Adventure Magazine Cover, October 30, 1924 — page 160: what you’re looking at

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

Author of “Mountain Pride,” “The First Born,” HE MAN was dead. Sheriff Clint T Hawkins swung himself from his horse, threw the reins to his mounted deputy, young Andy Spurlock, and knelt beside the prone form in the middle of the mountain road. Early morning mists were still clouding the adjacent valleys; the summits of the Kentucky hills had not yet begun to glow with the first touch of the rising sun; and a heavy dew, dripping from the overhanging trees, had laid the roadway dust, which © showed no marks of travel that dawn except the hoof-prints of the two horsemen. “It’s old John Bradshaw!” exclaimed the big sheriff, lifting a canvas haversack that covered the dead face. ‘Uncle Johnny Bradshaw, the colporter!*” he repeated. “Gosh, Andy—and he’s been murdered!”’ Young Spurlock, a dark-complexioned, strong-featured mountaineer, slipped from bis own saddle and joined his chief beside the body. Andy represented the law in the Red River section of the county. The day be- fore he and Clint hunted down a pack of wild dogs that had been killing calves in that region, spent the night at the nearest village, Rothwell, and at daybreak started back to the county seat. They were little more than *Colporter (also colporteur) in the Anglo-Saxon sense is “one who is engaged by a religious society or association to travel about and distribute or sell religious books, tracts, etc.’ (Encyclopedic Dictionary, Hunter and Morris.) The term colporter, now practically obsolete elsewhere, survives in the Kentucky mountains, where pedlers of religious books still ply their trade. “The Death Watch,”’ copyright, 1924, by Lewis H. Kil- patrick. my DEATH WATCH KILPATRICK LEWIS H- etc. a mile on their way when halted by the grim figure in the road. ‘Shot through the heart,’ declared Andy, pointing to John Bradshaw’s left breast, its cheap cotton shirt crimson with undried blood. hind these trees along here.”’ “Naw,” Sheriff Hawkins corrected a mo- ment later. 3 He had opened the shirt, and was ex- amining the soaked underwear and the wound beneath it. ‘‘No bullet made that hole,” he said. ‘The colporter was stabbed, kilt by one Jab of a broad-blade knife in a mighty strong hand. ‘And look here, Andy,” he ejaculated. “There’s a slit in the undershirt but none in the b’iled shirt—and both were buttoned up tight. Now how on earth could that bee” The deputy frowned over the question, confirming Clint’s statement for himself, and then carefully scrutinized the dead man’s other clothing. His worn derby hat lay just where it might have dropped if he had fallen suddenly; every garment was in place, but on his feet were only a pair of yarn socks. A glance showed, too, that their soles were dustless. “Clint, he’s been robbed o’ his shoes.”’ Andy’s puzzled frown deepened and he rese. “But who’d kill a man jest fer them, anyway?” he wondered. ‘‘Most folks in these mountains go barefoot durin’ warm weather.” T50 DOO ‘““Bushwhacked, I reckon, from be-- © inn