Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 204: what you’re looking at

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

202 lowers you to be herding with that Bern- stein.” “With who?” asked the puzzled Carola. “With this here Young Kelly, or Bern- stein, which is his real monicker. Maybe he’s a cut above the average battler, but take it from me that the best of them is none too good. I should know, I reckon.’’ “Why!”’ exclaimed Carola wonderingly, “T reahlly had no idea that he was a Jewish gentleman. But that is nothing against him afteh all, Misteh Burgess.”’ “Well, maybe not,” admitted Burgess re- luctantly. ‘‘Anyway, it ain’t that he is a Jew, but that he’s a bruiser! And,” he add- ed as if conscious of his own rectitude, “‘there ain’t none of these pugs that ain’t so crooked as they could sleep on a corkscrew. Jew—Mick—nigger—they are all alike! A bad lot, I’m tellin’ you, Miss Carola!” Carola accepted this opinion with becom- ing seriousness. “T expect you know, Misteh Burgess,”’ she said. ‘And I thank you foh telling me. But I can’t discriminate between customehs very shahply, you know. I have to be agreeable to every one.”’ “T reckon that is so,” said Burgess, molli- fied by her readiness to accept his advice. “Anyway, after we pull this fight off there won’t be no Abe Bernstein hanging ’round you. Marty McGuire will mash him up so bad that you wouldn’t know what race he belonged to.” “Oh, I hope he won’t huht him badly!’ murmured the tender-hearted Miss Carola. IV ne THERE is, at Fort Jones, a rather Meee peculiar situation in respect to == geographical and political divisions. The Black River, a large and sluggish stream, divides two states at that point. The original boundary was marked by the river-bed; but the stream, in the course of years, finding another channel more con- genial to it, wandered over into the adjoin- ing state and left a portion of what had once been foreign soil behind it.’ This strip, just outside of the town, had been no man’s land for some years. There had been disputes as to its allegiance which had never been settled. The ground was not valuable, and the authorities of the one state as those of the other, considered that they had all on their Adventure hands that they could well attend to. On one side of the river they claimed that, originally, there had been no doubt that the strip belonged to the other side and that the mere fact of the river deciding to change its bed could not destroy that side’s liability for its administration. On the other hand, those transriparian citizens maintained that the the river-bed was the boundary, and, when the bed changed, the peareay changed with it. Whichever side was right, the dispute was never settled and as a consequence no ad- ministration of the strip was ever under- taken. It remained an outlaw territory, orphaned and despised, a refuge for boot- leggers, resorts, gamblers and dives. The laws of both states were violated there with impunity, and the worthless strip acquired a value to certain interests that was excess- ive and unique. A great race track had been erected and many a rich stake was raced for on the anomalous territory. Yet it was tacitly understood that, out- side of the immediate neighborhood, the activities incident to this state of affairs should be seldom spoken of and then only vaguely. For the arm of the Federal Govern- ment, which would not hesitate to assume responsibility if conditions were called to its attention, was long, and its grip strong. Therefore the citizens of Fort Jones, as well as those across the river, maintained a silent agreement, which extended even to the papers, that any mention of these activi- ties should be veiled and belittling. These tactics had so far succeeded, up to date, that no busy representative of the Govern- ment had yet inquired into the jurisdictional - matters involved in these violations of the statutes. Obviously, it was in this “Brim- stone Bend” that Burgess and his associates had set the stage for their enterprise. : And that enterprise ran swiftly to its climax while Carola smiled demurely and impartially over her counter at her cus- tomers and fanned, unconsciously, the flames of hate, malice and jealousy that some of them concealed within them. Mr. Burgess dropped in regularly to tell the re- sult of his negotiations with Mr. Crabbe, while Mr. Kelly stopped regularly for his chewing-gum or paper, and hinted more than once that on the outcome of this last battle depended a declaration of more than passing interest to the girl. While the pages of the Telegram ceased CoOMmichoooks (CO