Adventure Magazine Cover — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

53 Adventure “My —] him!” “°F ain’t said that before,” said the steward. He’s dead. I’ve killed | NEXT morning Drixley opened his sales eyes and asked for some one called eee Trander. something wrong. “Where am I?” he said. the ship was on fire!”’ Later in the day he told the captain that he had been a passenger on the El Dorado and that his name was Smith. The cap- tain, remembering the name Drixley in the pocketbook, did not argue. Twenty-four hours afterward, followed by the steward who protested that he was “doin’ ’isself ’arm,’’ Drixley staggered on deck, and, holding on to a stanchion, looked about him with curious, worried eyes. “Captain,” he said, nodding astern to- ward the setting sun, “are we headed east?” “Didn’t I tell you we were bound for San Francisco?” said the captain. ‘Why, what’s wrong?” Drixley assured him there was nothing wrong; nevertheless he could not hide the horror in his face and voice. He was quite a young man, very much burnt by his ex- posure in the open boat, very thin and worn, with hollows in his cheeks and eyes unnaturally bright. The captain decided that he liked him; all the same he was puzzled. “Drixley,” he said suddenly, “what made you say your name was Smith?” Drixley shot a startled glance at him. “T must have been dreamin’ if I said that. Drixley’s my name. California’s my State. I’m a rancher.” “Ah!’ said the captain, who had read many books about the Wild West. “Cat- tle, cow-punchers, round-ups.” “A few head uh cattle maybe,” said Drixley; “otherwise hogs, alfalfa, wheat. I do purty well, an’ I guess I’ll do better still as soon as a deal I got——”’ He broke off with a kind of choking noise in his throat. “T ain’t as strong as I thought.” ““You’d better turn in,” said the captain. And all through the first watch he paced to and fro on the upper bridge, wondering what grim terror it was that haunted Drix- ley. Thén he seemed to sense ““Good ——, THE night before the Sussex Bride CaN reached the Golden Gate there was a ; tap at the door of the chart-room, “Come in,’ growled the captain. Drixley stood at the threshold. “May I speak to you a moment, cap- tain?” “Take a seat, Mr. Drixley. amissP”’ Drixley dropped on to the plush-covered settee and began to talk. “Captain,” he said, ‘‘you’re takin’ me back where I come from. I left San Fran- cisco because I killed a man. Yes, it’s the truth—one evening down by the water- front, China Basin way. I was standin’ on the edge uh the wharf, lookin’ across at Oakland, when I heard some one at the back uh me. I turned quick an’ there was Palling yankin’ out his gun. “T grabbed an iron bar an’ hit him just - as he fired. He was crazy, I guess, but that didn’t make no diff’rence. I'd killed him, I can’t get the sight uh him out uh my mind, layin’ there with his mouth open——”’ “But,” said the captain slowly, ‘‘you did it in self-defense, didn’t you?” “T ain’t sure sometimes. My head aches if I try to think too much. He’d no rea- sons fer sayin’ I’d ruined him, neither. Yuh see, captain, he’d always been kind uh jealous. Palling wasn’t a worker—I was. I went ahead—he didn’t. “One day he come an’ wanted to buy my ranch. He was too anxious. He tried again an’ again. It was oil, uh course. He’d got to hear whispers uh what was comin’. How, knows! But I wouldn’t sell. An then a pal uh mine put me wise, an’ I went to San Francisco with Palling after me.”’ For a time there was no sound in the chart-room but the creaking of the wheel- chains and the noise of the steam steering- gear and the rumble of the cranks in the engine-room. Presently Drixley roused himself and went on. “T got an offer from some uh the big int’rests an’ closed the deal. Palling would uv done the same with my land if I’d let him. He was waitin’ in Market Street. “Hello? I says. ‘I sold the oil-rights. Thanks fer the hint.’ “Palling always had been a bit soft in the head; he purty nigh went mad right there, I’d ruined him, he said, an’ he’d get even. What’s EoOmichbooks.co