Adventure Magazine Cover, October 30, 1924 — page 165: what you’re looking at

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

The Death Watch on you, Andy, to find out what, in spite of my plan, we mightn’t learn here tonight. Circumstantial evidence is better than none, if the guilty feller wont betray himself with talk.” “T’ll find what all thar is to find,”’ vowed Andy, putting the warrants into his pocket. And Clint Hawkins knew that he would. >) later he began to make certain arrangements for the night’s drama. He first climbed to the loft and loosened one of the middle floor boards. By slipping the board aside, a watcher in the loft would have an undetected view of the entire room below. He then descended and removed the lid from the casket, exposing the body its full length. No one could be in the room, unless he pointedly faced the wall, without having the grim figure constantly before his eyes. “This may be sorta dishonoring the dead,” Clint soliloquized, ‘‘but I’ve got to do it. An officer of the law can’t always heed good manners when he’s out to trap a criminal.”’ Ominous black clouds, piling up from the west, had blanketed the sky, emitting zigzag flashes of lightning and rumbling thunder, when Deputy Arnett returned to the cabin with his posse. It was after ten o’clock. The sheriff counted only five men as he greeted them at the door. Elcaney and Tom Smith, whose families lived together, were not among them. “They moved to Ohio last month,’”’ Dave told Clint in an undertone. ‘I’m shore of that, ’cause their house is empty and every separate person I saw ‘lowed they was gone.” Before taking the lighted lanterns into the room, where the five possemen were standing uncertainly in the darkness, Clint Hawkins gave his deputy lengthy instruc- tions. He had unlimited confidence in Dave Arnett’s cunning and prowess. Dave, when a boy, ran away from home and spent his youth fighting Apaches in the Southwest, and since, for more than a score of years, had hunted lawless Kentuckians in his native hills. “That lanky Arnett can kill his weight in man meat any time he pulls a trigger,” the sheriff once boasted of him. ‘No bullets are ever wasted that shoot through his gun.” There was a moment of tense silence when LEFT alone in the cabin, an hour 155 Clint set both lighted lanterns on the table at the fcot of John Bradshaw’s coffin. The five men, seeing the interior of the cabin for the first time, instinctively drew close to- gether, gaping. Most of them shakily re- moved their hats. Fat Sam Tabor swore. ee Clint, I didn’t know we were comin’ to a funeral meetin’!” he ejaculated. “Hit’s Uncle Johnny Bradshaw ’r I’m a liar!’ gasped Mitch Robertson, a lean, sharp-featured farmer. Young Bud Kash.said nothing, but paled and licked his lips, starmg down at the blood-stained shirtbosom. Gus Skaggs laughed shortly and fumbled a plug of tobacco from his overalls pocket. ‘““Boys, I reckon the high sheriff takes us fer bloodhounds,” he drawled. ‘ ’Pears to me that they’re what’s needed most round here.” “Vas,” growled old Reuben, his father; “T’d as Jief a dawg would have my place. I ‘lowed to make up some sleep tonight.” Dave Arnett closed and bolted the door, placed a chair against it and seated himself there solidly. Clint, standing by the table, waved toward -the. other two chairs, the bench and bed. “You fellers make yourselves comforta- ble,” he invited. ‘“‘Sit around, swap yarns, or pile up in your blankets and go to sleep. We're apt to be here all night, with nothing particular to do, the only rule being that nary a one of us can go outside. “T want you to understand that,” he said firmly, repeating, ‘‘nobody leaves this cabin on any account. I’m your boss now and them’s my orders.” There was some grumbling. “But, Clint, what’s all this about?”’ de- manded Mitch Robertson. ‘“‘A posse ain’t got no consarn with a dead man.’ Sheriff Hawkins looked sharply from one to the other. “Tt’s a live man this posse’s concerned with,” he answered. ‘‘You’ll know who he is by morning. “Of course,” he added, “every one of you are good, law-abiding citizens. That’s why I had Dave swear you in to help me. But there’s some feller in these hills who’s a plumb disgrace to the county. He kilt a stranger that he’d took in as a guest and robbed him of his money. There ain’t a man of us here who won’t say he oughtn’t to be caught and. punished severe.”’ CoMmicbooks.c© in