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

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

Burro delicate violet. Red could see through the cracks in the shack the dark rim of the limestone mountains, fading nearer at hand to the chiseled silver of the moon-bathed desert. From deep in the distance came the bark of a coyote. Red ate and drank, wa- tered the burros and rifled his food stock for them, giving each a box of rolled oats. It was as he did this that his nebulous plan was suddenly congealed to a semblance of cohesiveness. A hungry burro stops to nibble at the first salt bush or yucca. A well-fed burro wanders afar. Red sat think- ing there in the velvet darkness, trying to forget the lethargy that was upon him, try- ing to forget the tiny needle-like thrusts of savage pain that seemed to stream down his leg like lightning flowing down a sky. He arose at length to a sitting posture beside the provision cabinet and produced a small gasoline stove. Near by was a closely corked bottle of gasoline, and he filled the stove-tank and pumped air-pres- sure into it. With the oilcloth taken from a small table he formed a tent to shield the light of amatch. Then he lighted the stove. Next he extracted several tallow candles from a small box and tossed them into a frying-pan, which he set over the blue flame. He yet was uncertain precisely what he would do. The torpor in his brain seemed a deadly thing, impeding his every thought and act. i few GAR NUNN, from his perch in a wie small defile of rotten rock a few hun- —=~ dred feet from the shack, considered what he would do m the morning. Mean- while, no effort at escape was possible in so radiant a night. Nunn could have seen a coyote scurrying from the shack. He was quite certain he had dealt Carna- han a death blow. Certainly the chances were all against a serious fight. Perhaps, just before dawn, he would creep to a point near the shack to determine if his quarry were still alive. He could hold out for a day or so; he possessed a few cakes of chocolate. He had to hold out—that was the way things stood—he had to. He should have got this dirty rat in his sleep, instead of blaz- ing away at him like a crazy fool. And such shooting! He had had the jumps, no less. Why, a schoolboy with a pop-gun could have done better. Now, he was up against a day of hunger, at least, before he could get the gold. Five Bells 49 thousand dollars! Nunn smiled there in the silver radiance. What was that? There was a creak that ripped through the desert silence like a band saw, followed by a thud of hoofs. Nunn leaped to his feet and started running, pell-mell. Then he slowed down. He could see, on the flat plateau upon which stood the shack, the dark forms of two trotting burros. He noted, with a sigh of relief, that Carnahan was not with them. He stopped suddenly in his tracks, sharp- ly suspicious of a ruse on the part of Carna- han. At first he could see no reason why Carnahan should turn loose the jacks. Nunn hesitated for some time. He could still see the burros, diminishing dark fg- ures. It came to him suddenly that Carna- han must be sending for assistance. He had taken the bells from the animals, better to get them off without detection. Ah—— It snapped into a settled conviction— Carnahan was sending the jacks off in the hope they would attract attention, bring help. Perhaps each carried a note. Nunn chuckled to himself. Carnahan now was without means of transportation. He couldn’t get a hundred feet. He de- pended upon a thousand to one chance. Million to one, Nunn chuckled. And how simply he would intercept:them! Carnahan had played right into‘his hands. But the next instant a devastating thought flashed like a beacon. Carnahan, dying, might be driving the burros off that Nunn too should die. To capture the burros before they wan- dered too far, which a moment before had been an idle whim of Nunn, or at any rate a matter of common prudence, loomed sud- denly as a fearful necessity. | He circled the shack, running down through a dry wash and up over the gentle slope of a lava flow which terminated abruptly at the verge of the plateau. At least he need not worry about Carnahan, cooped up and dying in the shack. The jacks seemed to have been swallowed up, and Nunn stood for some time peering over the level sweep of the desert. He was about to turn back, believing the animals would return to the spring in the morning, when he heard them in a small box cafion on his right. He descended the sides of the cafion cau- tiously, but when he reached the bottom he NOOK 1 @)