Adventure Magazine Cover, October 10, 1921 — page 163: what you’re looking at

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

) S A _* HE AGED papyri of ancient Egypt tell a tale of a powerful king, unsurpassed in wisdom. His harem, with its dark-eyed beauties, more numerous than the myriad locusts that infested the kingdom each seventh year, was the envy of lesser rulers from near and far. Solomon was a far- famed king, and quite rightly so. But about the mesquite-root camp-fires of the Borderland there circulate tales of another king, monarch of all that he pounded beneath his unshod hooves—a great desert stallion, wild as his desert and mountains. Wisest of all the wild creatures, and wiser than man, he led his picked band of mares where the water-holes were deepest and coolest and the grazing most plentiful. In the veins of the band flowed the best blood of the Border country—the fleetest of wild mares, the most unconquerable of outlaws, and the choicest blooded stock of the Arizona and Texan ranges, coaxed from paddock, corral, or picket-line by this great wooer from the desert. To Border ranch- men the desert king was known as Solomon. By the Mexicans farther south he was called FE] Sol, The Sun, and the great stallton—a golden gleaming sorrel, with full whipping white mane—was all that the Spanish name implied—living, breathing fire. OL —O._M O } Complete Noveletfe “6, Womer Irving Ww e . N McEidowney és) deepening red of the setting sun ap- peared the rugged outline of a horse and rider. The hot dust-laden breeze from the desert stirred to life the black mane, as the great head was raised to gaze down into the broadening valley below. The massive head, deep barrel-like chest, and broad heavy withers spoke of power and stamina—of a mighty endurance. © The rider, lean, rangy, alert and eager— leaning far forward in the saddle and shading his eyes as he searched the distant slope—presented a marked contrast te the mountain of a horse beneath him. A stallion’s ‘challenge shrilled up from below and the great dark roan on the crest answered ' belligerently. Then horse and rider dropped from the sky-line and began a ponderous descent into the valley. Twi- light was deepening, but a short distance in the lead could be seen the dusky outline of a horse leisurely working his way over the valley floor, grazing the sparse bunch- grass in his path. The white mane, waved by each toss of the head, seemed a signal, and the man, rising in his stirrups, shouted his response. Night fell quickly, black in the valley before the stars blinked on for the night. The man dismounted, unsaddled, hobbled the big roan, and with a friendly slap of the 153 comiclooolx SILHOUETTED, black against the ~ C@