Adventure Magazine Cover, June 20, 1925 — page 97: what you’re looking at

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

Author of “The Shrimp,” “Desert Fame,” etc. arable. She was the one thing of OR twenty years Alex Cheney and Lisbeth had been well nigh insep-. his which he ever bragged about; the only being upon whom he openly and unblushingly lavished affection. And those who claim a mule is incapable of gratitude never knew Lisbeth. Lisbeth came into Alex’s possession in the spring of 1853 back at the great frontier outfitting base at Independence. Being but one of a lot of forty-odd Missouri mules purchased by Alex at that time, and being of a somewhat neutral, dingy gray color, Lisbeth did not attract any especial atten- tion at that time from her new master. In the hurry and bustle of organizing his first wagon-train and getting it started to Cali- fornia Alex had no time to waste upon any particular mule. He did not even know her age, nor did he ever know exactly how old she was. It was true that when he bought the lot the drover made some passing re- mark about her, but it was not until later that he remembered it. Many of the hundred and fifty mules be- longing to Cheney’s outfit were unbroken, and he had started with a goodly number of extra ones. The wild ones were worked hali a day at a time and then turned loose in the extra band to recuperate. Lisbeth had had two such ordeals when Cheney’s big ‘“*Lisbeth,”’ copyright, 1925, by David Thibault. 79 saddle horse broke its leg in a prairie-dog hole and had to be shot. And, since saddle animals were at a premium, Cheney cast his eye over the mules and it lighted upon two small saddle marks upon Lisbeth’s side. He recalled then that the drover had stated— ‘That thar gray mule has been broke t’ ride.” | From that day forward Lisbeth never. wore a collar. Lisbeth had a smooth, running walk that was as easy on her rider as floating down- stream inacanoe. She could take a sort of jackrabbit lope at a mile-devouring clip and keep it up for hours without tiring her rider. And when occasion demanded she could run like an antelope. Nor did she ever require whip or spur. And so for twenty years she had shared Cheney’s freighting destinies. There were few parts of the West to which they had not penetrated at some time or other, and Cheney himself could scarcely estimate how many thousands of miles they had piloted the way ahead of the lumbering freight wagons. , Adventures? They had had them by the hundreds. There had been the time when Alex and a friend had been chased for two days and nights by a Sioux war party, and for ten hours after the friend’s horse had given out Lisbeth had carried both men—to safety. COMIGDIOOKSEEO