Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 130: what you’re looking at

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

128 that Miss Saltoun girl is a-comin’ out to the Flyin’ M!” “TI dunno. I hope not.” “Which I sure hope not too. She’s so good-lookin’ she scares me, she does. I don’t want to go nowheres near her, an’ I won’t neither. No,sirree. If sheever comes a-traipsin’ out to the ranch ye can do yore own talkin’.” ‘‘Aw, keep yore shirt on. she won’t come.” “‘T’ll bet she’s a-aimin’ to, or ye wouldn’t ’a’ said what ye did. Yecan’t fool me, Tom. She’ll come, an’ she’ll bring Jim Mace’s wife along for a chaperon, an’ they’ll most likely stay for two meals, an’ I’ll have to grub in the corral. Great note this is! Druv out o’ my own home by a couple o’ female women!’ “Laugh! It’s awful funny! I never could abide Mis’ Mace neither. She’s always talkin’, talkin’. Talk the hide off a cow, an’ not half try. How Jim stands her I can’t see nohow. If she was my woman I’d feed her wolf-pizen, or take it myself.” ‘“‘T guess now ye never was married, was ye, Scotty?” ‘Me married! Well, I guess not! Come mighty close to it once. I must ’a’ been crazy or drunk, or somethin’ — anyway, when I was a young feller over east in Mac- pherson, Kansas, me an’ Sue Shimmers had it all fixed for hitchin’ up together. Nice girl, Sue was. Good cook, a heap energetic, an’ right pretty in the face. The day be- fore the weddin’ Sue cuts stick an’ elopes with Tug Wilson, the blacksmith. “TI felt bad for mighty nigh a week, but I’ve been a heap joyous ever since. Yes, sir, Sue developed a lot after marriage. Why, if Tug took so much as one finger 0’ old Jordan Sue’d wallop him with a ax- handle. Poor old Tug used to chew up so many cloves he got dyspepsy. Between the ax-handle an’ the dyspepsy Tug had all he could swing to keep alive. I’ve never stop- ped bein’ grateful to Tug Wilson. He sure saved my life. Yes, sir; as a rule, females is bad medicine.”’ “How about Mis’ Burr an’ her daugh- ter?” “IT said, as a general rule. Like I told ye once before, Mis’ Burr an’ Dorothy are real ladies, all-silk an’ several yards wide. A gent can talk to them just like folks. An’ Dorothy can have my ranch an’ every cay- use on it, includin’ my mules, any time she I guess now Adventure wants. irl.” ‘‘She’s sure a winner.”’ “She’s all o’ that. Now there’s a girl that’ll make a ace-high wife. She wouldn’t use no ax-handle. She’d understand a gent’s failin’s, she would, an’ she’d break him of ’em so nice an’ easy he wouldn’t know nothin’ about it. Yes, sir; the party that gets Dorothy Burr needn’t worry none *bout bein’ happy.”’ “I guess now there ain’t no party real sure-enough fit to make her a husband.” “There ain’t. No, sir, ye can bet there ain’t. But she’ll marry some no-account tinhorn—them kind always does. Say, why don’t you make up to her?”’ “Well, I would,” said Loudon gravely, “only ye see it wouldn’t be proper. I ain’t a no-account tinhorn.”’ “You ain’t, but O’Leary is.” “Tt ain’t gone as far as that!” “Ye never can tell how far anythin’s gone with a woman. Ye never can tell nothin’ aboat her till it happens. She’s a heap un- expected, a female is. Now I don’t say as Dorothy’d marry ye, Tom. Ye may not be her kind o’ feller at all. But yo’re a darn sight better’n Pete O’Leary.” ‘‘Thanks,”’ said Loudon dryly. “Then again,” rushed on Scotty, deeply engrossed in his subject, “it ain’t noways necessary for ye to marry her. All ye got to do is give O’Leary the run. Chase him off—see? I’ve been thinkin’ some serious 0’ doin’ it myself, but I’d have to beef him, an’ that wouldn’t suit Dorothy. A lady don’t like it none to have her admirers shot up. It only makes her more set to have 7em. But you, Tom, could go about it in a nice, refined way, an’ get Dorothy to likin’ ye better’n she does O’Leary, an’ there ye are. No blood’s spilt, an’ the lady is saved.” ‘“‘But s’pose she didn’t cotton to me for a cent?” “Ye got to risk that, o’ course. But you can win out over O’Leary, I’ll gamble on that.” “But why am I elected? all?” “Well, say, ye’d ought to be ashamed 0’ yourself, raisin’ objections thisaway. Here I am, tryin’ to help out as nice a little girl as ever breathed, an’ ye got to kick. selfish, I call it. Can’t ye see I’m tryin’ to do you a good turn, too? There’s Nothin’s too good for that little Why me at CoOMmicboooks (©