Adventure Magazine Cover, June 20, 1925 — page 116: what you’re looking at

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

98 LLIS sat up and stared help- lessly. “My name’s Potts. Did you steal that hoss?” quietly asked the fat man. Speaking rapidly Ellis explained his cap- ture by the Utes and how he had ridden the horse in escaping from the camp. Potts heard him through, then shook his head and sighed: | “Too bad! You was awake and heard our talk. I knew when you woke up. You had time to think up a decent lie, and you had to tell that fool story. Injuns! Bah! My speaking of Injuns put that notion into your head.” “You can hang me but I can’t change my story. It’s true.” “Hang you? Of course we'll hang you. Got to do it after hearing that yarn,” mum- bled Potts, his hand resting on the butt of a revolver thrust through the waist-band of his rough trousers. “No getting around that. But so long as you’re asleep I’m going out and take a look at the weather. The boys will be here soon. But do you know what I’d do if I was a hossthief and bound down the valley? “Yd take that batch of bread and a couple blankets and travel afoot about seven miles below Cache creek and across the log bridge to the east side and make over the spur, some eight or twelve hundred feet high and get down into South Park. The trail splits about five miles from the Salt “Works. I think I'd go to the salt works, instead. of south to Cafion City. Then twenty miles north to Fair Play, where I'd be within three days of Denver, where all —— couldn’t locate me. Yes, I think I'd do that. And I’m sure, if I was as young a hossthief as you, I’d quit that kind of work and earn an honest living.” With this amazing speech he rose and waddled from the room, turning sideways to scrape through the doorway. Ellis recov- ered his wits and snatched up the saleratus bread and two blankets and darted from the hut. Beyond knowing he was traveling down the valley and that he was fearfully afraid of meeting some of the boys he never had any clear recollection of his flight. He remembered seeing a light which must have been at Tabor’s old diggings—Granite City —and that below this point the valley was suddenly compressed until there was scarcely room for river and road. Adventure It was black in the cafion and he was blundering around rocky hills, feeling his way down, down until he expected to walk into the river, then again mounting steep slopes. Finally the wide spread of stars told him the valley had broadened, and he began to realize that the round-faced man who believed him to be a thief, not only had permitted him to escape but had misled the posse, for there was no sound of pursuit. He floundered into an area of fallen pines, and fearing to wandering farther in the night he rolled in his blankets and waited for light. He slept poorly, the fear of pursuit arous- ing him frequently from bad dreams. He rose before daybreak and discovered his bed had been at the foot of a high wall of gray rock. Every muscle ached and he was sorely tempted to build a fire, but was re- strained by fear of the fat man’s contempt were he capturedagain. Rolling his blankets he crouched low in the brush and ate some of his poor bread. The sun was just rising when he resumed his journey. He had ad- vanced but a short distance before he came to a creek, running waist-high. Without any hesitation he held his blankets on top of his head and plunged in. The valley was open and no longer rough and broken. He had an excellent view of the Sawatch Range, one peak of which was painful to gaze at as its coat of snow re- flected the early sun. He tried to walk some warmth into his lower limbs but suc- ceeded poorly. On beholding a long log house he turned from the road and, reck- less of consequences, boldly approached it. Near the house was a patch of wheat. A ditch for irrigating had been started from the river; all this surprised him. A man came out and greeted him. “Bon jour, M’sieu. You come from de mine. You come on de foot.”’ Ellis replied he was from the diggings at Frying Pan Gulch at the foot of Mount Massive, was destitute and compelled to travel afoot. And could he enter and dry his clothes? “By gar! You wet lak’ de beaver. I mus’ work. Every ting inside. Help yourself to. You eat de meat in de kettle. You eat your head off. Joe White feed a t’ousand men dis summer, almos’.”’ And with a flourishing bow the lone rancher hurried away to his wheat field and left Ellis in possession. COMIGDIOOKSEEO