the most expensive dinero he ever got hold of.” He apparently had not moved a muscle during the conversation and his voice had neither raised nor lowered in the slightest degree, but his last words conveyed in some subtle way a depth of cold resolution that caused Searles to glance at his chief in sud- den curiosity. | “There’s a couple o’ things I’m won- derin’ about, Dave,” he said. “Number one—who tipped off MacDowell that you was out to get him? Number two—why are you out to get hime” Of all the men—outlaws, Mexicans, Chi- namen, bribed officials and bandit chiefs— with whom Fitzpatrick carried on his wide- spread traffic back and forth across the border Searles was probably the only one who would have dared to ask that last ques- tion. Fitzpatrick gave no sign that he had heard, fora moment. So the imperturbable Searles went on: “So far as I know this flyer has never run afoul o’ you except that time he was flyin’ Adventure jJow along the San Elizabeth road and made you back your car into the ditch. Unless you’ve changed a whole lot it would take more’n that to make you go so far out o’ your way to trim off a young’ sprig like im.”’ Fitzpatrick’s silence continued for a mo- ment. Neither face nor eyes gave any hint of what his thoughts might be. “Well, I'll tell you, Jim, and you'll be the first man I ever did tell. I guess you won’t be a any temptation to spread it,” he said. At the last words his thin lips curved for an instant in an unpleasant smile. Searles, who for ten years had known that half a lifetime in jail would be his portion if he failed to serve Fitzpatrick well, did not give any indication that he understood the allu- sion but smoked calmly and waited. “Twenty years ago,’”’ continued Fitzpat- rick coldly, “I was a stockman in North Texas. I fought with every weapon I fig- ured I could get away with using. Iwas no more particular then thanI am now. Some people thought a lot but not a one 0’ them could prove anything. I was getting rich when Bill MacDowell—young Mac- Dowell’s father—threw his cards in my face © at a stud game in Palestine and accused me of crooked dealing. “The other fellows—all big stockmen— gave me a week to leave the country and published the story all over Texas. I came down here. And I’m tellin’ you, Searles, if I’d thought I could have cheated in that game I would have, because it was big, but I was playin’ square. “ ‘Roarin’ ’? Bill MacDowell is one of the big men in Texas today—I might have been where he is. For twenty years I’ve waited to pay him off. When I see his son kicked out of the Army and out of the border country like I was there’ll be a lot of men like you that won’t be under the necessity of dancing when I crack the whip.” As unemotionally as Fitzpatrick had spoken, Searles replied. “The spigs wil find it harder to get guns, the Americans will find it harder to get liquor and the Customs men can sleep of nights,’ he remarked. It was the first time he had ever heard Fitzpatrick say a word about himself, his past career or his reasons for any action, He was closer to his chief than any one else, Yet he had never pierced the armor of icy COMMICLOOKS (C@)