Adventure Magazine Cover, October 30, 1924 — page 166: what you’re looking at

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

156 Adventure Sam Tabor slowly shook his head. ‘““Money’s pow ful temptin’ stuff to a heap o’ folks,” he muttered. ‘““Why—why—” stammered Bud Kash, speaking for the first time. “Uncle Johnny took dinner at my house jest yisterday. He left ag’in three o’clock, seemin’ pert and well as ye please.”’ The other three men made no comment. Mitch sprawled himself in a chair, and Reuben and Gus Skaggs took the bench. Clint explained only what was obvious about Uncle Johnny’s death. “Now,” he concluded, “I’m going up in the loft and sleep. Pve put in a hard day and I want to be in shape to lead you boys tomorrow. Dave’ll take my place down here.” He blew out one of the lanterns, smiled ‘a good night to the men and ascended the ladder. Sea] IN THE loft he stretched himself i noisily on the floor, but with his face near the loosened board. He took out his electric flash and revolver, and laid both within easy reach of his right hand. Then, his eyes to the hole in the floor, he began his vigil. The six men in the dimly-lighted room below discussed the crime for more than an hour, talking in undertones. Dave Arnett, of course, said little and answered few ques- tions. The others freely exchanged surmises and theories, recalling similar killings they had known and making many wild con- jectures. Bud Kash took the third chair and moved it to a corner farthest from the coffin. Sam Tabor shortly wrapped himself in the blanket he had brought and laid down on the bed. The Skaggses were seated almost alongside the black box, stolidly chewing tobacco and spitting on the earthen floor. Mitch Robertson’s long legs were restless. He crossed and uncrossed them frequently, looking at John Bradshaw’s peaceful face, then glancing away, then looking again. The deputy sat with his arms folded, his chair hitched back against the door. Clint saw, however, that his keen eyes were busy, missing no movement made by the others. Outside rain began to fall, at first gently, then, driven by a rising wind, in a hard and gusty downpour. The lightning flashes were almost continuous and a steady cannonade of thunder resounded among the hills. Above the natural clamor a hound, some- where in the distance, sent its lonely howl through the storm-convulsed night. “No man can sleep in the same room with the corpse of a feller he’s stabbed,” thought Clint, flat on his stomach, peering down at the fat trader. ‘‘Sam Tabor loves money, but that or nothing else is keeping him awake now.’ Young Bud Kash still showed the most uneasiness. But, to the sherifl’s knowledge, he never had done anything worse in his life than marry a fourteen-year-old girl, two Summers before, and by her father a child each succeeding Spring. His criminal record in the county was clear. Nevertheless, there were other facts that had to be taken into account. Bud was shiftless and miserably poor, and he admitted that the colporter had stopped at his house the noon before the tragedy. If it was true that John Bradshaw had gone on from there, and Sam Tabor was innocent, he must have put up for the night with Mitch Robertson or the Skaggses. There was no one living at the Smith cabin, Dave Arnett had ascertajned. ‘Reuben and Gus have an alibi,’ con- tinued Clint, remembering his conversation with them that morning. He had repeated it and the remarks he exchanged with the trader to his deputies. ‘““Them Skaggses live alone, Reuben being a widower; and while I wouldn’t put nothing past ’em, they were Over with Jeb Fraley last night. Now Mitch His first wife had died suddenly and mys- teriously, the sheriff recalled, and directly afterward Robertson married a slattern from the Hinkston slums. He had been indicted more than once for dynamiting fishing streams and was a notoriously steady cus- tomer of the moonshining Skaggses. Clint Hawkins half believed that in him he had his man. It was now after midnight. A querulous voice came from a corner below— “Dave, I can’t see what good I’m a-doin’ here.”” A crash of thunder punctuated the sentence. ‘“I—I got a woman and two young’uns, Dave, and this is a turrable storm. Won’t ye let me go home to them and come back in the mornin’?”’ ‘““Yo’ heerd what the sheriff said,’’ replied the deputy, tartly. ‘‘Nobody leaves this house, Bud, onless he fust climbs over me n’ my six shooter.” 9? cComicbooks.c© inn