Adventure Magazine Cover — page 86: what you’re looking at

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

89 motion and then give a show for the benefit of the church. She’s gotta have a class of five to start with, and after them five has learned all about it they can each take a class of five. See how it’s done?”’ “Fas she picked her class?”’ “T picked ’em for her, Ike. leans on me.” “Might better ’a’ picked a fish-pole. Who’d you pick?” ‘Me and Pete and Wick Smith and Art Wheeler and you.” “T ain’t ripe,” says IL. me back on the tree.” “She wanted you, Ike. Mentioned you right off the reel. Said she wanted a repre- sentative group. Well, I got ’em, didn’t I? Everybody wanted to help, but five was all we could use.” “Ts Chuck still in jail?” ‘‘Nope, Chuck’s mad. Yuh see, he told Mrs. Holt that him and Miss Harrison was goin’ to get married, and he wanted Mrs. Holt to take care of her and see that none of the men came near her. Chuck was showin’ her some Injun dances, and it was She kinda “You better put a good chance to get even with him for’ lyin’ all the time. Mrs. Holt was willin’ to take her in, bein’ as she was to marry Chuck. : “Testament has talked Mrs. Holt into keepin’ her until this here church benefit is over. It’s goin’ to be a e-leet. affair, Ill tell a mah. Nothin’ like it has ever been thought about before, Ike. This is one time when Piperock shines as a social center and abolishes her rough career.” When it comes to dancing I sure have always shook a wicked hoof, but this kinda stuff had me hoppled. You take two or three little running steps ahead, stop and wave your arms in the air, and kick out behind like-a mule. Then you duck to one side, whirl around, lift up your arms again and go hippety-hopping around the place, kinda singing— ‘Tra-la-la-, tra-la-la, la, la.” That represents a little zephyr of Spring, you understand. There was five little zephyrs in our Spring. Wezephyred around and around. Miss Harrison said we was getting the idea. Then she had us zephyr alone, while the other four little breezes set down and made smart remarks. There was considerable feeling aroused during this lesson. ; Five little zephyrs took her back to the Adventure hotel, and then one little zephyr went home and packed up his burro. That one little zephyr had a vision of a big blow coming and wanted to get out of the road. Magpie tried to plead with us, but me and the mule remained firm. Magpie’s voice was full of tears, but I shook my head, packed my jassack and went to live a while with “Dirty Shirt” Jones, who lives several miles away from the center of disturbance. cya nor sanitary, but he appreciates me a heap. Dirty is cock-eyed, but he believes in handing you bokays while you are yet in the land of the living and not waiting until you are ready for your weight of sand. Dirty squints at me and says: “T know you’d show up, Ike. It’s about time for Piperock to make a fool of itself again. What’s itchin’ the old town this time?” “Interpretive dancing.”’ “Oh yeah. I don’t know what in that.is, Ike; but it sounds like Piperock might adopt it. Magpie’s the ring-leader, ain’t he? Sure.” Dirty knows Piperock as well as I do. For a week I helped him on a copper pros- pect, and not a word of Piperock’s doings percolated into our happy home. Then Dirty got dry. When Dirty Shirt gets dry there ain’t nothing short of sudden death will stop him this side of Buck Masterson’s place. Therefore we packs our burros and pilgrims to the city of Baal, as Testament calls it every Sunday. Testament has just got two sermons. One is on temperance and the other is on the evils of strong drink. We has to pass, Mighty Jones’ place on DIRTY SHIRT ain’t neither sane : our way in, and we finds Mighty settin’ on . his wood-pile, playing with a coyote pup. He squints at us. ‘Goin’ to Piperock?”’ I admits our ultimate destination. “Better go home. Testament Tilton says that Piperock is goin’ to run a dead heat with Sodom and Gomorrah, whatever pair of horses them two is.”’ ‘“What’s the matter with Piperock?” asks Dirty: = = Mighty hitches up his pants and spits very expressive-like. “High-toned. Yessir, Piperock is gettin’ uppity—part of ’em, and the rest are packin’ CORNICLOO© S (C@