Adventure Magazine Cover — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

Ke é a & vi ; The.Last Wolf wolver dogs, several of them. The wild brute had no alternative. He dashed into the prickly-pear where it was thickest, pre- ferring thorns to the fangs of the over- whelming brutes behind. Jack-rabbits had runways amid this growth. The wolf started a score of them as he crawled and edged, cringed and whim- pered along the tortuous way, pricked, stung and even torn to the living flesh. He crossed a little open space and darted into another cluster. He stopped at last, lying flat, with thorns in his sides and their points holding him down on all sides. A moment later he heard the yelping bafflement and pain of the fool dogs behind. With all their experience, the sight-hunters didn’t know prickly-pear when they saw it. They must needs bound high, looking for the game they hunted, and come down amid the thorns and spines from above. The humans and Airedales, topping the ridge, heard the squealing anguish and reckoned that the wolf was at last at bay, and was fighting five or six times its weight, tooth-armament, and agility—and winning out. The grand skedaddle was at hand at last. The joy of the kill in a riot was theirs, to reward them. The fagged horses sprang their knees; the Airedales lost their heads. The men pulled their revolvers and carbines, and, to make the occasion one never to be forgotten, shot and yelled into the air with all the sane, intelligent and superior dignity of humanity . in the presence of the lower orders of brutes and such. They roared down to the edge of the field of un-Burbanked cactus. The noble Borzoi were crawling out of it, limping on all four paws, their faces and smug-fat sides scratched and bleeding, while they whim- pered with the astonishment that fools in- variably display when their utter folly brings its due reward. The shouting and the shooting died slowly and reluctantly away. While two or three of the men rode around the edge of the tall prickly-pear and pointed their sharp noses out over the spines, blinking as they saw the reflection of the setting sun down the masses of spines and thorns, like the path- way of moonbeams on the ripples of water or across an alkali flat, the other humans in quick and hasty alarm fell from their horses, who sighed and blew with relief and wished they hada drink. | Then the dogs were caught, and thorns os gon. a a Sa wae oe SI were pulled out, and other thorns broken off inside the trembling flesh, beneath the dusty, muddied skins. “My gracious!” one of the men gasped. “Tf we hadn’t come, the dogs would ’a’ tore themselves to pieces in this prickly- pear! Gosh! I never saw anything like this! Hey—Bill! See ’im anywhere? Never mind letting the dogs kill ’im! Shoot ’im if you see ’im! Don’t b’lieve we better let the dogs kill ’im in here.” “Oh—Jack! Catch Prime, there! Don’t let Prime into them thorns! He’s a*awful lot of spunk, Prime has—hang on to ’im! He might tear *imself all to pieces, if you don’t!” When the thorns were all broken off or pulled out, and the dogs had been tied up to prevent them eating the wolf alive, night fell, and the hunters turned reluctantly in the starry desert alkali—turned from the chase. They spoke in admiration of the wolf. “‘Ain’t he the cunning ——,, though, com- ing here? Why, say, you know, he knowed what he was doing! My land!” one of the boys cried. ‘I never saw nothing like it! Say; you know, he’ll be killing a lot of cattle around here. He’ll eat two-three a week, he will, jes’ the best parts, tenderloins an’ round steaks, rib steaks, and prob’ly the kidney fat, an’ so on. You take these wise old wolves an’ they’re bad! sireee!”’ One Borzoi with pane of thorns in each paw, half-blind, his shoulders poisoned by the cactus, sank back when the rope strained on his neck. “Look’t that! Look’t that!’ Bill cried. “T tell you, my Popsy-Doodle’s the bestest, ambitiousest wolf-houn’ in this country! Look’t ’im! He’d ruther choke to death’n leave that wolf skulkin’ there! He would! See’t? Hear ’im whine? He’s begging to be left here, to tackle that old he wolf alone! By gosh, I’ve heard of spunky dogs, but he’s the limit! So—so, old boy, so-o! Come on! We’ll come back tomorrow— He-uh! He-uh! Come on, old boy!” Popsy-Doodle whimpered, limped and slavered at the jaws; but he consented to be persuaded and led away. Bill, sorry to take his dog from so noble a desire to eat up a scoundrel devasting outlaw wolf, at last hoisted the dog by the collar, kicking, choking and gurgling, to hang him dangling over his saddle like a ragged blanket. Eomichbook Yes, (E@)