Adventure Magazine Cover, October 10, 1921 — page 120: what you’re looking at

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

IIO “Good! That’s worth a celebration.” Kelly drew out his flask, drank, and handed it to Natividad. But straightway he cursed himself, for the half-wit drew off into the darkness and swallowed noisily. Kelly received only the empty flask. “Muchissimas gracias, senor! weesky!”’ “You know it!” Kelly groaned. There was no booze nearer than the tent, three miles away. He took out his disappointment on the native, pushing him remorselessly at the work. The timbers were slimy, rotted, and moss-grown; yet it took much toil to get them out. Then there was old filling to be removed—nasty smelly stuff, too liquid to shovel, too stiff to run. That was a good sign! The only source for that water must be the wall of the real vein—a fissure vein. The tunnel was wet from there to the mouth. At last Flores leaned on his shovel breathing noisily. The muck was all clear, and the face of the offset was in sight. Kelly ordered the native back into the dark- ness, where he could not see what might be found, and attacked the rock with his prospecting pick. He knocked loose a chunk from the face, and held his candle close to it. Wow! It wasn’t rock at all! It was jewelry! Gold in little beads, gold in big spangles, gold powdered all over the surface of the ore! The promoter was crazy with avaricious joy. He broke off another chunk with ‘trembling hands. Richer than the first! A third—every bit as good! No doubt; the vein was a Golconda. He had never dreamed of such richness. There was a million in it! A glimmer of prudence shone in on his excitement. He glared round to see whether the native had observed his find. All was safe: Natividad sat huddled in the shadow. In the last dim ray of the candle Kelly could make out his closed eyes, the corn-husk cigaret pendulous from his droop- ing lip. “Gosh, that wasa scare!”? Fox muttered. “That big drink was the best thing that Goot could have happened. If he’d seen, and . 9 carried word to the Doc Hurriedly he crammed his samples in his saddle-bags; then he kicked the native to his feet, and made Flores hold the candle Adventure while he examined the heading at the tunnel’s end. ‘This, as he supposed, did not show much free gold, but might on assay. The real vein ran where he had taken his first samples. “Now we'll go back and -hide these chunks,” he reflected happily. “I can afford to pay Boozy his second thousand all right. It won’t bea flea bite!”’ fete ANGUS McWHINNIE lingered mut over a late breakfast, relishing the iid the zest of an epicure. He raised to his lips a cup of imported Ceylon, and fingered a new biscuit folded over a choco- late core. Suddenly he paused, gazed out the open window, and set his cup down. ““Hé, mozol’”’ he called. ‘Much ham and eggs!” The doctor’s Scottish hospitality was free to all comers. Conscience forbade him to refuse food and shelter even to an enemy. It was an enemy he had seen approaching now. Fox Kelly was riding down the filo toward the house. The doctor was at the door to greet him. Kelly did not sense the hostility whose only sign was the absence of dialect on his victim’s tongue. “Come in, Kelly. Have a drink?” Seated in a comfortable fiber armchair, Kelly received his host’s preciously com- pounded peg as if it had been mere whisky, and squared up to attack the ham and eggs which McWhinnie had ordered as a fitting dish for a gross taste. A coffee-colored boy waited on him in deft silence. Breakfast over, the doctor led him to the den. Kelly’s innocent eyes beamed on his host. He smiled his most cherubic smile. “Wait!” the Scot commanded. “I’m not supposing you came to pass the time of day, Mr. Kelly. You want something. No compliments, please! They don’t come well from you. I’m not forgetting that mine you did me out of. It was not an honest deal!’ “Sure it was, doctor! A little close perhaps; but you have to expect that in business.” “To my thinking it was dishonorable.” Kelly flushed painfully. “Now, doc! You just don’t understand. That’s the spirit of modern business—do the other man before he can do you. You’d have done me if you could!” . E@ DOOLK ripe bananas in thick Jersey cream ° (©