Adventure Magazine Cover, June 20, 1925 — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

82 Adventure suddenly roared with laughter, and Alex flushed angrily. He enjoyed a joke as much as any man, even when it was on himself, but this sudden amusement at Lisbeth’s appearance aroused his. ire.. It was true that she had turned white, but she was sleek and well fed. He knew that her gait was only slightly less springy than it had been in her youth; her courage and ambition had not decreased one whit, and he firmly believed that she would come nearer to getting through than any other animal in the camp. Why, then, should these dubs split their sides with laughing at her? The laughter continued, and Alex noted sly digs and remarks directed at Lisbeth. He straightened up to have it out with the loudest offender and his eye chanced to fall on Lisbeth’s snowy right side. ‘The reason for the hilarity was suddenly explained. Written along her side from hip to neck in sticky, irremovable black wagon-tar were these words: I’M OLD BUT TM AWFULLY TOUGH The wag who had played the practical joke had certainly seen to it that the words were clearly defined and that they would stay there a long time. A slow grin overspread Cheney’s face. ‘’Truer words than them there was never wrote,” he remarked as he threw the saddle on Lisbeth. Just the same there was a slight resentment in his heart, for the joke was intended as an aspersion of his pet. He went into the store and returned with the two small sacks, each weighing about fifteen pounds. He placed one in each sad- dle bag and balanced them nicely. Then he swung into the saddle while some wag pre- dicted that Lisbeth would break in two un- der the weight of Cheney and the two bags of gold dust. He had made no effort to conceal the fact that he was taking his dust out with him. It would have been useless in the first place and he felt safe anyway. He knew there were men in Timber City who would have taken great pleasure in relieving him of the gold, and they would not hesitate to kill him to do it, but he felt that the winter and the dangers of the trail afforded the best protection he could get. He reined Lisbeth lightly through the crowd, and with the big, black pack-mule at failed him before. his heels turned his back upon Timber City. He camped that night under a cluster of tall tamaracks thirty miles from Timber City. It was still early but he had no de- sire to overdo his mules on the first end of the trail. He fed them a handful of oats each, necked the black mule to Lisbeth who, he knew, would never stray far from camp and, taking his rifle, wandered up the creek to try for a shot at some kind of game. He had figured on killing his meat until he got through the mountains to avoid extra weight on his pack-mule, and he knew that game was plentiful. HE HAD not gone a quarter.of a mile when he sighted a fat, year- ling buck unconcernedly browsing ? on the tender twigs of a green willow bush. It was an easy shot, and he hungered for venison. A hind quarter would not add any appreciable weight to the pack, and it would go a long way if the deep snow which he might possibly en- counter should prevent further hunting. — He rested his rifle on the low limb of a tree and drew a careful bead before he pressed the trigger. There was no report, and the buck continued its placid browsing. Wonderingly, Alex ejected the cartridge and threw in another with the same result. He was proud of his new Winchester and the shining cartridges which he had brought with him from Salt Lake. They had never He tried one more and when the expected concussion failed to occur he rasped out an oath that sent the startled buck flying headlong through the timber. Deliberately then he tried one cartridge after another until he made sure that they were all bad. Each and every one had been tampered with and the powder removed. Since he carried his own reloading outfit with the wagons, and every cartridge had been reloaded one or more times there were scratches on them which had prevented his observing that they had been tampered with. He stood still in his tracks and pondered. He knew that whoever had drawn the powder had done so after he reached Timber City. He considered the possibility of its being a practical joke on the order as the one played on Lisbeth, but rejected that idea immediately. Sending a man _ un- armed into the wilderness in that day, when bandits and hostile Indians abounded, was too serious a matter for any one to consider — $ COMIGDIOOKSEEO