Adventure Magazine Cover — page 142: what you’re looking at

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

132 “But look here, Tubby,” began the old man in brave protest, sliding his Panama to the other side of his head, “confound it, we've got to eat.” Tubby’s thick finger and frowning eyes never wavered. ‘No chicken-heart can!eat here free,”’ he rumbled. A moment Joash and Jim withstood that pointing finger; then they slunk through the door like whipped dogs. When they were out of hearing of the pariah-making Tubby Joash managed choked speech— “T’ll undergo rank famine sooner than ask him for credit again!” “Let’s hit for the oatmeal,” whispered Jim. “Front o’ my shirt’s caught on my backbone.” They hurried along among the scattered houses to the place Joash called home—a little two-room adobe with dirt floor and screen windows. When they arrived they saw that chick- ens had flown up on the table, upset the oatmeal box and eaten the contents. Tracks were visible in the film of white powder remaining on the red-and-blue oil-cloth. Jim flung himself down on the cot that he had called his. He was almost ready to weep. Joash sat himself down in the door- way and tried to whistle; but the pucker was in his stomach more than in his lips, and he soon petered out on the tune. “Sort o’ makes me want to do something desperate,”’ said he. ‘Don’t know where we'll get breakfast.”’ Jim sat up. He regarded Joash in the essence of disgust. ‘““Where,”’ he flung out, ‘‘are we goin’ to get supper?” “Here comes the Texas Ranger,” replied Joash. “Let’s ask him.” 4 EVERY one of the six Americans in Target of the Sun was there largely because he wished to be, even Ranger Bud Milroy, who was tem- porarily stationed in the town at his own requesting. There was Coons, the general merchant. And Brisket, who had been a sergeant in the Army medical corps and now sort of practised medicine and ran the picture show and dance-hall and was postmaster. Then the other three were Joash and Jim and Hunt, who had no particular visible means Adventure of support, unless the tales were believed that Hunt was doing a bit of smuggling from Mexico. Joash and Jim and Hunt were remnants of that long skirmish line stretching from the mouth of the Rio Grande across the con- tinent to San Diego—a skirmish line of men waiting for Mexico to get just right for them to go in and risk their money and time, or to get jobs with fair likelihood of pay. Many had trickled across, and these three might have been gone had they not found a liking for the sun-baked village, a liking that in Joash and Jim, at least, amounted to genuine affection. Love for Target of the Sun in fact had grown on Joash until he began to treasure the thought of setting up a photograph gallery and shoe-repair shop in his little house. He had had enough experience in these businesses to know that four hundred dollars would not go far. More money had been required, and on sudden impulse, which was his nature, he had entered the financial adventure of rounding up the burros for slaughter. His savings went like smoke. But it was not in the nature of the little old man to let red blood flow with a knife. Burros had been his sole companions on many a solitary prospecting-trip in the bleak mountains of northern Mexico. These lone trips in the altitudes had given him a tenderness of nature that comes to some men much alone. Yet the tendency to do queer, impulsive things was his. Joash looked at the corner of his front room where he had meant to set his camera with its black cloth; and at the opposite corner where in imagination he many a time had seen a cobbler’s bench littered with awls and tacks and leather scraps and rag- ged shoes galore. He hardened his heart. He would slaughter the burros, and he would refrain from any act that might jeopardize his possession of the animals. This meant that he must be traitor to his beloved town and its people and not in- form about the Straddler. Even in the ‘making of his decision of silence he groaned. “‘What’s matter now?” demanded Jim. “I was thinkin’ of telling the Ranger about the Straddler, but——” “Tellin’ Bud Milroy! Don’t you know Rangers well enough yet to know the first thing he’d do would be to grab all us Go DOOK 1@)