Adventure Magazine Cover, October 30, 1924 — page 162: what you’re looking at

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

152 single window, unglassed; the walls and raftered ceiling were bare, and at the end of the room opposite the fireplace was a ladder leading to the loft. Clint and Andy laid their burden on the bed frame, and then young Spurlock re- turned to the road for his horse. “Thar ain’t no danger o’ anybody comin’ here,” he remarked, after tethering the horse in a thicket behind the cabin. ‘Smallpox has made this shack worse feared than a gallows.” “That’s just as we want it,” said the sheriff, already planning his day’s work. “You stay here, Andy, and keep out of sight. I'll send you your dinner and supper by the undertaker. Now I’m off to town.” Sheriff Hawkins went back to the road and first searched the immediate surround- ings for further clues. But he found none, the shifting dust and the dew having obliter- ated all foot and hoof prints made during the night. The nearest bloodhounds were at Lexington, in the central Blue Grass, and could not be got to the scene before the next day. Clint rejected the thought of sending for them, mounted his horse and started at a canter toward the county seat, four miles away. He had not gone far, however, when he met a drove of cattle. Behind them rode fat Sam Tabor, a shrewd middle-aged trader, who lived on a nearby farm. “Howdy, Clint!” he called genially. “Wowdy, Sam,’ responded the sheriff, eyeing him keenly as they came abreast. “Ye’re out mighty early this fine mornin’,” said the trader, always eager for gossip. “Has anything happened whar yo’ come from?” “Naw,” Clint evaded, ‘‘everything’s quiet these days. I spent the night at Rothwell and I’m just a-goin’ home.” Sam Tabor loved money, he analyzed, riding on, but he was hardly the kind of man who would commit murder for less than a hundred dollars. Yet the sheriff’s experi- ence had taught him to suspect every one possibly connected with a crime until the guilty party was actually found. Many a supposedly good citizen used such a repu- tation for cover when he wished to break the law. A mile farther Clint Hawkins’ meditations were interrupted by a double hallo. Gus Skaggs and his bearded father, Reuben, both afoot, had come down a mountain Adventure trail at the right of the road, headed in the direction from which Clint had come. “You boys ain’t set up a still in these parts, have you?” he inquired, checking his horse. Reuben and Gus grinned faintly. Their business was an open secret. ‘We worked all last night over with Jeb Fraley,” drawled the elder Skaggs. ‘‘Jeb’s been havin’ trouble gittin’ his mash to sour proper, and he called on a couple o’ experts to help him find what was wrong. We’uns did.”’ “Wal,” replied Clint, good humoredly, “Just so you and him keep on making pure corn liquor, that don’t pizen nobody, that’s all I care. D’ve got too much other devil- ment to worry about to fool with a few moonshine stills.” The Skaggses showed no inclination to continue the conversation. They were plainly sleepy and tired, and lived three miles up the mud road from the forks, on a branch of Licking River. The sheriff had no reason to detain them. He was the gladder, however, that he and Andy Spur- lock had happened along before any one else began traveling the highway that morning. YW IT WAS still early when he reached mj) the county seat. There he saw W George Duff, the village undertaker, and swore him and his assistant to secrecy before he started them to the cabin morgue. Next he sent for his second deputy, grizzled Dave Arnett, to come to his office in the court house. He told Dave in detail what had happened and confided his deductions. ‘In a house,”’ he continued, “‘not so many miles from where we found Uncle Johnny, is a pair of brown shoes that are going to help send some feller to the ’lectric chair. I remember them shoes well. The old man had split ’em across the toes to ease his feet in walking. He had ’em on when he was here less than a week ago. ‘“‘Howsomever,” Clint added, ‘“‘we can’t search every house in the north and west parts of the county. We’ve got to learn about where Uncle Johnny put up last night. Then, when we’re down to just a few houses, the real hunting will begin.”’ Dave Arnett, a taciturn mountaineer of sixty-two, still vigorous in mind and body, rubbed his lean jaw doubtfully. “Circumstantial evidence, as they call hit, micloool © in