Adventure Magazine Cover — page 171: what you’re looking at

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

The Grub-Line Shorty had been camped, Tad looked about anxiously. ‘The bed, provisions, and cook- ing utensils were gone. Perhaps Shorty had got away? Perhaps he had moved camp? The nicker of a horse put an abrupt end to this train of thought. The next moment the pack horse, fully packed and dragging his hackamore rope, appeared in the clearing. ‘The big pinto, still wearing his rawhide hobbles, foliowed. Shorty had ridden Skewball that morn- ing. Now neither the little puncher nor his pet horse was to be found. Once more taking up the trail, Tad rode on down the canon. A mile, two miles, then he halted sharply and a sickening lump rose in his corded throat. Directly ahead lay a thirty-foot strip of white-crusted soap-hole bog. The dry crust was broken by cattle tracks and black, bubbling breaks in the treacherous white surface told their gruesome story. The Bar B yearlings that the two partners had branded were in that bog! Part of them, at least. The relentless cruelty of the thing stunned Tad for a moment. Then his gaze focused on an object half- hidden in the black slime. His lips working soundlessly in a jumble of silent prayer and profanity, he dismounted and with a long limb broken from a dead pine, he fished the object on to firm ground. It was an old felt hat, mud spattered almost beyond rec- ognition. ‘Tad’s trembling fingers sought and found a string of rattles in the hat- band. Tad gazed at the rattles dazedly. His thoughts flitted back to the day he and Shorty had killed the rattler. Now those same rattlers identified the old hat as his partner’s. Shorty in that slimy, black hole? The thought of it sickened the big cow-puncher as his fascinated gaze swept the bubbling black mud. A wave of nausea swept over him, leaving his face a pasty yellow. Tiny beads of perspiration gathered on his forehead. Shorty dead? His little partner gone forever? It was impossible! Yet there was the black mess and the mud-soaked hat! Tad turned his back on the soap-hole and, moving like a tired, feeble old man, he got into the saddle. A magpie chattered from a scrub-pine near by. But Tad neither saw the bird that hopped insolently on the limb within arm’s reach, nor did he hear the incessant 169 chatter. Tears dimmed the cow-puncher’s eyes and he choked back the dry sob in his throat. He was looking at the ground like a man in a dream. Gradually it dawned on his numbed senses that there was something strange about that white strip of earth. It was stained red and there were marks of boot-heels indented there. Red. That was odd. And the dry surface at the edge of the bog hole was all marked where men had struggled. The red blotches were blood. Of course. Tad passed his hand across his eyes and shook his head vigor- ously as if trying to shake away the numb- ness in his brain. It was all clear enough now. Ghastly clear. They had driven the cattle into the bog and killed Shorty. Then they had pitched his lifeless body into the slime. Tad’s horror slowly gave way to a cold, deadly rage. He was calm now. Deadly calm. His gaunt, bearded cheeks looked hollow and the lines about his eyes seemed deeper. Under his bushy, sun-bleached brows, his eyes glittered with cruel hate. Moving deliberately, he rode back to where the pack horse and Paint grazed in the clearing. He slipped the pack from the pack horse and saddled Paint. Then he rode up the trail, across the ridge and headed the pinto for the Slash R camp. ' \ " 1.4 if } b\, g 4 ) SSE % 4 EIGHT o’clock. The two cows punchers who were to stand first guard had ridden out to the herd and the men just relieved rode into camp and turning their horses loose, made for the lighted mess tent. Ribs Austin had taken the whisky keg from the mess wagon and placed it on the mess table in the center of the tent. Tin cups, filled with the fiery liquor, tipped up- ward, were gulped empty, and were filled again. With one exception, the Slash R outfit was well on the way toward drunk- enness. The exception was Frenchy, the breed. Back in the far corner of the tent he smoked innumerable cigarets, maintaining a brood- ing silence. Always his beady black eyes shifted toward the door of the big tent as if he were waiting for a visitor. “Dang me if yuh don’t act like you was in love, Frenchy,” called Ribs, lurching across the tent and spilling whisky down the front of his soiled flannel shirt. NOOK C© in