Adventure Magazine Cover, October 10, 1921 — page 49: what you’re looking at

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

The Silent Captain years ago. It was when old Jim Wilcox was dvin’—dyin’ like a lonely wolf here in this ranch-house. Me and Jim didn’t like each other. We had trouble lots of time. So did the other ranch owners. Jim was cantankerous in his old age!”’ : “Go on!” “TI was foremost in the rows against him. The other cattlemen was with me. It went to my head. I figgered I was a Jeader. I had ambitions. I only needed a bigger ranch and more power. I begun schemin’. “The Wilcox outfit was on the down grade. She was right alongside me. She looked easy. I tried to buy, but the price was ’way up above my head so I begun to look for short cuts. When Jim Wilcox died I thought I saw a way to bring the price within my reach. There wasn’t any owner, only a lot of San Francisco lawyers lookin’ for the heir. I thought I’d fix the ranch so’s any one with a lick of sense would be glad to sell what was left. Then I could bring her to her feet again. I wanted the lands and ranch-house more than I even wanted the cattle. “‘The only way to do it was by strippin’ the ranch bare. The only way to do that was by rustlers and such folks. Oh, this may sound like a crazy man’s scheme to you, Wilcox, but put yourself in my place. Here I was achin’ to get hold of the best outfit in the foot-hills and there she was, layin’ loose without any owner and ready to drop into my hands if I only tilted her a little! . “T knew I couldn’t mix into any funny business. It had to be done by some one else. I had to be careful. The rustlers on the range was a lot of petty thieves. They wasn’t big enough for what I wanted. “Up Phoenix way I ran into a feller named Jake Curry. Curry blew in from the Rio Grande and brought some friends with him. He was the boss. I could tell it the minute I seen him. He was a feller that knew how to do things. He was the man I wanted. “TI brought Curry to the range and gave him a few cattle to start him off like a reg’lar ranchman with a registered brand. I told him what I was after, but Inever gave him an order of any sort. I swear it! Whatever he’s done is his business. That’s my only out. It ain’t much, but it’s all I’ve got! “Curry put his own men on the Wilcox 39 ranch. Your old foreman, Hastings, didn’t know it. Curry stole cattle right under his nose. The ranch began to shrink. I fig- gered it was about ripe to buy. “Then you came. At first I didn’t know how to size you up. You were so cocksure I figgered you was some tenderfoot that might as well be trimmed as not, only I wasn’t quite sure. You had me guessin’. I liked you, Wilcox, but you looked as if you didn’t know beans. Later, when you refused a second time to sell, I begun to see I was in a bad box. “Curry had grown. He’s grown so big I couldn’t handle him. I wished I hadn’t brought him onto the range. It was too late. He’d gathered every rapscallion in the county. Nobody could handle ’em ex- cept him. I begun to see what he was doin’. Curry’s ambitions had mine lookin’ small. He was figurin’ to own everything. He ran his gangs like a gen’ral. He grabbed cattle fast and they wasn’t all from the Wilcox herd, either. Some of ’em were mine! “Oh, I’d played with fire, all right! “I’d lit a match and set the range ablaze! Curry was gainin’, gainin’, gainin’ till I wondered if anything could stop him. ‘‘When I heard that Hastings was shot it hit me between the eyes. I knew I was guilty. I was the man that started it all. It got my nerve. Every day I wondered what was goin’ to happen next and I worried myself sick. ‘‘And then you began to fight. My ——, Wilcox, you can’t know what I’ve been through! Every time a man was shot I seemed to see him pointin’ at me! I’ve paced up and down in my ranch-house at night for fifty thousand miles! Sometimes I wanted to come over and tell you all about it; but I didn’t have the nerve. | “Then came the round-up dance. I didn’t know the fight was comin’ till I ~ heard the shots. Then I knew my devil’s tricks had come home to roost. “TI staggered upstairs to my room and locked the door. I was sick as a dog— sick with knowin’ I was at the bottom of it all! I got a bottle and drunk myself blind that night—and they carried the dead bodies under my window and laid ’em there without my knowin’ it! ‘“‘Next mornin’ I walked down among the cots in the parlor and saw Steve Adams there stiff and white. It knocked me out.: cConmicoooks | C@