Nathan DiYorio's Blog: October 2012

Carefully picking himself out of the bed of ferns, Waters adjusted his monocle and stared coldly at his guide. "Have you gone completely crazy?" he shouted at Steve. "I hired you to guide me and not advise me as to what specimens I should take and what not!" Waters reached for the huge orchid again. "It's worth at least five hundred pounds—and I'm..." That's as far as he got. The strong grip of Steve Kent stopped him.

"As long as anyone's with me they don't pick that flower," Steve barked. "It's meant death to some—but others it drives mad, raving mad!"

That night, Steve and Waters sat around the campfire. They listened to the strange jungle sounds. Kent identified each one for his friend. Soon, the conversation drifted to the life they had left behind in London. Kent studied Waters and sensed his mind had wandered—it had drifted to the Golden Orchid. Steve tensed. "I suppose you're angry because I kept you from picking that flower?" he said, smacking straight into the subject.

Before Waters could answer, Kent continued. "I've knocked around all over the world and there are some things I can't understand and never will. That Golden Orchid is one. The natives say that he who picks one will never leave the jungle alive."

"Stupid superstition," Waters scoffed. "You're civilized, man, you can't believe such nonsense. Did you ever know of any one who picked one and died?"

"Once." Steve hesitated, then continued. "The natives warned him just as I did you. The man laughed in their faces and picked the blossom. I watched him as he fondled it like a little child. I watched him hold it to his face and gaze into its golden petals as he raved over the shape and size. He talked of the glory and fame the Academy would award him for bringing back such an unknown treasure."

"But what happened? I never saw it on exhibit!" John interrupted impatiently.

"I'm coming to that," Steve said slowly. "The next morning in his tent we found the body. It was a dark blue color—he had died during the night."

"Dead," Waters whispered in an awed voice.

"Yeah," Steve nodded. "The natives called it the sting of the Golden Orchid."

"What about the flower?" Waters asked.

"It lay beside him on the bed where he had placed it," Kent replied. "The natives piled the tent with brush and burned the body of the man and the orchid." With that, Steve got up and stretched lazily. "I'm turning in for the night," he said, as he walked off to the tent.

Kent lay on the cot. His eyelids grew heavier and heavier... Suddenly, his semi-conscious mind caught the sound of cracking brush. Instantly he was on his feet and out of the tent. Through the slowly dying campfire he saw the figure of John Waters, in his hand the Golden Orchid.

With sparkling eyes, John held the prize so Kent could see its full beauty. "Those silly stories couldn't scare me," he said proudly. "I've got it and I'm going to take it back to civilization with me. It's mine—they'll call it John Waters' Golden Orchid!"

Swiftly, Steve leaped forward, grabbed the flower and threw it into the fire.

Furiously, Waters aimed his fist at Steve's jaw. Kent ducked the blow and with a short right sent Waters sprawling to the ground. In an instant, he was astride him.

"Why did you do it, why did you do it?" John sobbed anguishedly. "I'll never have a chance to get another!"

Steve released his grip. "That orchid," he began slowly, "has been known to always harbor a nest of vipers within its leaves. The viper, colored the same as the plant, is very seldom found—that was the thing that killed the other man! Its sting is filled with venom—and the viper strikes at night."

"But why didn't you tell me the truth about it?" Waters demanded.

"Because," Steve said slowly, "you'd have decided to look for the deadly reptile, to kill it—by that time it would have injected you with its poison."

Waters gripped Steve's hand and said, "And to think, all this time I thought you made up that story to scare me away so you could have the orchid for yourself."

Shot in the Dark

Standing outside the small window at the jog in the building, Corky Spangler watched Jack West, working late at Tiff Brothers, Jewelers, replace the one hundred pearls in the bottle in which Mrs. Van Doughby had brought them for matching and restringing. He watched West lock the pearls in the safe and leave after turning out the light. Then Corky drew a heavy bunch of master keys from his coat pocket and tried them one at a time until he unlocked the rear door.

With collodion on his finger tips to eliminate prints, he worked at the safe with the skill of a master. He needed no flashlight, for his sensitive fingers told him the movement of each lock tumbler. He smiled quietly in the darkness as he slipped the bottle of pearls into his pocket and closed the safe once more and locked it shut. Then he left as he had come and faded into the shadows.

Through the front window of Uncle Henry's Bar and Grill he saw Joe Redpan washing glasses, so he went around to the private entrance on Audion Street and rang the bell—two short and a long. Uncle Henry let him in.

Corky spilled the pearls out on the table.

"One hundred pearls, Uncle Henry, and each one perfect."

"Ten thousand," said Uncle Henry. "I could maybe get eleven for them. Besides I had to plant an alibi for you."

Corky picked up the little white spheres and dropped them back into the bottle. He put the bottle back into his pocket and shook his head.

"Fifteen, Uncle Henry."

Uncle Henry counted out ten one-thousand dollar bills. Corky looked greedily at the money. He slid the bottle to Uncle Henry and picked up the greenbacks.

"After all," he laughed. "A good night's work."

"You better get upstairs," Uncle Henry cautioned, "and throw out that bum who's been sleeping in the corner with your clothes on."

Detective Mike Torrent walked into Uncle Henry's and ordered a short one. Uncle Henry was there himself and he tapped the glass and scooped off the foam.

Mike asked, "Who's the stiff?"

Uncle Henry shook his head.

"Corky Spangler. Been sleeping it off all night in the corner."

"I'm thirsty," Mike said.

He drank fast and tipped his head way back to drain the glass. He let his eyes stare down the glass to the mirror over the counter of the back bar. He held that pose while the foam trickled slowly into his mouth. Then Mike set the glass down and went out.

The next morning when Mike Torrent reported at headquarters he found Chief Waters grilling Jack West.

"You admit," said Waters, "that you were the last one out of the store. And you admit having looked at the pearls while you had no business to. Why don't you own up?"

Jack West's nostrils dilated. His eyes shot helplessly about the room.

"Because I didn't steal them," he said in clearly clipped diction. "I just looked at them and put them back."

Mike Torrent wrote on a slip of paper: "Pick up Corky Spangler," and handed the note to Officer Jules Blane.

Being grilled was nothing new to Corky Spangler.

"I was drunk all night in Uncle Henry's," he said jauntily. "Uncle Henry will tell you I was. Besides, you can't find any prints, you say. Looks like you're guessing."

Mike eased his leg over the edge of the chief's desk.

"You see, Corky," he chuckled affably, "we're not exactly accusing you of anything. Better say we're trying to protect you."

Corky laughed. "Are you kidding?"

Mike shrugged his shoulders. "You see, Corky, Uncle Henry is out gunning for a guy, so we brought you in, just in case."

Corky's eyes snapped open for just a split second. Then he became a poker face.

Mike went on: "For taking a lot of dough for a lousy bottle of collodion."

Instinctively Corky's hand went to his pocket. Chief Waters went forward with a pair of handcuffs. Corky's hand whipped fast with an automatic in it. A gun belched, but it wasn't Corky's. Corky stepped back and grabbed his shoulder, as Mike Torrent dropped his smoking gun back into its holster.

"In the mirror at Uncle Henry's I saw Corky shoving the souse out of the way, but I didn't know why then. When there were no prints I guessed that Corky used collodion. He's used it before. I threw in the gag about the mixed bottles and it caught him up fast."

Mike started for the door. "Now I'll pick up Uncle Henry. Looks like Corky's slow wits turned out to be a bottle neck for Uncle!"

Ole Faithful

"Mose," yelled Judge Hale to his colored handy man, "why haven't you sent that old horse to the glue factory, as I told you to last week?"

"Please, boss," cried the old Negro, "Ole Faithful done been on this farm for over twenty-three years. He was born the day my Sammy died over there in France.

"You know, boss," continued the colored man, "that horse is mighty attached to me. Ah once read a story about reincarnation. How dead people come back alive in another animal's body. Somehow, Ah feels like this horse might be my own son."

"Poppycock," yelled the old judge.

"Please, boss," begged the Negro, "that horse is mighty smart. Look," he said, as a shrill whistle came from his mouth. Suddenly a clattering of horse's hooves was heard and across the grounds came Old Faithful in a bee line dash for Rufus.

"See, boss," said the Negro, "every time Ah whistles, he comes straight at me."

"Poppycock," roared the judge again. "Have the truck take him to the depot in the morning and ship him to the Birmingham."

"Yas, suh," cried Mose, as tears crept out of the corners of his eyes.

Mose slowly stroked Old Faithful's mane. "Horse," he sniffed, "run around the meadows tonight. It's gonna be your last day on the farm."

Late that evening, old Judge Hale read the paper on his porch. "Gosh Almighty," he yelled, as he turned the paper and read a news dispatch. "JUDGE THOMAS FOUND MURDERED. JURIST'S EYES BURNED OUT."

"Thomas dead! Murdered!" gasped the judge. "Why, we used to sit on the same bench together. It was Thomas, Blackburn and myself who gave Killer Grange the life sentence together. Yep, that was the day before I retired."

The old judge sighed, "That Thomas was a fine man. Wonder why anybody would want to murder him?"

The judge heard footsteps coming towards him. He looked up and saw Mose.

"What's the matter now?" he roared. "If you're back again to ask me to keep your horse, it's nothing doing. If that horse isn't at the depot in the morning, you can quit your job."

"No suh, boss," said Mose. "Ah came to tell you somebody is outside on the grounds who wants to see you."

It was dark outside and as Hale walked toward the figure, he asked, "What do you want?"

The man remained silent.

Hale, with Mose close behind, came nearer to the man. The indignant judge yelled, "Come, come, what is it?"

The man suddenly removed his hat and at the same time whipped out a gun. "Put up your hands and come over here!" he barked.

"Gosh Almighty," gasped the Judge, as he recognized the man. "KILLER GRANGE."

"Yeah!" snapped the killer, as he stepped forward and knocked Hale to the ground.

Grange quickly turned to Mose and then took a small acetylene torch out of his pocket and lit it.

"What are you going to do with that?" asked Mose.

"Burn the judge's eyes out," he shot back. "I swore I'd do it as soon as I broke out of stir."

Mose whistled shrilly in surprise.

Suddenly, from the meadows, came a clatter of hooves. The killer turned.

"What's that?" he screamed.

Out of nowhere, Old Faithful came crashing through the bushes. The horse did not see the Killer until he was upon him, but then it was too late as the powerful legs sent the killer to the ground.

... The next day, Mose was patting Old Faithful.

"Horse," he said, "Judge Hale thinks you are the smartest animal he ever saw. The way you came crashing through the hedge and knocked the killer down, won him over. How could he know you didn't see anything? Only Ah knows you is blind as the eyes on potatoes."

Storm Patrol

Jack Baxter, manager and star halfback for Calvert Military Academy's football team and president of the athletic association, faced his classmates and told them that he had been robbed of fifteen hundred dollars on the way to the bank from Saturday's game.

Cadet "Sourpuss" Barry said, "Killer Scaldone makes a jail break Friday. Saturday Baxter gets robbed. It's too pat."

He was booed down.

In the dormitory room that Jack shared with Bill Riker, Riker expressed his feelings. Jack Baxter told Bill to skip it.

"I know how you all feel. That's enough." He went over to the window. "It's sure raining."

At that moment the lights went out.

"Uh-oh," Jack said. "Power house. River must be over the flood point."

Their door was pushed open. Eddie Crane, adjutant from Major Yardley's office snapped, "Everybody out to help in the flood!"

Outside, the rain splashed knee high from the pavement. Jack had charge of a squad.

"Sourpuss, take the other side of the street as far as the First National Bank! Watch for broken store windows. Report any vandalism!"

"Yeah," snorted Sourpuss. "The dirty work." He disappeared in the shadows.

Baxter ordered a car off the street and returned to Bill Riker, when a muffled explosion broke through the storm.

"The bank!" he called to Bill. "Handle the traffic till I get back!"

But three shrill whistle blasts brought Bill up behind Jack.

"Sourpuss is calling for help! I'll go with you!"

Jack could see the dark forms of men near a parked car in front of the bank. There were two huddled over a third person that they were forcing into the rear of the car.

"They got him!" Jack said. Bill was now up beside him.

The two thugs got into the car and shot from the curb.

"Looks like Scaldone to me, Bill! The guy I tussled with over the game money. There's no cops till they get to the bridge. We can't phone and warn 'em because the lines are down!"

Across the street a coupe was parked.

"We're in luck, Bill! Major Yardley's car and the key is in it!"

Jack pressed down on the gas pedal. The town swept by like a gloomy black shadow.

"Tail light ahead!" Jack said.

Jack jammed the brake. On the road lay the cop who had been stationed at the bridge. Jack got out. From where he stood he could hear the swirling river. Already the car ahead was over the bridge, turning left up the road toward the dam.

"Help get him off the road, Bill! Those rats shot him and now they're going to blow up the dam!"

As the rear wheels of Jack's car bounced clear of the bridge, the black silhouette of the dam crumbled with a thunderous explosion. Jack wrenched the wheel and the car began the climb.

He kept on. The crooks became clearly defined in his headlights. Their guns barked and the windshield splintered. A bullet grazed Jack's cheek. He kept going, cut off the surprised shriek of the two thugs, trying vainly to jump clear of the streaking vehicle.

Later, Jack, half bewildered, held the check for twenty-five hundred dollars, reward for the capture of Killer Scaldone. He handed it to Major Yardley.

Sourpuss came to him and held his hand out. "You've an apology coming!"

Jack grinned. "Thanks, Sourpuss. We got our dough back and a fund for next year's athletics."

Operation Wolverine

A shimmer of blue on the starboard wing warned Carlson that the electrically heated de-icer had short-circuited. The temperature outside the pressure-sealed cockpit registered 28 below zero. Carlson's worried eyes read the jet fuel gauge. The needle was on the low side of 75 gallons. That wasn't enough fuel to take Carlson back to his base. But worse than that, Carlson was lost!

The turbojet's standard equipment compass had first begun to swing pendulum-like when Carlson had flown north over the 23rd latitude. Beyond that point stretched the frozen wastes of the Arctic Circle. And somewhere within that desolate expanse of snow and ice an enemy radar jamming station was operating!

Carlson, a lieutenant colonel of the North American Air Defense Command, had been warned of the danger of compass failure when he had volunteered for the lone reconnaisance mission. In the seventy-two hours since the radar jamming station had been in operation, no less than seven North American Force aircraft had been reported missing. Four others had returned to the command base on the U.S. border of Canada in spite of compass failure and radio blackout.

How the enemy had slipped through the North American radar network was a mystery. From Gander, Newfoundland to the Aleutians stretched the electronic warning system. No plane crossing that vast distance or approaching it from within nine hundred miles could escape detection. But the enemy had somehow slipped through!

With ice forming on his starboard wing, his fuel dangerously low and with no means of orientation in the Arctic night, Carlson dipped the nose of his turbojet toward the ice field a mile below. If the ice was smooth he could land safely, and remain in the cockpit until the battery went dead. After that, his electrically heated flying suit might keep him warm for a few hours. Then, if there was no wind, he might get out and walk until he dropped dead from exhaustion and the cold.

With the caution of an experienced fighter pilot making a forced landing in enemy territory, Carlson did not turn on his landing lights until the turbojet's wheels were almost touching the inland sea of ice. When they touched, he cut off his twin turbines, saw a smooth expanse of ice stretching endlessly ahead and let the ship roll without applying the wheel brakes.

Suddenly Carlson tensed. Far ahead off the port side he caught a flash of orange light. It blinked twice then went out. Carlson snapped off his landing lights.

Carlson's first guess was that the party was a crew from one of the planes that had been reported missing. Fortunately he did not take that for granted. The long white beam of a powerful searchlight suddenly swept across the black sky. It came from the spot where Carlson had seen the orange flash!

"The radar jamming station! But unless some miracle happens I'll never live to report its position," he muttered. "It's surprising that they didn't spot me on their screen before I came down. They seem to think I'm still in the air, but when they pull down that searchlight beam and sweep it across the ice, I'd better find an air hole and dive in with the seals."

Carlson's ship had lost its momentum. The cold rubber hummed on the ice until a ghostly white ridge appeared suddenly ahead. Then the tires struck a rougher surface, and Carlson saw that the white barrier was a huge drift of powdered snow. Just as the plane stopped before the towering drift, the searchlight beam swept down over its crest!

"Made it just in time!" Carlson congratulated himself. He watched the beam as it swung away.

"Before they decide I wasn't real after all, I'm going to hike down to the end of the drift," Carlson resolved. "Then I can start crawling toward them."

He discarded his goggles and snapped the mask of his helmet across his face to protect his nose and mouth from the biting cold. Flipping open the canopy, he dropped to the port wing and slipped off.

The ice along the edge of the drift was crusty so he could walk fast without slipping. By the time he reached the end of the drift, the searchlight had gone off.

Carlson went forward in a crocuh until he saw pinpoints of light grouped in a small area he judged to be a half mile ahead. The Air Force reconnaisance expert dropped to his knees and went along on all fours.

A weird object loomed starkly from the surface of the ice pack. It reminded Carlson of one of the enemy's huge submarine troop transports, for its main silhouette was like that of a conning tower. As Carlson drew within a hundred yards of the dark hulk, he was sure it was a submarine!

Still closer, Carlson could make out a spindly but towering radio mast. And on the ice beyond the vessel's conning tower stood a huge radar beam deflector.

The wind lashed a fine mist of powdery snow around the icebound submarine. Another gust came, and the snow swirled in white clouds over the deck and conning tower.

Carlson sprang to his feet and broke into a run. The vessel was scarcely fifty yards ahead of him now, and the wind-borne snow was drifting over its decks. Carlson veered away from the conning tower and saw to his amazement that the undersea craft was not ice-bound! Between its hull and the solid ice pack was a two-foot strip of water!

Why hadn't the water frozen at sub-zero temperature? Carlson knew the answer. After melting a hole through the ice so the vessel could surface, the crew had poured glycerine on the water!

Carlson leaped cautiously over the strip of glycerine-coated water to the U-boat's aft deck. Snow was still spiraling angrily around the conning tower, so those on watch could not see him. He found 50 meter rockets on the loading sleeve of the anti-aircraft launcher. The rockets measured five feet in length, but Carlson managed to dislodge one. Hugging it to his chest, he inched forward toward the conning tower.

A hoarse voice shouted in Slavic. Then a parka-clad figure lurched from the conning tower and scrambled down the ladder. Carlson put the rocket down and lunged forward. Before the figure reached the lower rungs, Carlson caught him from behind.

With a savage twist, Carlson hurled the crewman across the deck. A frantic scream tore from the enemy's throat as he tumbled into the narrow strip of water.

Carlson picked up the rocket and skirted the conning tower. He was sure that the man had been standing watch alone. Forward on the snow-lashed deck was the torpedo room hatch.

Light shot forth as Carlson raised the hatch. Dropping to his knees, he stuck his head through the opening. At the sides of a narrow passage below he saw the atomic warhead torpedoes!

Carlson threw his legs over the edge of the hatch and reached back for the rocket. Within seconds he was standing in the narrow passage, fumbling with the tail cap on the rocket. Exerting all his strength, Carlson unscrewed the tail cap and tilted the thin cylinder so that its propellant powder poured out. He spread the powder along the torpedo racks, then stepped back and placed the rocket at an angle against a bulkhead at the end of the passageway. When the bulkhead was opened, the rocket would fall in such a way that its sensitive head fuse would explode. The flash would ignite the propellant, creating the intense heat necessary for detonating the torpedoes.

Carlson scrambled out the hatch, and leaped from the deck. A Slavic shout roared through the swirling snow, followed by the crack of a pistol. But the snow shielded Carlson's escape.

He ran two miles beyond the great snow drift before he stumbled from sheer exhaustion. As he turned so his face wouldn't freeze against the ice, a colossal shock wave struck him. The polar ice cap dazzled in a blinding flash of white light. "My booby trap worked!" Carlson sighed weakly.

With the radar jamming station gone, search planes arrived within an hour. Carlson was picked up before he showed symptoms of frostbite.

Back at the air base he took breakfast with the general and his aides who were amazed by Carlson's incredible report. "But," Carlson added, "I don't think the enemy will try that stunt again. We're wise to them, and the next time it happens we'd keep our planes grounded and search 'em out with dog sled teams."

"That reminds me," said the general. "I must issue an order to accelerate our sled dog training program now that Operation Wolverine has been successfully completed."

"What, sir, was Operation Wolverine?" Carlson asked.

The general raised his eyebrows. "That was the mission you just accomplished, Colonel Carlson. Location and destruction of the enemy's radar jamming station."

"Oh," Carlson sighed. "I didn't wait around long enough to catch the name, but I surely felt like a wolverine out there on the ice!"

Pistol Packin' Preacher

Young Reverend Mark Grafton stood in the lamplight, with his black coat and flat hat with the broad brim highlighted against the deep shadows of the room. He met the gaze of Champ Hawkins steadily and repeated the sentence.

"Yes, sir. I'm asking you for your daughter's hand in marriage, Mr. Hawkins. Not, of course, without having Cynthia's permission to ask."

Rancher Champ Hawkins cleared his throat. "Shucks," he said, "I never had no mind fer Cynthia tuh be hitchin' with no sky pilot. This here is mighty hard country. Yuh got nary house nor single head o' steer. Jest a-roamin', nor settlin' nohow. It don't seem tuh be no way tuh take a wife, especially Cynthia.

"I aim to establish a parish here in Dry Gulch," said Reverend Grafton.

Champ Hawkins rose, drew himself taut, so that his stature seemed to fill the room.

"Let's not git het up, sir," he said. "But I always reckoned on a he-man gittin' Cynthia. I'm a God-fearin' man, but I knows there's a heap o' fightin' tuh be done in these parts. And I know the strong man here is the one lives tuh tell his chillun. An' I'm telling yuh here an' now, the man marryin' Cynthia is goin' tuh be strong! He ain't gonna be a-dreamin' o' plantin' a heaven in this here den o' Satan's. He's a-goin' tuh meet men an' master 'em! Yuh kin spread yore good word a thousand years around Dry Gulch an' all yuh'll git is maybe a slug in yore gizzard when they git sick o' yore talk. Meanwhile it'll be me what keeps yore body an' soul tuhgether!"

"Reckon I said things I shouldn't," he said. "Reckon it's best yuh leave, Reverend. It's how I feel."

Reverend Mark Grafton stood with his head erect, his jaw tight. Beyond the curtain that separated the room from Cynthia's bedroom, a flare of yellow gingham showed in a flicker of the lamplight. Beyond the curtain Mark Grafton heard the quiet kind of breathing that only tears could bring. He walked slowly, resolutely in the direction of the door, where already Champ Hawkins was lifting the latch.

But as the door opened, he stopped short. From the depths of the outer blackness stuck the barrel of a six-gun, held in a hand that showed sinews of nervous muscle twitching the trigger finger. A masked man followed the gun inside. He was followed by two others, masked likewise.

"Git 'em up," said the bandit. "An' tell us where tuh find yore strong box. Us three has no truck about pullin' a trigger when necessary. Don't stall, account we knows yuh got yore payroll here."

Champ Hawkins and Mark Grafton both reached upward and stepped back as the bandits advanced.

"It's in the desk," growled Hawkins.

"Thou shalt not steal," said Grafton evenly. His voice was strong and firm, cutting the stillness of the air like the boom of a cannon.

"None of your lip!" bellowed the bandit.

But they had not noticed that the Reverend Mark Grafton was backing to the curtain between the rooms. They had not seen the swift sweep of his hand beyond the curtain. Only now they realized they were facing, off guard, a determined man with a six-gun held menacingly in his right hand.

"Drop your guns and raise your hands before I lose my patience." The Reverend Mark Grafton rasped the words and the gunmen obeyed.

Only the leader of the bandits faltered, held his gun downward in the tips of his fingers.

The reverend sprang across the room, raised his foot, kicked the weapon out of the bandit's hand. But as he did so his foot slipped. He lost his balance and before he could gain it the three were upon him. Grafton groaned audibly as the bandit leader's fist smashed his teeth. Grafton caught him, threw him headlong into the path of the other two rushing at him. They piled up in a groaning, seething mass on the floor before him. Champ Hawkins came forward with one of the guns.

"All right, men," he said. "Take off yore masks."

The bandits, grinning, revealed themselves. "Reckon I won't tangle none with yuh, Reverend. Yuh pack a fast gun an' a quick tongue."

Hawkins laughed. "I hope yuh'll pardon me, Reverend. I heard tell yuh was okay. But I had tuh prove it. Yuh had me scared when yuh quick pulled a gun on my men!"

Reverend Grafton laughed, reached through the curtain and pulled Cynthia Hawkins into the room. She was blushing and she buried her head on Mark's shoulder.

"Don't worry, sir," said the Reverend. "The gun was not loaded. I convinced Cynthia long ago, that she should not carry a loaded gun. If one goes prepared for trouble, one will always find it."

The Most Dangerous Cow

This was Ronaldson's first hunting trip to East Africa. That was obvious. Sitting there in his finely-tailored Broad Street tropicals he was the very personification of all "white hunters" who flocked to The Dark Continent in search of sport. As we sat around the table—Ronaldson, Jacobs and I—sipping our gin and tonic, I smiled to myself. Wait until the sun gets at those razor-edged creases in his elegant trousers, I thought. But Ronaldson was young, he would learn. My thoughts were interrupted by Ronaldson's grating voice.

"I just can't see where there's anything to this hunting!" he said, easing back in his chair. "Seems all cut-and-dried to me. Too modern—too scientific. A special hunting car, all sorts of modern equipment and high-powered rifles that are almost small cannons. Too scientific!"

Jacobs ficked the ash off his cigar. "Son, when you hunt big-game you never have too much of a jump on any wild beast. Don't forget, you're in his back yard. Sometimes they come easy, sometimes, well, you'll find out tomorrow."

The following morning was bright and clear, and N'lombu, our native gun-bearer, had the car fully loaded and ready to roll. Although Jacobs and I had started many a hunting safari in the past twenty years, we both trembled with excitement. For the thrill is always there. We were all keyed-up. But not Ronaldson. He leaned back comfortably in the rear seat, and ran his fingers along the barrel of his rifle. A wide grin told his story: Why be afraid? We're using machines to aid us in this most primitive sport. I wondered whether he would still be smiling when the day was over.

At last we were off, driving across the plains of Tanganyika. We traveled for about an hour, when suddenly: "Look, Simba, Simba!" yelled N'lombu.

We looked up and there, about a football field's length away, stood three lions—a huge male and two females.

We jumped out of the car and with our rifles shoulder high we advanced toward the big cats. They surveyed us calmly, and then slowly turned and ran into the high grass behind them.

"They're gone for good," called out Ronaldson.

"No, hold your ground! They'll come out again. Cats are a curious lot!" snapped Jacobs.

Jacobs was right. A few moments later the grass parted and Simba stepped out into the clearing. He was a wonderful speciment, one of the finest I had ever seen. Slowly, majestically, he strode toward us. We all raised our rifles...

There was a thunderous roar at my side as Ronaldson's Model 70 Winchester sent a charge hurtling into the lion's brain. A perfect shot! The huge, black-maned beast fell in his tracks. The prize every hunter seeks, and rarely finds, was Ronaldson's.

"Just as I told you fellows! Easy—too easy! This poor beast never had a chance."

"How much chance do you think you would have had if your shot had only wounded him?" Jacobs said as he looked down at the huge cat.

That evening around the campfire, Jacobs suggested that we try for a Cape buffalo on the following day.

"Buffalo? What kind of guides are you? Maybe I should have brought my bow and arrow!" sneered Ronaldson.

Jacobs lit his cigar and leaned over. "You don't know the Cape buffalo, Ronaldson," he said. "There's nothing on earth as vicious. He never gives up. Any other animal will lose interest and wander off if he can't get you. But not the buffalo. If he trees you, he'll die of thirst waiting for you. If he tramples you he comes back again and again until there's nothing left. And there's no animal in all the world harder to kill. He's smart, crafty, mean. Now let's get some shut-eye. He only goes out to feed at dawn, and retires to the bush when the sun is up."

It didn't take us long to spot our target the following morning. Instead of one we found four. Ronaldson picked up his glasses and studied the beasts. At a distance they don't look very formidable. But up close they are huge, black brutes with shining ebony horns that are wide-spread and sweep in a curve that ends in needle-sharp tips. These horns spread more than three feet and can rip a man in two.

Ronaldson lowered his glasses. "Cows, just plain cows."

Jacobs was more appreciative. "They're all good heads, I'd say. There's one in particular that's a beauty. I'll bet his spread goes over forty inches." A horn spread of forty or over is considered a great prize.

"Let's circle 'til we're down-wind," I said. "Then we'll see if we can get them to separate. I don't want to tangle with any more than one at a time."

Patiently, slowly, silently, we circled down-wind. The herd of bulls had moved out of sight. They had made no noise. In all probability they had not scented us. But now we couldn't see them, and yet we knew that we were close to them. My tropicals were drenched with perspiration. Where were they? When would they strike? Who was doing the stalking now? Had the hunter become the hunted?

Silence was now imperative.

Suddenly Ronaldson stood up from his crouching position. "What kind of a hunt do you call this? I came here for game not cows!"

As if in answer to this sudden defiance of the jungle code, the brush in front of us parted with the violence of a hurricane whipping through a forest. Crashing out of the thicket, head down, charging with the speed and violence of a locomotive, was the big bull we were seeking. Time stood still. I was frozen with horror by the glint of the sun on those hideous ebony horns. Off to my left I could see Ronaldson frozen with fear; his rifle at his feet.

There was little time to waste. I found my rifle butt snuggled against my cheek, my eye sighting the brute through the scope. I tried to center the crosshairs on his chest. BLAM!

It was Jacobs' gun exploding, over to my right. Five-hundred grains of steel-jacketed lead smashed into the buffalo—right in the center of the horn base, the only spot where it could possibly do NO DAMAGE. This high-powered slug which could smash through a stout tree at that distance, didn't even slow the bull down. Jacobs might have fired a .22 caliber rabbit gun for all the damage it did. Now the charging animal swerved to the left—directly toward Ronaldson—Ronaldson turned to run. Then suddenly, he tripped over his rifle, and fell to the ground. The bull lowered his head and charged. I moved between Ronaldson and the beast, fixed my sights once again, low behind the shoulder, and... VROOM! A stream of blood spurted out of the hole like a geyser, AND STILL HE CHARGED! He didn't even swerve.

VROOM! I fired again, aiming at the spine. Again a hit and still he kept his feet. Only this time he wheeled about, blind with pain and rage as his life's blood ebbed. BLAM! Jacobs' piece dealt the knockout blow, and the bull staggered off into the brush where he crashed to his knees. I, too, fell to my knees, exhausted and weak. But the job had to be finished, and Jacobs cautiously followed the bull into the brush. A loud report echoed throughout the jungle. The killer had met his match.

It was not until then, in his post-battle silence that we noticed Ronaldson. He was sitting on the ground, his tropicals soiled with sweat and mud, and was weeping softly. Ronaldson need not have been ashamed of those tears.

I thought back twenty years to my first safari in these same regions. Hadn't I felt much the same as this youngster? It was not until I had learned to fear and respect the African plains and jungles that I had become a professional hunter. Ronaldson smiled as Jacobs and I lifted him to his feet, and reassuringly clapped him on the back. And with that smile I knew that Ronaldson would be back again and again... he had learned to fear and respect Africa.

Murder Scare

Detective Tom Cluney did not like Quigley Horton, but he could not bring personalities into his duty. Quigley Horton was the nephew of Hepzebah Horton and stood to inherit a million dollars, and furthermore he donated a thousand dollars each year to the police fund. He couldn't be overlooked, no matter how trivial his fears turned out to be.

This fear was genuine, however, and well founded. Someone, Horton told Cluney, had fired a shot at him through the window and had wounded him in the arm. Cluney inspected the hole in the window pane and noted the bandaged arm with cool sympathy.

He had been reading the paper, Quigley explained, and the shot had come entirely without warning. The would-be assassin had left not a single clue and Quigley was sure he had no enemies on this earth. It had just raised hob with Aunt Hepzebah's heart.

Mention of Aunt Hepzebah seemed to be almost coincidental with the confusion and thumping on the second floor. Quigley turned white and ran for the stairs, with Tom Cluney following on his heels.

Aunt Hepzebah Horton lay half out the bed, her body having hit the small tabouret that held her pills and glass of water. The water had spilled over the pills and onto the floor and the glass lay overturned on the bed stand. Aunt Hepzebah was dead.

"She had a heart attack," Quigley moaned. "Caused by the attempt on my life! What shall I do, Mr. Cluney?"

"Better call your family physician," said Cluney.

The family doctor was elderly and a man who breathed loudly and said little. He nodded his head sadly, perhaps thinking, too, of the loss of a good patient.

"I'll make out the necessary records," said the doctor. "Very sorry, Quigley."

"I tried so hard to make her last days comfortable," Quigley Horton said.

"I think you ought to look at Mr. Horton's arm while you're here, Doc," Cluney said.

"But that isn't necessary," Quigley insisted. "Dr. Walters dressed it just this morning!"

"I'd like to see it, anyway. It might have a bearing on who did the job."

"Won't take a minute," Dr. Walters said.

"Here, Quigley, hold out your arm."

Quigley Horton sighed in exasperation. "Oh, very well."

Dr. Walters unwrapped the bandage. Quigley shuddered as the doctor washed the dressing and winced as the cleaning alcohol touched the edges of the wound.

Tom Cluney looked the wound over carefully. "Where were you sitting when the shot was fired?" he asked.

Horton looked at Aunt Hepzebah's body lying in the awkward position of her dying lunge.

"With Aunt Hepzebah lying in death, must we continue this questioning?"

"Remember," said Cluney, "you sent for me to investigate what you claim was an attempt on your life!"

"What I claim?" Quigley Horton gasped. "You don't believe me?"

"I think you're a first class liar," Cluney said quietly, "and you murdered your aunt by scaring her to death. Look at the powder burns on that wound."

Horton went white. He reached casually toward the pocket of his lounge jacket and Cluney sprang at him. Horton was fast, though and the automatic was leveling off as Cluney caught his gun wrist.

Horton suddenly became a seething, fighting maniac. He was slight but fast, and he sent Tom Cluney one to the jaw that put him back on his heels. Doc Walters made a dive for the door and Horton brought his gun hand up at Dr. Walters' back. Cluney heaved a chair, clipped the exploding weapon from Horton's hand. He came in fast then and sent a hard right to Horton's jaw that floored him.

"What gave you the idea?" Dr. Walters asked, after Quigley Horton had been taken in.

"Those pills," replied Cluney. "When the water spilled on the dish some of them strayed together and some melted away almost entirely."

The doctor touched a melted pill to his lips. "Sugar," he said.

Cluney nodded. "Quigley got tired waiting for the old lady to die, so he took away her medicine by substituting sugar pills he made himself, and finished the job by scaring her when he shot himself in the arm."

The Bird-Man Legend

"This," said Al Bronson grimly to himself, "is the well-known IT! Pretty soon I'm going to find out how it feels to die in a plane crash!"

Al sat perfectly relaxed and calm in the cockpit of his tiny Piper Cub plane. His calmness was not heroism; it wasn't even the phoney kind of heroism that many people put on when they don't want to admit, even to themselves, how frightened they are. It was, rather, a sort of calm acceptance of whatever fate was in store for him, the attitude which had been bred in him, and all the other boys he had flown with in the terrible days when Eisenhower had battled to establish a safe beachhead on the narrow shores of Europe.

Al knew he had done everything possible to help himself—and he also knew that it wouldn't work. It was pretty ironical, at that, to come out of five years of daily danger with the Eagle Squadron of the RAF and then with the USAAF, to wind up dead on his first easy civilian job of exploring the back stretches of the Amazon Valley. But it was just one of those things, he thought, as he shrugged his shoulders philosophically.

He stared ahead of him, through the small cockpit of the plane. There, a couple of miles away, clearly visible through the clear morning air, he could see safety, as represented by the smooth plateus on the other side of the tremendous chasm which separated him from them. If he could only reach that side of the chasm, everything would be fine. First of all, it was smooth and even, and he could set his plane down in comparative comfort. Then, and more important, Al knew that a few miles down from his present location, there was a fairly good path that led down the thousand-foot side of the cliff, and once on the floor of the chasm, he'd be less than ten miles from base camp.

Automatically, Al yanked back the joy-stick of the plane as far as he could, to keep the little ship as high as possible. As he did this, he sensed that it wouldn't help. He had lost too much altitude, and he would be sure to crash on this side of the chasm, in the dense, thickly-wooded forests which lined the cliff right up to its very edge. Methodically, he unloaded the camera which he had been using to get shots for the aerial map, and stowed the metal-cased rolls of film in his pockets. At least, if they ever located his body, maybe the photos would be of some use!

Suddenly Al's eyes narrowed sharply. Out of one corner of his vision, he had seen two things which gave a quick lift to his sinking hopes. There, a trifle north, was a narrow rope-and-vine bridge over the quarter-mile-wide chasm, which meant that there must be human beings living somewhere in the neighborhood; and also, he had caught sight of a tiny clearing near the approach to the bridge.

Al yanked savagely at the rudder, and the Piper Cub veered north. Maybe he could make it, after all! If he could only set the ship down without smashing himself into the atoms, he could get across to the other side of the chasm, and he'd be okay! For a few minutes Al fought the cross-currents which twisted up from the wooded region, handling his motorless ship as though it were a glider. And, as he slipped and swirled downward in a glide he knew he would make it!

As he approached the cleared spot, his sensitive fingers holding the end of the joystick alert for any slight adjustment, a sudden updraft flung his ship fifty feet into the air, and dropped the plane like a dead weight toward the ground. Al's last conscious recollection was of the lush green grass and towering trees, which seemed to rush up at his face with the force of an express train. Then everything disappeared in a blinding collision, as he hit the ground and the tiny plane splintered into a mass of twisted metal.

When Al Bronson regained consciousness, his first thought was that he was pretty cramped. When he shifted his shoulders to ease the pressure of his flying suit and the parachute pack on his back, the tension increased, and his hands bound tightly with strong vines which circled his waist and were knotted further to restrict his movements.

Al struggled to his feet, to find himself surrounded by a grim-faced circle of ominously quiet, almost naked natives, each staring unblinkingly at him and each carrying a wicked-looking spear in the right hand and an equally wicked-looking machete in the left. He fought down the quick fear which welled up within him, and forced his voice to be reasonably calm as he tried the few words of Spanish which he knew, to explain that he was a friend and wanted to help.

Silence greeted his speech, and Al realized with a sinking heart that if the natives spoke any language besides their own dialect, it would be Portugese, the language of Brazil, of which he didn't know a single word!

He struggled to free his hands, hoping to be able to utilize some kind of sign language. With a gesture of contempt, the tallest of the natives stepped forward, slashed downward with his razor-sharp machete, and Al's hands were free. Al grinned in his friendliest way at his liberator, but in that second his hopes died, as the natives spoke. The words were thick pidgin English, but their meaning was clear.

"You bird-man," the native grunted. "You white man. Me work white man. Me learn speak white man talk. Indian hate white man. White man bring trouble. Indian kill white man. Then trouble go. Come. You see."

The leader grunted a command and in a second Al was seized by both arms and hustled toward the edge of the high cliff.

With a complete indifference to the vertigo which overwhelmed Al Bronson, as he hung over the steep edge, held by the iron grip of two warriors, the native leader barked another command, and one of his men darted into the underbrush, to return a moment later with three wristwatches, which the chief took and held out for Al to see.

"We take white man magic. Then we kill," the native said calmly. "Like this." He made a swinging gesture with his two arms, indicating clearly the act of throwing something over the edge of the cliff to the floor of the chasm a thousand feet below!

At the chief's next command, the two warriors holding Al loosened their grip of his arms, grabbed his left wrist and stripped off the watch which was strapped there. His arms freed, for a brief fraction of a second, Al found a sudden inspiration! He smacked his right arm down against the open flap pocket on his pants leg, grabbed the magnesium flare which he held there for photos at night or in fog, and all in the same gesture dashed it violently to the ground!

As the flare blazed forth in a terrific spurt of furious fire, Al seized the brief second, in which the natives jumped back in alarm, to sprint at top speed for the narrow, swinging rope bridge which he could see less than a hundred yards away. In his heart he knew the gesture was futile; he was handicapped by his heavy clothes and parachute pack, while the practically-naked natives could certainly move faster than he. But the driving urge for self-preservation forced him on, in spite of his bursting lungs, and before the startled natives could recover enough to speed after him, Al had made the bridge and was crawling out along its swaying, sagging length!

Al worked his way out along the crude chasm crossing, conscious of added vibrations as the natives started to cross the bridge.

Then he heard a booming voice, yelling in native dialect, and over his shoulder Al saw the natives on the rope bridge turn and scuttle back to the edge of the cliff. As he continued across, wondering at the change in his enemies' plan, the leader's booming voice came again. "White man, you die!"

Al froze to immobility and stared as two native warriors, who had just been waiting for their fellows to reach safety, chopped their heavy machetes down on the vines holding the bridge! The entire bridge shook under the impact of the savage thrusts and suddenly free, it dropped like a stone, flinging Al Bronson into the void!

As he dropped, Al's instinctive recollection of years of training came to the fore. Without any conscious realization of what he was doing, his fingers reached up to his breast and yanked at the rip-cord of his parachute!

As the huge nylon sheet opened and caught the wind it fluttered aloft like a giant flower with Al Bronson swinging easily in the harness. Down to the safety of the chasm floor, which would lead him back to his own camp, he drifted. Then Al glanced upward to see the awe-filled, superstitious natives on their knees at the edge of the cliff, salaaming in terror of the white birdman who could sprout his own wings and fly off to safety!

Prickly Porcupine Runs Away

It was a bright, shiny morning. The sun was just peeping through the trees. The early birds were hopping about looking for worms and the squirrels were scurrying about looking for nuts. Everyone was busy and happy.

Everyone except Prickly Porcupine.

"I'm going to run away!" said Prickly.

Prickly Porcupine was feeling extra prickly that morning. He had gotten "D" in deportment on his report card the day before because he had pinched Priscilla, his best friend. His mother had cried when she saw his report card. And his father had scolded him.

"Why can't you be good, like all the other little animals?" he had asked Prickly.

But, somehow, Prickly always got into trouble. He wouldn't study his lessons. He wouldn't help his mother wash the dishes. And when his friends asked him to come and play, he would rattle his quills and look so cross that they soon ran off and left him alone.

"It's no use!" Prickly told himself. "Nobody loves me. Even Priscilla doesn't love me any more! I'm going to run away!"

Prickly crept out through the back window of his house. Soon he was hurrying down the shady road through the woods. He whistled to himself as he went along.

"I'm running away! I'm running away! No one to scold me all the day!"

At the bend of the road he met old Granny Owl who was sitting on her doorstep sunning herself.

"Where are you going, Prickly Porcupine?" Granny Owl asked.

"I'm running away!" answered Prickly. "I'm running away. No one to scold me all the day."

"Oh," said Granny Owl. "Well, as long as you're running away, would you mind taking this basket of nuts with you and giving it to Mrs. Mouse? She wants to try my recipe for nut soup."

"Okay!" said Prickly. And he took the basket and went off down the road whistling. "I'm running away! I'm running away! No one to scold me all the day!"

By and by he came to Mrs. Mouse's house.

"Hello, Mrs. Mouse," said Prickly. "Here are some nuts that Granny Owl sent you. But I have to hurry on!"

"Thank you, Prickly," said Mrs. Mouse. "And where are you hurrying to?"

"I'm running away!" answered Prickly. "I'm running away. No one to scold me all the day!"

"Oh!" said Mrs. Mouse. "If you're running away, would you mind leaving this jar of ointment at Uncle Rabbit's house? He worked so hard yesterday that he has a very stiff back. And this is just the thing to make it better."

"Okay!" answered Prickly. And he took the jar of ointment and went off down the road whistling. "I'm running away! I'm running away! No one to scold me all the day!"

By and by he came to Uncle Rabbit's house. "Hello, Uncle Rabbit," said Prickly Porcupine. "Mrs. Mouse sent you this ointment to rub on your back. Now I have to hurry on!"

"Thank you, Prickly," said Uncle Rabbit. "But if you aren't in too much of a hurry, could you rub my back first? I'm so stiff I can't do it myself."

"Okay!" said Prickly. And he took some ointment and rubbed Uncle Rabbit's back.

"Thank you, Prickly. That makes my back feel much better!" said Uncle Rabbit. "But where are you hurrying to?"

"I'm running away!" answered Prickly. "I'm running away! No one to scold me all the day!"

"Oh," said Uncle Rabbit. "If you're running away, I don't want to keep you. Good-by!"

"Good-by, Uncle Rabbit," said Prickly. And he went off down the road whistling to himself. "I'm running away! I'm running away! No one to scold me all the day!"

By and by Prickly came to Mr. Squirrel's house. Mr. Squirrel was walking up and down, up and down, shaking his head.

"Hello!" said Prickly Porcupine. "What's the matter, Mr. Squirrel?"

"Maybe you could help me, Prickly," Mr. Squirrel answered. "It's the storehouse. The roof has collapsed and all the nuts will be spoiled!"

"Well," said Prickly. "Maybe I could. But I have to hurry on."

Prickly walked over to the storehouse and peeped in. "I know just the thing!" he said. And he shook loose some of his quills and gave them to Mr. Squirrel.

"You can use these to prop up the roof," Prickly said.

"Oh, thank you, Prickly! That's just what we needed," said Mr. Squirrel. "But where are you hurrying to?"

"I'm running away!" answered Prickly. "I'm running away! No one to scold me all the day!"

"In that case," said Mr. Squirrel. "You better hurry along. But won't you take a few nuts with you in case you get hungry?"

"Thank you!" said Prickly. And he took some nuts and he went off down the road whistling. "I'm running away! I'm running away! No one to scold me all the day!"

By and by Prickly began to get tired. So he sat down under a shady tree to rest, and to eat his nuts. Suddenly he heard a funny noise right behind him. "E-e-e-h! E-e-e-h!" went the noise.

"That's a funny noise!" said Prickly. "It sounds just like a fog horn, but it can't be a fog horn, because there isn't any fog!"

Prickly turned around to see what was making the noise. There, in the bushes behind him, was a brown, baby bear.

"Hello," said the bear. "Can you help me? I'm caught in these vines and I can't get out!"

"Okay!" said Prickly. "But I have to hurry on!"

Prickly began to gnaw at the vines with his sharp little teeth, and pretty soon the bear was free.

"Thank you, Prickly!" said the bear. "But where are you hurrying to?"

"I'm running away!" answered Prickly. "I'm running away! No one to scold me all the day!"

"Well," said the bear. "If you're running away, you better hurry along. Good-by!"

"Good-by!" answered Prickly. And he went down the road whistling. "I'm running away! I'm running away! No one to scold me all the day!"

By and by Prickly met some ants. They were running around and around, waving their feelers in the air.

"Hello!" said Prickly. "Is something the matter?"

"Yes!" said all the ants together. "Can you help us? We have to cross that brook, and our bridge has been washed away!"

"Okay!" said Prickly. "But I have to hurry on!"

Prickly lay down at the edge of the brook, with his tail on one side and his nose on the other. And all the ants, one by one, crawled up his tail and along his back and off on the other side.

"Thank you! Thank you!" said the ants. "But where are you hurrying to?"

"I'm running away!" answered Prickly. "I'm running away! No one to scold me all he day!" And he went off down the road whistling.

The sun began to go down behind the trees. And Prickly began to walk slower and slower. He'd been walking all day and his feet hurt. Suddenly he looked up. He had been so busy walking down the road and whistling that he hadn't had time to look where he was going.

"That's funny!" said Prickly to himself. "This place looks just like some place I've been before. But I couldn't have ever been here before. I'm running away. And this place looks just like home!"

Prickly walked on very slowly now, watching everything he passed. He came to a tree that had a heart carved on it. Inside the heart there were words which read:

Priscilla Loves Prickly

"Oh, goodness! Priscilla still loves me! Otherwise she wouldn't have carved this on the tree." Prickly cried. "Oh, Priscilla, why did I ever run away from home and leave you?"

"You didn't run away from home, Prickly!" Prickly heard someone say. And there behind the tree was Priscilla, waiting for him. "You are home, Prickly."

Prickly looked and sure enough, there was his friend Priscilla. Prickly was home again.

He had been so busy all day, doing things for other people that he just hadn't noticed that he had travelled around in a circle. But he certainly was glad that he hadn't succeeded in running away. And now he knew that he never would try to run away again.

Fifty Million Frenchmen

Kate had a hunch that something was up when Major Herringbone stepped into the canteen with a very smug smile.

"Katie," the major said as he flopped down on a stool by the counter, "I think your promotion is long overdue."

"Promotion?" chirped Kate in bewilderment. "I don't catch. Put it in simpler language, Sir. Like—do you mean I'm to be transferred?"

"Not from this base. No ma'm!" The major was very emphatic. "You might call it upgraded if the word promotion doesn't appeal to you," he added with a coy wink.

Kate swung behind the counter and walked up behind the soda taps until she was facing him. Kate didn't like to be kept in suspense.

"Okay. Let's hear the news," she blurted out.

Kate braced herself against the edge of the stainless steel sink for the shuddering announcement.

"Wouldn't you like to leave this enlisted men's canteen and work in the officers' club?" the major asked in a persuasive tone that almost fooled Kate for an instant.

"No, sir. I would not," Kate said flatly. "Of course, if that's an order," she added glumly, "I'll obey."

"Come, come, Katie!" the major wheedled. "Show some esprit de corps!"

"What might that be?" Kate said, squinting at him sharply.

"It's a French expression," Major Herringbone told her. "Giving a literal translation it means spirit of the corps. In military usage it is applied the same as you would use the word enthusiasm when speaking of members of a group."

"It sounds terrible to me," Kate tossed back at him. "But I suppose fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong. When do I start?"

"This noon," the major said, getting off the stool. "Report to Lieutenant Martin. He will inform you of your duties." Before Kate could question him about the latter data, Major Herringbone left.

"I've got troubles," Kate moaned as she slipped off her apron. Her remark was overheard by the marines who were crowding in on the wake of Herringbone's departure. They asked her what was the trouble, and she gave it to them straight. "The brass wants me over at Wonderland."

"But you can't do this to us, Katie!" a big PFC whined. "We need you here! Who's gonna take your place? A messman in a white coat?"

"We had one of those once before," a hardfaced private groaned.

And as the number one controversy flamed anew, Kate slipped quietly around the edge of the crowd and made her way outside unnoticed.

It didn't take her fifteen minutes to discover why the boys called the Officers' club "Wonderland." The building was crawling with ninety-day wonders.

They called her "sweetheart" and "miss" and all the other names she didn't like such as hostess, sister and kid. All the boys back at the canteen had always addressed her as Kate, and before the day was over she had begun plotting to get back with the enlisted men.

She broke a few plates, spilled a few glasses, but none of the officers seemed to mind. They pushed each other aside to take turns helping her pick up the pieces.

At chow time when the place was emptied, Lieutenant Martin, a smug, efficient man, sent her on an errand to the commissary. En route she ran into Marine Private Rocky Sampson, a battlefront veteran serving his second enlistment. Rock's face was as hard as the boulders on Heartbreak Ridge. At the top of his endless gripe list were second lieutenants of the pre-combat variety.

"You don't look happy, Kate," he rasped in a toneless whisper. "Want me to blow up that joint tonight so you can come back to our canteen?"

Kate stopped and took his big, calloused hand. Her nimble mind sprang into action. Here was the man to help her. If she gave the word, he wouldn't hesitate to drive an M-26 tank through the club building at the height of the evening rush spell. But destruction of a less drastic nature could serve her purpose.

"Juggle a few nice, full garbage cans over here tonight after closing time," she told him, "and empty them under the screened verandah. Mother Nature will do the rest."

"Leave it to me, Kate!" Rocky said with a grin. "I'll really load the pig feed under that porch!"

When Kate came back to the club after chow she was carrying a sharp-nosed pair of scissors in the pocket of her skirt. They were small enough to be covered by her palm. At every opportunity that night she would back up to the screened panels along the verandah, jab the point of the scissors into the screen and then spread the blades to stretch the screen wire. In each spot this would leave a hole large enough for a fly to enter without retracting his landing gear.

Major Herringbone showed up just before closing time. He tapped Kate's shoulder and said, "Your presence has livened up the place, my dear. I knew I could depend on you to show real esprit de corps."

Kate rolled into her bunk that night and prayed that Rocky's special garbage detail would hit no snag. In the morning he was the first person to greet her when she left her billet. "Everything went okay, Kate!" he said with a deep chuckle. "Soon as the sun gets hot, you'll need to wear a gas mask in that joint."

Kate winked at him, and went off to breakfast.

A couple of yardbirds were mopping up the club when Kate showed up to help Lieutenant Martin with the accounts and requistions. The faint aroma of garbage was already afloat on the breeze. Martin went out in the forenoon, and Kate sat back to let Mother Nature take her course.

Before noon a noxious odor enveloped the immediate surroundings. House flies, horse flies, fruit flies and many other varieties came in squadrons! The verandah screen was black with them, and the more adventurous ones found their way through the holes Kate had punched through the screen.

Lieutenant Martin returned, holding his nose with his left hand and fanning away flies with his right. Kate was sitting between two electric fans for protection. "I hate this awful place!" she groaned. "Another day here and you'll have to send me to the infirmary!"

Nervous perspiration broke out on Lieutenant Martin's face. "I'll speak to Major Herringbone, Kate. He should be along any moment now. Oh, here he comes!"

Herringbone fought his way through the attack formations of winged insects, thinking he would find safety inside the screen door. He yipped, clawed at his neck and in general behaved in no way becoming to an officer. Kate swallowed hard to keep from laughing. Then with a straight face she stood up and came before him. "Sorry, Major, but I've lost my esprit de corps. I can't stand this place any longer. You'll have to break me one grade. I'm going back to the enlisted men's canteen where the air is sweeter and the flies are fewer."

She was gone before Herringbone could untangle his tongue. He brushed the flies away from the screen to obtain visibility, and watched Kate traipsing away. "She can't do this to us, Lieutenant! Of course, she'll be back. She's only taking French leave until we've eliminated the source of her complaint. Er, have you determined yet what it may be?"

"Garbage," said Lieutenant Martin. "I'm afraid your idea was not popular with the enlisted men. I shall make a thorough investigation."

But Lieutenant Martin's probe went no further than a brief session with Kate at the canteen a short while later. "Did you see or have you heard any report of a marine dumping garbage cans under the porch of the officers' club?" he asked her.

"A marine?" Kate asked innocently. "Why, no. But you can tell Major Herringbone I did see a Frenchman. I believe his name was Alphonse. He was selling perfume, and when I refused to buy from him he said, 'Just you wait, M'amselle!' Well, I waited, and you see what happened. The Frenchman got his revenge!"

Lieutenant Martin gave Kate a frightened look as he hurriedly backed out the canteen door, and she hasn't seen him since!

Two Minutes to Doom

Detective Walt Wilson closed the bedroom closet door, locked it and threw the key out the window, fourteen stories above the courtyard. Holding his automatic in his hand, he turned out the light and waited in the darkness. Pretty soon he heard the latch rattle in the foyer off the living room.

When the living room light snapped on, Wilson was standing with his gun leveled at Moon Jacobs and Tony Orson, Jacobs's bodyguard.

"Get 'em up!" rasped Wilson.

Orson already had a gun in his hand and Jacobs was reaching for the pocket of his coat. Wilson's calm voice stopped Jacobs's hand half way and a quick shift of Wilson's aim sent Orson's gun clattering to the floor.

"What the—?" Jacobs gasped finally.

As Jacobs and Orson walked across the floor, Wilson snapped off the night latch to the foyer. Inside the bedroom, Wilson locked the door and threw that key also out the window.

"Face the wall with your hands up!"

Wilson's trained, sensitive fingers frisked Jacobs and Orson. He found the gun for which Jacobs had been reaching in the living room and heaved the weapon through the window pane.

"Now turn around," Wilson snapped. "You're talking!"

"About what?" A defiant sneer had set in on Jacobs's face.

"About the murder of my brother, Sergeant Dan Wilson. Dan gasped out your name before he died. He had the goods on you for operating a numbers racket and you killed him when he went to take you in."

"You can't scare me," Jacobs snarled.

Orson's hand, above his head, carefully fingered the edge of a picture frame hanging on the wall. Wilson saw it coming at him and ducked. As the picture crashed, Wilson fired, but his aim was off and before he could gain his balance Jacobs and Orson were on him. Wilson twisted free for a few seconds, and as the two came at him again, he found his gun clicking on empty shells. He let that weapon go, too, through the broken window pane.

Jacobs was powerful and heavy. Orson was bigger than Jacobs. All of Jacobs's beef was behind the smash to Wilson's jaw. With a groan the detective sank to the floor. Both Jacobs and Orson sprang on him.

Jacobs said: "We'll throw him out the window, too, the dirty sneaking cop!"

Wilson said: "And through the window's the only way you two will get out! You'll never break down that metal sheathed door!"

"So we'll sit here," snorted Jacobs.

"That's what you think," said Wilson. "Listen! And listen hard!"

As silence enveloped them, a steady fast tick, tick, tick came to them through the closet door.

"What's that?" Jacobs said.

"For the sake of courtesy, let's call it an alarm clock," said Wilson. "And I might add, set for midnight."

"A time bomb!" Orson gasped. "Moon, the dick's gonna blow us up!"

Jacobs whitened. "You'll go with us, copper!"

"What time is it, Jacobs?" countered Wilson.

Moon Jacobs looked involuntarily to his wrist watch. He blurted, "Holy—! Ten of!" He raised his eyes. "How will you get out?"

"With a passkey," Wilson answered. "But you won't find it, pal!"

The two thugs searched the room frantically. They upset the bureau, turned over the bed, rolled the rug. Then Jacobs came to Wilson. "You're gonna tell, Wilson!" He grabbed Wilson's arm, wrenched it.

Wilson writhed in pain, but he said only, "What—time—Jacobs?"

"Two minutes!" Jacob shrieked. "Come on, Wilson, I'll sign anything!" Orson yanked feverishly at the door knob.

In the living room was the sound of scuffling feet.

"That you, Wilson?" It was the chief from headquarters. "This the passkey on the floor in front of the door?"

"Yeah, Chief. Open up. These birds are ready to talk."

In the bedroom Jacobs scrawled his shaking hand over the already prepared confession. He tugged as Wilson snapped the cuffs. "You gonna leave us blow up anyway?"

A blaring bell shattered the stillness.

Wilson grinned. "I said it was an alarm clock and it is. A darn noisy one that will wake the whole apartment house before it runs down."

Marvin the Monster in "Un-natural History"

Mr. and Mrs. Moon were so very happy when they moved into their new home. Here they were, in real country, surrounded by woodland, brooks, hills, dales and practically every other form that untouched nature takes. A full quarter acre of all this countryside belonged to the Moons. They thought of it fondly as the Moon Ranch. And although Mr. Moon wasn't elated at the prospect of four hours each day in a commuters' train, Mrs. Moon was quick to point out the great advantage of rural life.

"It will be so good for Marvin," she said, simply. That wrapped up everything, and now the Moons were firmly rooted under their own vine and their own fig tree.

Master Marvin Moon, aged ten, the only son, nay, the only child, of Mr. and Mrs. Moon, deserves a bit of description. He looked like a chimpanzee with a shave. To say that Marvin was an active lad would be a hideous under-statement. He seemed to be always up to something. And the things that Marvin was always up to were either downright wicked, or at least distasteful.

Once settled in their home, the Moons worried about Marvin. The child was delicate—about as delicate as Dempsey at Toledo—and all his life had been spent in the city. Would country living prove dull and distasteful to this sensitive tot? Would stronger, over-grown country lads bully this tender plant? Mrs. Moon spent considerable time worrying about this.

Mrs. Moon's fears were resolved one Saturday afternoon, when one of the neighbors, a Mr. Gatley showed up with a complaint. According to Mr. Gatley, Master Marvin had, in a moment of pique, broken the nose of Mr. Gatley's son and heir, twelve-year-old Squint Gatley. It took Mr. Moon the better part of an afternoon and all of one of Mrs. Moon's chocolate cakes to sooth Mr. Gatley's feelings.

Broke noses, in that part of the country, seemed to form a basis for solid friendship, because Marvin and Squint soon became practically inseperable. The first look she took at Squint almost floored Mrs. Moon. While Marvin could hardly be considered handsome, Squint immediately made you think of the electric chair. Criminality was written on the lad's face in letters a mile high. But Marvin loved him, jug ears and all.

It was Squint who introduced Marvin to the mysteries of nature, but it was Marvin who had the idea of building the zoo. This was a series of wire-covered boxes neatly arranged in Marvin's backyard. Seeing the lads engaged in constructive work, Mrs. Moon was pleased.

"What is it you're building, boys?" she asked.

"A zoo," said Marvin.

"Fer anny-mulls," said Squint, who liked to keep everything clear.

"How nice," said Mrs. Moon, thinking of teddy bears and stuffed dogs in the boxed cages. "Children are so imaginative," she thought, as she went in to take a bath.

Mrs. Moon was about to draw her tub, when she noticed that it was already drawn. And there was something in it—green, slimy, swimming things—frogs!

Mrs. Moon had barely time to shriek out an "eek" when Marvin and Squint streaked into the bathroom to rescue their pets. Having gathered the last of them out of the tub, Squint stopped in the doorway long enough to reprimand Mrs. Moon.

"Gosh, ma'am," said Squint, "you came mighty nigh to settin' right on our collection of bull-frogs! You mighta hurted them!"

A week passed, when one evening Marvin entered the living room carrying a small black animal in his arms.

"Look what Squint give me," said Marvin, as he placed the beast on the rug.

"A pussy-cat! How nice!" said Mrs. Moon absently. "Now isn't that a much nicer pet than those awful frogs?"

By this time the pussy-cat was making a hammering noise with his forepaws on the rug and was assuming a somewhat unorthodox stance. Mr. Moon remembered his days as a boy scout.

"That's no cat!" screamed Mr. Moon. "That there's a skunk!"

"Sure," admitted Marvin blithely. "But he's harmless. Squint and me..."

"Squint and I, dear," said his mother.

"Yuh! Squint and I been feeding him chlorophyll pills. He can't do nothin' after that! Chlorophyll kills scent, you know," explained the young naturalist.

At that moment, Mr. Moon, trying to take cover, yelled "Look out!" but it was too late. The skunk had zeroed in, laid down a wild field of fire, and all was lost. It became immediately apparent that chlorophyll doesn't work with skunks.

Marvin and his parents spent the next ten days at the local inn, while their home was being fumigated from top to bottom. Upon their return, Marvin, assisted again by Squint, resumed his nature studies.

This time, the zoo, which still stood, was ominously quiet. But Marvin and Squint seemed to be always busy poking about their small, wire-faced cages. Like most women, Mrs. Moon was curious. She approached the two boys, not without a slight shudder at the sight of Squint's face.

"I hope you boys aren't collecting any more animals," said Mrs. Moon.

"Gosh, no, Mom!" goshed Marvin.

"We're all through collectin' anny-mulls, Mrs. Moon," added the unspeakable Squint.

"What's in that cigar box under your arm, Marvin?" asked Mrs. Moon, with an edge of suspicion in her voice.

"N-nothin', Mom," stammered Marvin. Even Mrs. Moon had to admit to herself that her child was acting like a perjurer being questioned by a smart lawyer. However, she did not want to unveil Marvin's deception in front of Squint. After all, at the age of thirty, Squint would probably be a professional blackmailer. Why ply him with ammunition?

Grabbing Marvin, Mrs. Moon hauled him into the house, and there, in decent privacy, grabbed his cigar box from him and threw it open with a flourish. That was her mistake. The cigar box contained about two hundred of those small, pink amphibians that the English call newts and that the Americans call water-dogs. In a matter of seconds, the room seemed to be full of newts, literally thousands of them, scuttling across the floor in every direction, and seeking cover and concealment. Mrs. Moon refused to re-enter the living room until her lord and master returned from the city. It took Mr. Moon the entire week-end, spent on his hands and knees, until the last fugitive newt had been flushed from under the living room furniture. It was late Sunday before Mr. Moon had a chance for a word with Marvin.

"Son," he began sternly, "you deliberately lied to your mother!"

"How, Pop?" asked Marvin.

"You distinctly told your mother that you didn't have any more animals! And all the time you were talking to her, you carried 197 water-dogs—if my figures are correct—in a box under your arm!"

"I didn't lie, Pop," announced Marvin. "Water-dogs ain't animals. They're amphibians—sort of reptiles."

"Marvin," said Mr. Moon softly. "Do you have any more animals... or amphibians... or reptiles?"

"Yes, Pop," replied Marvin. "I have fourteen snakes in my zoo!"

Mr. Moon had a deathly fear of snakes. Marvin, who believed in reasoning with difficult adults, took him out to the "zoo." Taking a beautifully colored red racer from one of the wired cages, Marvin draped it around his neck to show how harmless the little animal was.

"This is a red racer, father," explained the boy naturalist. "Isn't he beautiful? Absolutely harmless and gentle!"

Mr. Moon was in a spot. A man can't let his ten-year-old son make a poltroon of him. Opening the door of one of the pens, Mr. Moon reached in, grabbed a snake and draped it around his neck.

"Daddy isn't afraid of snakes either, Marvin," said Mr. Moon, nervously.

"Gosh, no, Daddy," said Marvin. "You've got plenty of moxie!"

"What species does this fellow belong to, Marvin?" he asked, cavalierly.

"That's a diamond-back rattlesnake, Daddy," replied the child.

Since Mr. Moon was basically in good health, it only took him five weeks in the hospital to recover from his heart attack. The diamond-back hadn't bitten him. Mr. Moon had dropped in a faint so quickly that the terror of the Everglades couldn't get a bite. Marvin had a different theory.

"He liked you, Daddy," he said. "Nobody was ever nice to him before!"

Mr. Moon shuddered.

"You have given away all your snakes as Daddy told you to, haven't you, Marvin?"

"Every last one," said Marvin. "I traded them to a boy in India."

"Well, well," said Mr. Moon. "And what is the boy in India giving you in return, Marvin?" asked Mr. Moon.

Marvin did not get a chance to reply, for just then the doorbell rang. Opening it, Marvin and his father saw an employee of the United States Post Office Department.

"I got a crate here for a Master Marvin Moon!" said the government official. "Sign here!"

Marvin, always handy with tools, had the crate opened in no time. Inside was a Cobra! Fortunately, the reptile was somewhat sleepy on his arrival. By the time he had raised his head, distended his hood and taken a good look around, Mr. Moon, with Marvin under one arm and Mrs. Moon at the end of the other, was half-way to the city, using no transportation except his legs. He displayed better form than Paavo Nurmi at his best.

Now the Moons are living in a pleasant apartment in the city. If you know anyone who would like to buy a nice, eight-room country house, complete with all modern conveniences, including a hungry cobra, Marvin's father will be glad to sell you one—cheap.

Gambler's Ghost

Ace Quimbey paced back and forth in the jail cell until sheer exhaustion forced him to fall onto the straw littered bunk. "I didn't do it! I didn't do it!" he sobbed. "Bank robbin' ain't my line. Ask anybody who knows me!"

"Deputy! Deputy!" another prisoner yelled. "Transfer that tinhorn to the Amarillo jail until he comes up for trial. I ain't had a decent night's sleep since he wuz locked up here!"

The deputy's voice boomed down the jail corridor from the office in the front. "This goes for Quimbey, an' you, too, Garrett, an' all the rest o' you prisoners. The next man who opens his mouth will have nothing but bread and water for a week. Shut up, all of you!"

"I didn't do it!" Ace Quimbey wailed. "Ask Morty the bartender! Ask Jeff Eames who wuz ridin' through from Denver. I'm a gamblin' man. Never stole a dollar in my life!"

Rod Hodgkins, the deputy, gripped the arms of his chair to hold himself in check. He was a patient man, but his nerves were now near the breaking point. "What can I do with that gambler?" he muttered under his breath. "He's drivin' me loco! An' the judge won't be back to hold court till Friday, almost a whole week!"

Suddenly an idea struck the deputy. It was wild, it was desperate. If it failed, he'd lose his job. But he had to do something about Quimbey!

Hodgkins took the keys and went down the corridor. He opened Quimbey's cell. "Come on!" he growled loud enough for the other prisoners to hear. "We're movin' you to the Amarillo jail till your case comes up for trial."

Quimbey staggered out of the cell like a man in a nightmare. Hodgkins had to step in and get the gambler's frock coat and hat. When he returned to the jail office, he motioned for Quimbey to sit down.

"I think you're innocent," he told the gambler, "but the cards are stacked against you. The cashier, clerk and treasurer swore on signed statements that it wuz you who held up the bank last Wednesday when most of the town wuz over to the creek watchin' the boys pull Cy Clements' buckboard from the mud."

Quimbey ran slender fingers through his sleek black hair and raised his pale blue eyes to meet the deputy's gaze. "It wuz somebody who looked like me, perhaps, but it wuzn't me. I wuz playin' a game of solitaire at my reg'lar table in the back of the Union Saloon when it happened. Morty the bartender and Jeff Eames will swear in court I never left the place that afternoon."

"But the court won't take their word against the testimony of the three bank employees. Quimbey, have you any idea who might have been impersonatin' you?"

"Why sure! I told the sheriff it had to be Jake Buhler. He's about my build. He got a key to my room in the hotel, put on my spare suit of clothes. And after I'd been picked up fer the job, he slipped back to my room and changed into his own clothes."

"That might be hard to prove," the deputy mused. "Buhler is a harness maker, outta work most o' the time. What makes you think he robbed the bank?"

"He owed money to 'bout ever'one in town, includin' me," Quimbey moaned. "He'd received threats, an' knew he'd be in trouble if he didn't pay up. But them that he's mebbe paid will keep close-mouthed. They don't care where the money came from so long as they got it back."

Hodgkins took a gun from the desk drawer, handed it to Quimbey. "Now do exactly as I tell you. God help you if you don't!"

Hope shone in the gambler's eyes as he took the gun and shoved it in the waistband of his trousers. "I'm a man of my word, deputy!" he murmured solemnly.

"Get over to Buhler's room. Don't let anybody see you. Use the back stairs. If he ain't there, wait for him — and demand the money he owes you. If you ain't back here before sunrise, I'll be comin' after you!"

Jake Buhler shook like a leaf when he opened the door and saw Ace Quimbey holding a gun. "I ain't Quimbey," the gambler growled. "I'm his ghost, the one who robbed the bank. Now gimme the money you owe him!"

"Don't shoot, don't shoot!" Buhler whimpered. "How did yuh know it wuz me who stuck up the bank, Ace? How did yuh bust outta jail?"

"Dig up the money an' come along with me," Quimbey ordered. "You'll find out!"

Fifteen minutes later Quimbey turned Buhler over to Deputy Hodgkins who wasted no time locking Buhler in the cell that Quimbey had vacated. When he returned to the front office, he found Quimbey spreading money on the desk where the gun Hodgkins had loaned him now lay.

"Buhler paid up, but this money belongs to the bank," Quimbey said. "I believe in playing square."

"Shake!" The deputy said, putting forth his hand. "Any time I feel like sitting in on a game, I'm headin' straight for your table, Brother Quimbey. I know you'll give me a square deal!"

Phony Loot

Andy Bunce went to the cash drawer and began counting the money. Harry Weller, the cashier, grabbed the money out of Bunce's hands and said, with thin-lipped sarcasim, "The company certainly ought to feel gratified to have so many cashiers."

Andy Bunce's face reddened and he flashed Weller a look of calculated scorn.

"What's the matter with me counting up the cash?" he asked.

"While you're a clerk you do as I tell you," Weller snapped.

Andy returned to his bookkeeping and didn't see the door open as six men entered. Each one carried a brief case and they appeared to be auditors. Their leader walked over toward the cashier's cage while the others went casually toward the compartment that held the account books and began taking them out and placing them on the long table.

Weller raised his eyes and met those of the auditor who was staring beadily at him. Weller's hand slid slowly toward the customer's ledger, but stopped against the desk top. Then he turned his hand upward and began to rub the palm with his finger nails as if it might be itching.

With swift, efficient movement, the man turned from an auditor into a gunman, as he drew an automatic from his coat pocket.

"Get your hands up," he said evenly in a well modulated voice. The five others covered the rest of the office as the clerks turned from their work and raised their hands.

Andy stepped back to the center of the cage beside Weller. The gunman reached beneath the counter, took the bundles of currency of the Merton Company payroll and passed them to another well groomed gunman, who stuffed them into his brief case.

Weller's eyes shifted from the gunman toward the safe. The gunman walked to the cage door and entered.

"Open the safe," the gunman commanded.

Weller turned nervously to the safe and began fumbling with the combination. His fingers shook as he turned the dial right, then left and again right. Finally he turned down the handle and pulled open the door. Then he rose to his feet and stepped aside.

The thug approached the safe, began to open drawers and compartments. "Checks! Where's the rest of the cash?"

Weller's voice shook as he replied. "There's no more cash in the house."

The gunman stuffed the checks into his pocket and turned to leave.

Andy had moved cautiously toward the table near the cage. He kept his left hand raised and moved his right downward to the table. His fingers closed on a paper weight and he raised his arm swiftly in a pitch that landed the paper weight smack against the thug's temple.

As the gang leader dropped, bedlam broke loose in a blast of gunfire. Andy swept his hand down and snatched the automatic from the gang leader and came up shooting. He saw one man drop with blood on his shirt front. It was the man backing up the leader outside the cage. The three others sprang for the door, blazing toward Andy. He cried out sharply as a slug ripped into his shoulder.

Andy's shoulder burned, but he managed to stand the table on edge, to get behind it. The three jammed at the entrance, trying to escape at once. Andy let them have it and they went down in a squirming heap.

As he turned, he saw the thug he had struck with the paper weight had risen and was running for the exit. He took aim, but suddenly saw that Weller had grabbed a gun.

"Drop it, Weller!" Andy shouted.

Weller turned on him. Andy pulled the trigger and Weller's gun fell from his hand. Andy fired again, caught the last escaping thug.

Andy said: "You knew the payroll was accounted for, Weller, but taking those checks would have made up for a lot of your shortages."

"It's a lie!" growled Weller, but he didn't look Andy in the eye.

Andy Bunce went on. "The real auditors will determine that. I saw you tip the thug off to open the safe, but the real reason I knew you were short was that I had found it out before you kicked me off the books. I was going to report you, anyway."

Pseudo-Murder

In the cold dawn Detective Mike Hart jammed his brakes and turned into the driveway of the small house set back from the highway. A dead man lay face down in the open garage. He was clutching an automatic in his hand. A large hole gaped in his temple.

A dirty sedan stood in the garage. In the rear of the car were cartons on which was stenciled the name, Marcus and Co. Other cartons stenciled the same way stood piled along the wall.

The only identifying documents on the dead man were an envelope addressed to him from the County Hospital and a social security card. They showed his name to be Frank Turner and his employer Marcus and Co. Hart placed these items in his pocket.

The detective found the rear door of the house open. Inside a certain untidiness evidenced a man's having lived alone for some time.

From the house, Hart telephoned headquarters. He reported what he had found and added: "It looks like suicide. I'm going to call on Marcus and Co. from here."

The lettering on the plate glass of the office door told Hart that Marcus and Co. dealt in wholesale cosmetics. He had to wait outside until Marcus arrived, for it was still early. Finally, when Marcus came, Hart showed his badge.

"Come in," Marcus said. He was big, nervous, muscular.

"You have a Frank Turner here?" Hart asked.

Marcus showed no emotion.

"He ran us out of business. He's stolen forty thousand dollars in merchandise and sold it. And now we're bankrupt." Then he shot a glance at Hart. "But why?"

"Turner committed suicide last night."

Marcus meditated a while. "I offered to lend Turner the three thousand. But he helped himself. Turner's wife is in the hopsital over a year."

Hart left.

It was ten-thirty at night before Hart returned. There was no light in the office. He walked gingerly down the alley to the rear of the warehouse. The floodlight was out, but a ten-watt bulb glowed yellow inside a wide open overhead door. Marcus's big frame stood against the light. A closed van had backed up to the loading platform.

"Moving day?" Hart rasped. Marcus wheeled.

"What are you getting at?"

But Marcus raised his hands as he saw the gleaming blue steel of Hart's gun. A shadow then blacker than the darkness caught Hart's eye, a shadow coming from the front of the truck. Mike Hart ducked, but the barrel of a gun crashed against his head. He stumbled backward. A gun flashed orange and roared. Lead spattered on concrete close to Hart's head as he went down.

Hart pulled his own trigger. The acrid smell of powder burned his nostrils, as he saw the shadow falling.

Hart saw Marcus's heavy boot swinging toward his head and he rolled. The boot sent his gun flying. Hart grabbed Marcus's legs and Marcus swore as he went down on top of the detective. Marcus's hand found Hart's throat. Steel fingers closed. Hart gasped. Suddenly the detective brought his knee into Marcus's abdomen. Marcus doubled up, as Hart gave him a clout behind the ear. Marcus lay still.

At headquarters Hart explained.

"Marcus confessed. He and his truck driver killed Turner, planted merchandise in Turner's garage. They planned to sell their stock to a crooked outfit and go bankrupt, defrauding their creditors.

"About a year ago Marcus heard Turner phoning someone that his wife had fallen and he couldn't pay a three thousand dollar hospital bill. Marcus kept asking Turner about his wife, and all the time Turner insisted that his wife was still in the county hospital.

"So a few days ago, to plant a motive for Turner's thefts, Marcus sent the County Hospital three thousand dollars by registered mail in Turner's name. The money was returned to Turner by check and was in the envelope I found on the body.

"For you see, Turner had lied, too. He didn't want Marcus to know the telephone conversation he had had that night had been with a bookie about a hot race tip, that the three thousand mentioned was Marcus's money, lifted from the cash receipts and placed on a horse. All this I found out piecemail as I checked on Turner. Because I learned almost at once that Turner was not married. The 'My Wife' he had mentioned was the name of the nag that fell during the race. Turner all the time had been talking about a race horse."

Love is a Mirror

Janie looked into the mirror and saw herself, little Janie with the freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose. She looked and thought, Little Janie, age fifteen... what an ugly duckling!

It's never nice when other people make remarks about you—even if they're true. You know that you have buck teeth and you hate them, hate them as much as the brace that you wear to straighten them out. You know that someday they will be just right and the brace will be gone, but until that time you feel afraid to smile. You want to cry whenever anybody mentions it even if they don't mean any harm.

In the mirror you see your long arms and legs—long, that's the word to use. And you'll scratch anybody's eyes out that says they're skinny.

The short cropped red hair completes the picture of an average young girl of fifteen. A girl that hopes to grow up to be pretty, but can see no signs of it now. Janie the Tomboy, fifteen years old, how sorry you feel for yourself. Still a girl and you want to be a grown-up woman, for you are in love for the first time. You are in love with a boy who could never possibly love you. He is two years older, a star athlete; all the older girls simply rush the life out of him. He couldn't possibly notice you, but you are going to make him see you. Love will find a way, you keep telling yourself that, you say it over and over again every night when you cry yourself to sleep.

You look into the mirror and remember the Janie who was fifteen years old, you look at her and smile. You can smile now Janie for you are twenty-one years old—and fifteen year old Janie's dreams are all coming true. This lovely white dress is your wedding dress, the dress you are going to marry Bob in.

You turn and walk down the steps to your destiny, smiling.

A Fair Exchange

Sheriff John Nutley was not the type of man to flinch before danger. The big six-footer with square set jaw and deep brown eyes just didn't know what the word "fear" meant. Folks in Blake City still talk about the time he fought four Sioux braves with the butt of his useless rifle, and another time when he killed a mad buffalo right at his feet.

But this time the sheriff knew he was on the losing side of the deal. Bravery and courage had nothing to do with it. What man can get a woman to change her mind once she had made it up?

Mrs. Emma Russel was determined to ride the stage from Blake City to Carson Junction. She was a stoutish woman in her late fifties and, with her gray hair and black dress, she looked every inch a grandmother. "I must get to St. Louis before the end of the month," she insisted. "I can't wait here for next week's stage."

"But Ma'am," protested the sheriff, "that owl-hoot, Bart Burrows and his side kick, Hank Lemmens, are the two most desperate road agents in the territory. They're reported to be in the hills and like as not, they may hold up this coach. With those sparklers on your fingers, ma'am. You'd shore be temptin' fate."

Emma Russel gazed at the large rings on the fingers of her right hand. "Any man can have them," she ripled, "but he's got to pay my price! And don't worry, Sheriff—I've managed to take care of myself all these years and I see no reason why I can't continue doing so."

Lou Callaghan, driver of the stage was getting a bit impatient at the delay. He swung his whip at a large fly and missed it. Then he talked to his team of mules. "You critters got to do some steep climbin' and fast trottin'. Don't fret! We'll be on our way soon."

The sheriff took the hint and realized it would be best to concede defeat, so he helped Mrs. Russel into the stage and closed the door. Lou Callaghan released the brake and the impatient little mules found they had no difficult task with a light coach and one female passenger.

As the stage turned off main street onto the highway the sheriff scratched his head. "Funny thing about that woman," he said half aloud to himself. "Sort of reminds me of some woman I once knew." What he didn't realize was that the face of Emma Russel, alias Jane Higarty, alias Tessie Burrows had decorated the "Wanted" notices of many a sheriff's office.

A product of the east, Emma had taken with her to the West her amazing talent for extracting wallets from coats and trousers. And when wallets weren't thick or handy, her agile brain would concoct some sort of blackmail or fraud to enrich her thin purse.

Onwards the stage rolled with Lou Callaghan at the reins. Once he stopped the coach and Emma felt for her little derringer. She poked her head out and inquired, "Are we being held up now?" The way she asked the question sort of startled Lou. He could sense a glint of disappointment in his passenger's eye as he answered, "No ma'am. Just checkin' up on my lead mule's harness. Pullin' too tight." Then, to reassure the female, he lightly tapped the .45 he carried in his holster and said, "Nary a road agent in sight. Besides nobody's goin' to do anythin' while I got my Colt with me."

Sitting lazily in his saddle atop Sundown Mesa, Bart Burrows could see every inch of the road from Blake City for miles. "The coach is a-comin'," he remarked to his partner Hank Lemmens, "and we soon oughta have a little more than we had before."

Hank needed no instructions about his part in the planned hold-up. He went into action as an experienced road agent in his own right. With Bart following he rode down the mesa and moved a fallen mesquite tree into the road. Then they sat down on a convenient rock so await the stage coach.

Lou Callaghan spotted the tree in time to apply his brake and get his stubborn mules to a stop. Then he descended from the coach to look over the scene and figure out whether or not he would need some help to remove the tree.

"Hello, Lou!" said a familiar voice. The driver didn't bat an eye as he saw Hank with a six-shooter in his hand. "Again?" was the only comment the tired driver of the stage coach could bring to his lips. "Again!" repeated Bart who now took command of the situation. "Git out of that coach, passenger!" ordered Bart.

Emma stuck her head out and sized up the situation at once. No need to use her derringer. "Mind your manners, young man!" she demanded as she stepped to the ground. "Now explain why you're impeding the progress of this coach." It was the word "impeding" that sort of puzzled Bart. It was on the tip of his tongue to explain that any fool could see he and his partner were engaged in the time-honored practice of holding up the stage. He stroked his chin twice and had just about decided to search her when his eyes spotted the diamond rings on Emma's fingers.

"Them rings, ma'am!" that was all he said; but enough for Emma to understand a change in ownership was soon to take place.

"These rings are gifts from my late lamented husband, Colonel Russel of the Third Cavalry. He was killed fighting Chief Spotted Tail. You would take his gifts away from me, would you? Oh, how could you do such a thing!"

Bart advanced and started to reach for Emma's hand. This was too much for Lou Callaghan. He went for his six-shooter. But he never made it, for a bullet from Hank's gun grazed his arm. He felt the warm blood trickling down his arm.

"Look here, Lou!" protested Hank. "We don't want to kill you! Throw down your gun!" Lou obeyed.

One by one, Emma slowly took off each ring from her finger. Mentally Bart was making calculations as to their worth. Seemed to him that diamonds ought to bring a lot of money. Emma handed him the jewelry and then slipped to the ground in a dead faint. However, the chivalry in Bart was not entirely lost. He helped her to her feet and was not conscious at the time that her left hand was dipping into his left rear trousers pocket. With the air of a French dandy Bart helped Emma back into the coach.

"We're not carrying any mail or valuables, so if you want to search you can go right ahead," said Lou. The two road agents either believed him or were satisfied with the day's haul. They ordered him to go ahead.

Lou had driven hardly more than a mile when a voice inside ordered him to stop. "Better let me see that wound of yours," Emma said. She examined the arm and then, from one of her many petticoats, tore the cloth for a very expert bandage.

The coach continued on its journey. Emma sat back on the none too comfortable seat. She examined the wallet she had extracted from Bart's trouser pocket. Her eyes almost popped out of their sockets as she saw a half inch of new hundred dollar bills. "Hmm," she mentally remarked, "A fair exchange is no robbery."

About five hours later Bart put his hand into his trousers pocket and discovered the wallet was missing. "I must've lost it somewhere on the road from Sundown Mesa. I'll go back and look for it in a couple o' weeks after the heat's off!"

At the next stage station Lou made a report of what had happened while the mules were being changed. "She was pretty cool over it," he said. "Think an old lady like her would burst out in tears and start screamin' like a catamount." I hope the sheriff gets them two outlaws. Imagine taking away them rings what was left to her by her dead husband!"

The rest of the journey to Carson Junction was uneventful. They pulled in at the stage headquarters only about an hour off schedule. Lou helped his passenger down and she seemed to know where she was going. "Sorry it had to happen to you, ma'am" apologized Lou as she walked away. "Keep yore chin up. There'll be a posse ridin' out soon an' they might git back your rings for you."

The teller at the Carson Junction National Bank carefully examined the one hundred dollar bill handed to him by the old lady.

"Got more of these on you?" he inquired. "Many more," said Emma, grinning proudly. Then she faced a six-shooter in the hands of the teller. "You better come with me to the marshal. This bill is counterfeit!"

The jeweler on the Main Street of Lardsville carefully examined the rings that Bart handed to him. Then his hand went under the counter and came up with a six-shooter. "You thieven' crook," he snarled. "Tryin' to pass off phoney diamond rings eh? The sheriff'll know what to do with you, mister. Get goin'!"

Phony Love Affair

It all started at a dance that I'll never forget.

I suppose I fell madly and incurably in love with Chuck the very instant I saw him. It took all the nerve I had to get someone to introduce him to me. As we stood together with the music beating softly in the background, I was grateful that its sound drowned out the pounding of my heart.

"Hya," he said.

That was all. But it was plenty.

I took a deep breath and asked him if he'd like to dance. He hardly looked at me as he replied.

"I guess so," he mumbled.

Once in his arms on the dance floor I was more certain than ever that Chuck was the boy who could make me happy. I knew that the music would have to stop but I kept praying that it wouldn't. I tried to read Chuck's face to find out whether I had any effect on him at all. But there was no way of telling.

"Nice band, isn't it?" I said as calmly as I could.

"Uh-huh."

I tried another tack.

"You're from Rhinelander College, aren't you?"

"Uh-huh."

I was frantic and furious. The precious seconds of the dance were ticking away and I was getting absolutely nowhere. As if in desperation, I blurted out:

"I live only fifty miles from Rhinelander College!"

But Chuck kept right on dancing.

And then the dance was over.

My magic chance was gone forever. Chuck managed to say something about how nice it was to have met me and I replied with words equally meaningless. I was utterly miserable as I realized that my evening was a glorified nightmare: even worse, I had to confess to my inner self that I was a complete flop.

There was only one tiny bit of consolation. Some of my girl friends, particularly Lucy and Virginia, had noticed Chuck and me dancing together. There's precious little that girl friends don't notice. Secretly, it was pleasing to me to know that they had seen me with Chuck. But I dreaded the questions that I knew they would ask. Some of the questions were very embarrassing: some made me want to run away.

"Did he make another date with you?"

"When are you going to see him again?"

"Did he invite you out to the college for a weekend date?"

And so on and on.

But I had answers, plenty of answers. At least, I made them up.

"He's simply crazy about me," I lied bravely.

The girls wanted details, details and more details. So I made up my story as I went along.

"Chuck and I are very good friends. I made a real hit with him," I babbled on. "I've always been wild about college boys but Chuck is something special. What's more, he thinks I am, too."

That would show them, I thought.

Naturally, poor Chuck didn't know a thing about the way I was flaunting his name about with my girl friends. I got a swell kick out of watching Lucy and Virginia as I reeled off my fantasy. To say that they were getting spellbound would be putting it mildly. They were just plain flabbergasted.

"You don't mean it?" Lucy cried incredulously.

"I don't? Well, just listen to this!" And then I told them that Chuck said this and I said that. I kept it up until I was sure they were believing me. For a fleeting moment I felt ashamed of myself, ashamed that I had to lie to build myself up in my girl friends' eyes. As I talked I mentally pictured Chuck back at college. I was probably the farthest thing from his mind. At that very moment, perhaps, he was making a date with some other girl—maybe with that brassy blonde who had tried to glue herself to his arms the night of the dance. I wondered what he really thought of me. I wondered... oh, so many things.

All that week at school the girls kept asking me whether I had heard from Chuck. I tried to avoid a direct answer but they persisted. They wanted some proof—some token—that the story I had told them was true. Well, I resolved to myself to give it to them.

I decided that Chuck was going to write me a letter. Not just an ordinary letter—but a love letter! Now, they'd really have something to talk about. What was more a letter would be proof, written proof that Chuck was now my own personal property.

I planned everything as carefully as I could. On Saturday morning I got on the bus that would take me to Rhinelander. The bus rattled and shook for nearly two hours before we reached the outskirts of Rhinelander. I started to feel jittery and nervous as we slowly climbed the hill on which the college stood. The college was just as I had imagined it—picturesque and quiet.

I couldn't resist the temptation of scanning every face to see if it were Chuck's. Yet he was the last person in the world I would want to see. What excuse—what explanation—could I give for being in Rhinelander? He'd imagine that I was following him but that was far, far from the truth.

Luckily, there were few people on the campus. Mostly a cluster of college boys here and there. I opened the door briskly and tapped my foot impatiently to get the attention of the old man behind the counter.

"Yes, miss?" he asked.

"I want some stationery. Rhinelander College stationery," I managed to blurt out.

"Certainly. Any particular shade?"

"It's a gift for my brother. I'd like something very masculine, you know. With the college seal on it."

"I understand," he replied as he went off.

In a few seconds that seemed like centuries to me the old man returned with my stationery. I hardly looked at the packet. All I wanted to see was the seal of Rhinelander College. Now I had my equipment ready.

I carried my stationery to the railroad station. I knew this was the last place in town that Chuck migth be apt to be at. I sat down in the deserted waiting room and took my fountain pen from my handbag. Using the stationery box to lean upon I started to write my love letter.

Naturally, I disguised my handwriting so that absolutely no one in the entire world could ever even suspect that I had written the letter myself. By pressing very hard on the pen and holding it at a special angle I managed to create a very fine imitation of a boy's handwriting.

"My Darling Diana," I began to write...

I breathed heavily as I plunged into the body of the letter.

"Knowing you," I wrote, "is the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to me. Since getting back to college after our never-to-be-forgotten dance I've been thinking of nothing else but you. How long must I wait for the next time we meet? Please have pity on a man desperately in love and let me see you soon."

Then I added a few paragraphs about how beautiful I was and how much I meant to him. I signed it with a flourish "Your ever loving—Chuck."

I sealed the letter carefully and wrote my name and address on the envelope. Across the back I boldly wrote out Chuck's full name and Rhinelander College beneath it. I dropped the letter into a mail box and took the bus back home.

I slept very happily that night. I knew that on Monday morning there would be a letter for me, a love letter that I could show to Lucy and Virginia and anyone else who doubted me.

Fortunately, the mail came to our house before I left for school. I was so excited on Monday morning that I could barely gulp down my breakfast. My mother asked me what was the matter.

"Not a thing," I said.

Then I heard the mail man's call. I rushed out and brought in all the mail. My eyes raced over the envelopes until I found the one that I was expecting. There it was. It was postmarked "Rhinelander", of course. I was almost as happy as if Chuck had actually written to me.

Lucy and Virginia waited a long time that day before they asked the question I knew was inevitable. Up to now I had wished that they wouldn't constantly heckle me about Chuck. Now I was impatient for their taunts. Finally, Virginia said sweetly:

"How's your boy friend?"

My answer was so satisfying. "Oh, fine," I said. And then I added calmly, "As a matter of fact, I just had a letter from him this very morning."

"A letter!" they chorused. Again, they wanted details.

"Yes. A very sweet letter."

For the next few minutes I puut on a great act about not wanting to show my personal mail to anyone.

"It's private," I insisted.

But they pressed on. I agreed to show them the envelope. They saw the post-mark, college seal and Chuck's name and address. This was the proof they needed, the written proof. But they wanted more. Couldn't I tell them what he had written?

I pretended that Chuck's words were much too sacred to be shown to strangers. "But Diana," Lucy pleaded, "We're not strangers. We're your best friends, aren't we?"

"Well———," I stammered.

Then I yielded. Seeming reluctant, I told them some of the things Chuck had written but not before I had sworn them to absolute secrecy.

"Chuck would be very angry," I pointed out, "if he knew that I discussed this with even my best friends." They understood but they were hungry to see the letter itself. Couldn't they just peek? Please?

I let them see part of the letter and the signature. It was better, I thought, that they guess about the parts that my hand kept hidden from their view. Finally, I carefully placed the letter in my bag and left.

My stock went way up as the days went on. I was proud yet secretly angry with myself. Yet there was nothing I could do except to continue the make-believe. That was but the first letter. Every Friday night I would write another letter on that same stationery which I kept hidden in a dark corner of our cellar. And on Saturday morning I would take the bus to Rhinelander and mail it.

As the letters went on they became more and more romantic. I found myself reciting poetry and quoting from great lovers. And every Monday morning the mail man would bring me the letter I had gone to so much trouble to write.

According to my girl friends I should have been the happiest girl in the world. Here I had a fine college boy like Chuck madly in love with me and practically at my feet. Actually, I was miserable about everything. How long could this go on?

"When is Chuck taking you out?"

I knew that everyone would soon be asking that question. A romance of letters alone may have been all right for certain people in history but not for the people I knew. There had to be "dates" and I had to do something about it—soon. I decided that Chuck and I would meet on Friday nights. He was through with school on Friday afternoon and could easily come over. Again I had to pretend.

On those Friday nights when I was supposed to be out on a heavenly date with Chuck, I'd complain to my mother about a headache and then go up to my room. I'd turn out the lights and pull down the shades and just lie in the dark silence. And then I'd wait for the long night to be over.

My letters would discuss our "dates" in glowing terms. If Chuck were to skip a "date," I'd simply write that he was busy studying for exams.

And so it went on. I had a stack of love letters, all of them faked. I had a string of dates, all of them just products of my own imagination.

Worst of all was the pretense of happiness I had to show in front of my friends. Here I was so utterly unhappy, so desperately tired from playing the absurd game I had started, and yet I had to act as though I were having a perfectly glorious time. There was no one to whom I could turn because there was no one to whom I'd dare admit that my romance with Chuck was nothing but a hoax.

What could I do?

After painting Chuck so glamorously, I could hardly come right out and say that I had given him up. Why? Why should any girl in her right mind give up a boy like Chuck?

To keep on with my myth was becoming more and more difficult. Bus rides cost money. I began to hate myself for spending hard earned cash just to mail a letter to myself, a letter that was dishonest at that. Besides, where would all this lead to? I was on a dead-end street and I knew it. How I wished that I had never taken the first bus ride to Rhinelander!

Poor Chuck, I thought. What about him? Little did he realize that he had a girl so wildly in love with him that she would write herself love letters and dream up imaginary dates.

That Saturday morning I reached Rhinelander as usual. I took a last glance at the letter I had written. I'll never forget the closing paragraph:

"And so, dearest Diana, I want you to know that I loved you, still do and always will. Your decision to give me up pains me very deeply and will leave a scar on my heart. If you should ever change your mind about me—please, please let me know—and I'll come running. With all my love now and forever, Chuck."

I walked slowly around the campus on this, my last trip to Rhinelander. The tears in my eyes blotted out a clear view of the buildings and the trees. I was burying a love that had been very precious to me and I couldn't help wondering how I would face life without the strength that my romance, however much a lie, had brought me. I realized that although the letters and the dates had all been false there was nothing about my love for Chuck that wasn't real and honest. No power could ever destroy that love. It was my only comfort in my gloom.

I stumbled on towards the mail box, my eyes barely open. I waited a brief second for one of the college boys to drop in the letter he was mailing. My letter—the final chapter in my romance—had to be mailed in complete privacy. I approached the box when suddenly I was electrified by a voice that rang out.

"Diana!"

I turned my head and looked.

It was Chuck. Yes, the real Chuck.

Despite all the words that I had been writing these many weeks, I couldn't find a single one now. I stood in silent awe.

"Gosh, it's good to see you," he said briskly.

"Chuck, I———." I couldn't complete the sentence.

I was too numb to say what I wanted to say. I smiled as best as I could. I can't remember exactly what we talked about. I know that Chuck took my arm and walked me around the campus. He pointed out the various buildings but I hardly listened. I was busily tearing my "final" letter to shreds.

"You know," Chuck said crisply, "I always did want to get your address the night of that dance."

"My address?" I asked in some amazement.

"Sure," he added, "I wanted to write you."

I nearly cried inside when he said that. But all I answered was simply:

"Chuck, I never did like receiving letters!"

And then we made our first "real" date.

Tough Luck Makes a Hero

"You can keep your medals!" Marine Sergeant Terry Powers growled in a deep voice as he carried a rusty two gallon pot toward the helicopter the Central Korean front. The rotors were turning slowly, stirring up a little breeze in the lifeless, humid air.

Marine Corporal Joey Delaney who had just finished servicing the 'copter, stared over at the rusty pot. "What you got there, Sergeant? That's too big for a good luck charm!"

The remark brought a dark red flush to the sergeant's face. Slipping the pot carefully into the cockpit, he turned to scowl at the mechanic. "You mind your end of the business, an' I'll mind mine! Next time you remove that horseshoe from the instrument panel, I'll hang it on your eye!"

"I just asked you if that rusty pot was another good luck gimmick," Delaney snapped back. "You don't have to get sore about it."

"Okay, Joey," the 'copter jockey sneered. "I'll tell you. That pot is full of oil saturated rags. It will make a nice smudge fire. Now go back and count your medals, hero. When this war is over, I hope I can be prouder of my horseshoe and rabbit's foot. They'll see me through without a scratch."

The mechanic shuffled back to his tool shed, and Jerry climbed into the cockpit of the windmill. In a few minutes a courier ran up and handed him a typed order. Jerry frowned as he read it. He was to fly and pick up a bazooka man who had been wounded in both legs. The place was a narrow, rock-strewn valley between two low hills, just out of reach of the Reds' new spearhead.

Jerry rubbed his horseshoe for good luck, signalled that he was taking off and slowly advanced the 'copter's throttle. At a sharper pitch the rotor blades pulled the weird looking craft off the ground. Jerry took his bearings from the air compass and leaned back in his seat to watch the sky through the plexiglas canopy.

On his last three missions he'd been threatened by Red MIG's. The smoke from an artillery duel had given him cover once. The other two escapes had been made through low-hanging fog. But the sky was clear this day and there wasn't enough smoke up front to make cover for a butterfly.

About twenty minutes later Jerry turned his windmill into a narrow valley between the two low hills. He caught a glimpse of scattered Red troops dug in along the crest of the hill to the north. Three mortar shells burst in and around the Reds' foxholes, and Jerry guessed the shells had been lobbed over from the Marines who were still holding the other hill.

Looking below he caught sight of a Marine waving a shirt from a pocket of large boulders. Jerry cut the throttle and let the 'copter drift down. He landed on a small patch of gravel, and before he crawled out he saw two marines moving swiftly toward him, carrying a casualty on a make-shift stretcher.

The wounded man was Sergeant Nick Curtis, an almost legendary hero of the corps.

"Get our Gunny out of here safely, can you?" one of the privates pleaded to Jerry. "He got hit in both legs last night when we made a charge up the hill. You know him, don't you?"

Jerry smiled down at the pain-wracked face of the man on the stretcher. "I make a specialty of rescuing the most decorated men in the corps. You've got nothing to worry about, Sergeant Curtis. I'll have you down at the base hospital in twenty minutes."

Nick curtis grinned weakly and said in a whisper, "If an MIG doesn't jump us en route! Red airmen have been criss-crossing this sector all afternoon. I didn't expect you'd come for me."

They slid the wounded man gently onto the flooring behind Jerry's seat, and Jerry didn't waste a moment taking off. Over the drone of the motor he shouted back to Curtis: "Take care if you move your arms not to knock over that rusty pot."

But suddenly a look of terror spread over Jerry's face. He hadn't seen an enemy plane, but he remembered that he'd forgotten to bring matches. "Got a match on you?" he shouted back, then he turned his head and saw that Curtis was shaking his head in a negative.

Jerry explained. "Without matches I can't light the oil-soaked rags in that smudge pot. I was going to do that to fake a hit in case we were shot at by an MIG. You see, if a Red leaves you smoking, he figures you're not worth a second pass so he doesn't come back."

Ten minutes out from the valley a speck in the sky disappeared behind a cloud but Jerry could make out a faint vapor trail that whipped in a curve behind it. "There's a jet fighter back of that big cloud," he shouted. "If it starts coming down, you can bet it's a Red. I'm dropping to treetop level."

The MIG streaked out of the cloud, leveled then banked into a steep dive. "He's coming for us!" Jerry told himself. "There isn't enough cover on the ground to hide an ant. Best I can do is scrape the rocks and play stop and go. We'll be a clear target when he comes out of that dive."

Jerry dropped the 'copter to less than ten feet above the rocky, shell-torn plain. The 'copter hovered almost motionless, then jerked forward like an erratic dragon fly. But Jerry wasn't sure this technique would make them a poor target for the Red jet fighter. Then he spotted a trough in the plain caused by soil erosion. The gravel had been washed away from the base of several large rocks in a cluster.

"I'm going to land," he called back to the wounded sergeant. "If you don't raise your head you won't be hit."

Nick Curtis didn't say anything after Jerry cut the motor and put the ship down in the sheltered spot. The roar was deafening as the jet tore down on them. Jerry slipped off his seat and went down on his elbows. His legs were drawn up halfway so he wouldn't hit the man on the litter behind the seat. "Here it comes!" Jerry groaned.

It came so quickly Jerry didn't know whether the MIG's guns had raked them or not. Terrific air pressure rocked the 'copter as the jet roared over it. Jerry turned to look behind him but he was blinded by puffs of black smoke. The Red's incendiary bullets had ignited the oil-soaked rags in the rusty pot! But if the pot had been hit, so had Curtis. Probably he was dead.

"Curtis!" Jerry shouted between coughs.

"I'm okay," came the reply. "I opened the astral hatch so the smoke will pour out. Let it burn a minute so that Red will think he got us good, then see if you can slide the pot out your door without burning yourself."

When he could stand the oily smoke no longer, Jerry found a length of heavy wire with a hooked end under his seat, fished behind for the pot and jerked it out through the door. As the smoke cleared from inside the plexiglas enclosed cabin he saw that the topside had been riddled by bullets. "If we hadn't kept our heads down, we'd have got it!" Jerry said. "It was just pure luck that one of the bullets fell low enough to hit the pot and not you."

Jerry credited his luck, too, when the motor started and the big rotor began turning. Luck was everything, Jerry thought. He'd proved it on fifty missions. Let the other guys be heroes and take the medals. Jerry wanted nothing but luck!

The last leg of the hop was uneventful. Nick Curtis didn't talk, so Jerry kept quiet, too. When the 'copter touched ground near the hospital, Jerry jumped out, grinned at the two medics who were standing by with a stretcher and headed for the canteen.

A half hour later as he was telling his experience for the fourth time to a new group of corpsmen who had come into the canteen, one of the medics who had taken Curtis in moved up to Jerry. "That wasn't exactly a lucky bullet that struck your smudge pot, Sergeant. Heroes don't rely only on luck, you know. Nick Curtis proved that."

Jerry frowned. "What are you trying to tell me?"

"Only what I can guess," the medic mused. "Curtis didn't say anything, but the bullet hole through his left hand tells the story. He held that pot up through the top of your canopy when the jet jockey opened his gun on you. It takes more than luck to be a real hero."

Jerry gulped. Across his mind flashed a picture of Nick Curtis, raising himself on wounded legs to hold the pot up through the topside. "Yes, I guess you're right about that, Medic. Good luck never made a hero."

Bushwhacker's Bullet

No one could prove that Bull Finley had killed Slim Harrington from ambush. Bull had laughed in the faces of his accusers, including Sheriff Ben Riggs. How could they pin the murder on him when they didn't have Harrington's body?

Jim Warren, the victim's closest neighbor, had left no stone unturned in his effort to find Harrington's body and any other evidence that might point to Bull Finley's guilt. But six months from the day Harrington had disappeared, Jim Warren had made no headway.

The tension became more than Jim could bear, so late one afternoon he left his ranch and rode to town. As he hitched his horse to the rail outside the sheriff's office, he turned to see Bull Finley striding toward him. The killer's thumbs were hooked on the wide belt from which two six-shooters hung in Mexican holsters.

A sneer twisted Bull Finley's beefy face. "Still wastin' yore time pokin' around the mesa an' askin' questions about Harrington?" he asked the rancher.

"That's my business," Warren growled. "It shouldn't concern you if yo're innocent."

Bull Finley took a menacing step closer, hate glowering in his dark eyes. "Do as yuh dern please, mister, but if yuh ever dare say agin that I shot Harrington in the back, watch out!"

A crowd was gathering around them, and Jim Warren spoke loud enough for all to hear. "Slim Harrington knew more than was good for you about yore band of rustlers. He told me so himself the day before he disappeared while riding back from town. When you wuz ridin' herd down on the Brazos you shot a man in the back. You killed another man the same way in a trail camp argument. You got away with both killings because there wasn't a man who dared to testify in court against you. It won't be that way here!"

Bull Finley shook a huge fist at his accuser. "Shut yore mouth, Warren, or I'll do it fer yuh!"

Two men in the crowd grabbed Bull Finley's arms, holding him as Jim Warren pushed through the others to make his way to the sheriff's office.

Sheriff Ben Riggs, a lean, rawbones man of fifty, stood in the doorway grinning. "You'll end up the same as Harrington if you keep on needling that hombre, Warren. I'd rather hang him for killing Harrington alone than for killing you, too."

"It's been six months since Slim dropped outta sight," Warren said, "and what have you done about it?"

Sheriff Ben Riggs stepped back in his office and went to a railroad calendar hanging on the far wall. "Six months to the day!" he exclaimed. "It's now the sixteenth of June. I think the evidence I'm looking fer will turn up shortly."

The sheriff explained his secret as he rode with Jim Warren along the trail across the mesa that Slim Harrington had taken on the day of December Slim had bought a packet of petunia seeds to plant in the small greenhouse he had built against the south wall of his big barn. The clerk in the hardware store had told the sheriff about it, and added that Slim had slipped the packet in one of the top pockets of his vest.

Jim Warren and the sheriff rode in the sage on opposite sides of the trail. Half way to Harrington's ranch the sheriff spotted a splash of red and blue some thirty yards to his left. At his signal, Jim Warren crossed the trail and followed him.

They found Slim Harrington's body beneath a few inches of soil a few feet from the spot where the petunias were blooming. The body was facedown, and when the sheriff had scooped away enough earth from the head both men could see a black hole in the back of Harrington's skull.

"Ride back and fetch the coroner," Sheriff Riggs told Warren. "If he finds a lead and silver alloy Mexican bullet in this skull, we've got our man. Nobody but Bull Finley shoots Mex bullets in a six-gun around these parts."

Warren brought back Doc Lambert whose probing turned up a Mexican bullet. After the trio rode back to town, Warren went with the sheriff to the Oriental Cafe. Bull Finley must have suspected they were coming for him, for his hands dropped to his guns.

Before he could draw, Warren put a slug through his right wrist and the sheriff's shot struck the badman's left shoulder. Bull Finley dropped both his guns.

Writhing in pain, Bull snarled: "How did you find the body? Grass wuz growing over the spot last time I passed there."

"If you rode out there now," the sheriff snapped, "you'd find something else growin' close to the spot. Something that fell from Slim's vest when you dragged his body off the trail. Warren, go back fer Doc Lambert. I don't want Bull to bleed to death. He's got to live to stand trial and get the noose!"

Death in Disguise

Jed Endicott opened the ranch house door and a bulky figure in a black suit and slouch hat entered, stamping his boots on the floor. "I'm Judge Bland," he said, extending a fleshy palm. "Black as pitch outside. Lost the trail and tumbled into a spring."

"Sit down, Judge." Endicott held out a boot-scraped chair. Bland sat down heavily and Jed turned up the oil lamp.

"I got no reply to my letter," the judge offered, "so I reckon you plan to run the C-Bar ranch. I don't care, understand. Merely offered a thousand out of friendship for your uncle. Sentiment, I guess. Matt Endicott and I were good friends for six years."

"Yes, I'll run the C-Bar," Jed said firmly, then hesitated. "Maybe sentiment on my part, too."

Judge Bland rose to go. "Right foolish of you. It's nothin' but scrub land and you're from the East."

He paused at the door, glanced back at Jed hesitantly. "Trigger Mann's hidin' out in these parts. He's bad medicine. Watch out for him."

"Listen!" Endicott said suddenly. "What was that?" Judge Bland kicked the door open and jerked a pearl handled Colt from his gun belt. "You stand back!" he ordered, as he sprang outside. He had not gone five steps when Endicott heard the thud and thrashing of bodies on the hard ground. A masked man leaped into the doorway. "Get 'em up!" he barked at Jed.

There were three of them. They brought the judge in with a gun at his back.

"What'll we do, Trigger?" one of the bandits asked.

The leader was taller than the rest. "Search 'em," he ordered. One of them slapped his hands along Jed's body, searching for weapons. Trigger turned to the judge. "Yuh asked fer trouble when yuh come lookin' for us. Now yuh'll come along quiet if yuh don't want to get drilled."

Jed's hands were still raised as he edged toward Trigger. Suddenly he hammered down a fist that crushed Trigger Mann's nose. Howling in pain, the bandit lost his grip on the gun and it clattered on the rough-hewn planks.

"Get 'em!" Trigger yelled.

A gun belched and a bullet burned Jed's cheek as he swooped to grab Trigger's fallen gun. Still crouched, Jed snapped two rapid shots and one of the men fell, clutching his shoulder and yelling. Jed saw Judge Bland dive for the floor, climb under the table.

"Back against the wall!" Jed shouted. The outlaw trio lined up slowly, and Jed kicked their guns across the floor.

Jed went to the wall telephone and wound the crank. "Hello, Sheriff," he said. "This is Jed Endicott at the C-Bar. I've got three new boarders for your brick bungalow. Trigger Mann and his pistol packin' polecats."

It was not ten minutes later when the sheriff and two deputies strode up to the door. Ahead of them as they stepped over the threshold was Judge Bland, his arms raised in the air, his face white.

"Maybe I got four boarders," the sheriff growled. "Caught Judge Bland sneakin' off just as we come up here."

"He must have cleared out while I was telephoning you," Jed offered.

"But shucks," the sheriff said, squinting in the light of the lamp, "I thought yuh had Trigger Mann. These here men hang around the saloon doin' odd jobs."

"I figured something was queer about the set-up," Jed replied. "Anyway, the real criminal here is Judge Bland."

Bland puffed and his face swelled in anger. "Why, you!"

"A clever attempt on my life," Jed said calmly. "That mud on your boots isn't mud, Judge, and it isn't crude petroleum like you thought it was. It's road oil. I was having a road fixed and a drum rolled off the truck and burst."

"You can't prove a thing!" Bland stormed, "Sheriff, I won't stand for these insults!"

The sheriff turned to Jed. "What else yuh got to say, Endicott?"

"Just this. In the East I'm a practicing attorney. When I inherited this land from my uncle I took the trouble to search the title at the county courthouse. I found a forged deed from me to Bland on record and a lease from Bland to the United Oil Corporation. Naturally Bland wanted me out of the way."

The sheriff scratched his chin. "And it's only road oil?"

"That was just to give the judge a thrill," said Endicott.

The sheriff grinned. "For a tenderfoot yuh seem right able to use shootin' irons."

"A man needs to be handy with a gun in this territory," Jed chuckled. "I think I'm going to like it a lot out here."

Dynamite Dukes

Johnny Pastor danced around the ring and came back to tap Turk Brandt on the shoulder. Brandt rolled the blow.

"We're sparring now, Turk," Johnny gritted. "Like we use to at the Y, but it's only so I can talk to you. Pretty soon I'm going to batter you to a pulp, because I hate you for what you did to me."

Brandt ducked a stiff jab to the face. "Don't gripe, jailbird!" he snarled.

"I've got honest beef," Johnny snapped. "It doesn't matter that this is a state amateur championship."

Johnny sent a stiff right to Turk Brandt's middle. Turk swore under his breath. Johnny landed a left and right to Turk's head. As Turk reeled back, Johnny said: "Marcia Reed's rooting for you from the ringside. Too bad you're going to lose."

Turk rushed Johnny to the ropes. "Shut up and fight," he snarled. "If you're not yellow."

Johnny weaved away. "Because I was only a kid out of high school, driving for Excelsior Express and slated for traffic manager, you routed me off trail, where a load was stolen from my truck by a gang of hijackers. Then you lied about it and planted a wad of dough in my pocket."

The first round ended. Mike Tinan, Johnny's manager, said, "You look good, kid."

In the second, Johnny sprang to meet Brandt, landed a right that sent his head back, then a left that doubled him up and again a right uppercut. Brandt was dazed.

"Only a sample," Johnny said quietly. "Six month in the clink is behind these punches."

Johnny danced away and came back again. "You got the job, didn't you? And you hooked Marcia with your fast line. She doesn't like jailbirds."

Brandt was breathing hard. He kept grimly silent.

"Wait for the third round," Johnny whispered. "I'm keeping a promise."

Brandt came out fast in the third and landed a hard right to the jaw. But Johnny laughed and countered with a right and a left and another right to the midriff and an uppercut that sent Brandt to the ropes. Brandt worked out of it, but Johnny came in with rights and lefts again and Brandt went into a clinch. The referee broke them apart and Johnny landed a hard right to the jaw. Brandt's knees sagged. He sank to the canvas.

"...Seven, eight, nine," the referee counted. The bell rang and Brandt was saved.

Lightning struck Johnny in the fourth. Brandt's right landed like a pile driver against Johnny's mouth. As the canvas rushed up to meet him he had the presence of mind to spit out a tooth before all became black.

Mike Tinan handed Johnny the tooth he had lost. Johnny put it in his shirt pocket. "Drive you home?" Mike offered.

"I'll walk," Johnny replied. "I want to think."

The corridor led Johnny past Brandt's dressing room. Over the excited voices came the bellowing of Bat Rath, Turk's second. "I thought he'd kayo you before I could load your gloves!"

"Shut up," Turk barked. "These walls are thin. And get out, all of you."

Johnny eased into an empty dressing room and waited until Brandt was alone. Then he pushed open Brandt's door.

"I expected you," Brandt said calmly, leveling a small automatic. "You've got a record and even murder would pass for self defense."

Johnny sprang forward. The gun barked and he felt a thud at his ribs. But he closed in, knocking the gun across the room. Turk went down and Johnny's fingers found Brandt's throat.

"Admit it!" Johnny yelled. "Admit that you tricked me into a prison stretch and that you fought tonight with loaded gloves!"

As Johnny's grip relaxed, Brandt coughed out: "Okay, but let's see you prove it!"

Johnny turned. Standing silently in the doorway were Marcia Reed and Mike Tinan.

Johnny walked slowly down the corridor with his arm hooked in Marcia's. Suddenly Johnny stopped short. "Hey, I should be dead!" he exclaimed.

"Dead!" Marcia whitened. "Did Turk—?"

Johnny reached for his heart, then into his shirt pocket, drew out two pieces of tooth. He shook his head wonderingly.

"That was one tooth before Brandt fired," he mused. "Now there's two pieces. It deflected the bullet!"

They walked on silently for a few steps before Johnny spoke again. "Know a good dentist, Marcia? A guy can't expect a girl to go out with him if he's got a front tooth missing."

Marcia was smiling. "Let's go out first and worry about the dentist later, Johnny!"

.45 Caliber Kingdom

Roger Metcalfe, captive rookie of the Jungle Police, tugged at his bonds in the prisoner hut of the blue-skinned natives as Schiller, the jungle outlaw, smiled at him.

"So you thought you would track me to my hide-out here in the jungle and bring back the white ruler of the Blue Men, eh?"

His voice was sneering as he planted his skinny, long legs apart triumphantly, and placed his fists on his hips.

"I never knew you resorted to murder," young Metcalfe said, "until I found Inspector Turner shot through the brain at the head waters of the Snake River."

Schiller threw back his close-cropped head and emitted a wild, maniacal laugh. At the same time he patted the .45 pistol resting in the hip holster.

"You fell into my trap when you went snooping for Inspector Turner!" he gloated. "And you learned the hard way that I have won mastery over the Blue Men through two powers—my pistol and my control of the lighted match."

Roger Metcalfe's eyes narrowed.

"I've seen you hypnotize those poor beggars with that cigarette lighter of yours. And I've seen you make them cower by firing that pistol at defenseless targets like Inspector Turner!" he said grimly. "But don't forget that a sword has two edges, Schiller!"

Once again Schiller laughed.

"Spoken like a high school idiot! Too bad you have to be the target in my demonstration tomorrow night. I'm calling all Blue Men tribes in the region to my coronation. By way of making myself king I'll prove I'm still the master with an exhibition of marksmanship."

Roger Metcalfe met his evil gaze unflinchingly.

"You'll never make it, Schiller! Somehow, I've got a feeling you're going to be the biggest flop the Blue Men ever saw!"

It was past midnight.

Roger Metcalfe craned his head toward the blue-skinned guards.

They were supposed to be guarding him, but now they were sound asleep. Earlier, his taunting had wheedled them into trying the white powder inside the small envelope he carried. That was the powder tht had helped him to sleep at night when the jungle had been too pestiferous with insects. And their curiosity about the sleeping powder had dealt them a knockout blow. Now he was ready for action.

Slipping out of the bonds, as he had learned from Jungle patrol training, he evaded the other sentries and glided toward Schiller's hut.

It would have been so easy to finish the snoring outlaw at that moment. But Metcalfe, the rookie, bided his time.

Instead of trussing up the jungle outlaw, he pulled out the .45 pistol from Schiller's holster and emptied the cartridges from the cylinders. Slipping the gun back into place, he glided out of the hut. Schiller was a tempting target, but Metcalfe had bigger plans for the man who had turned murderer.

Underneath the porch of Schiller's hut the rookie found a tin of gasoline. And with his precious container he stole down the path toward the Snake River.

He travelled all that night, until exhaustion overtook him. A nap refreshed him. When he opened his eyes, it was nearly sundown... nearly time for Schiller to proclaim his new, bloody domination over the jungle.

Metcalfe knew just where the dugout canoe was hidden because he had planted it there forty-eight hours earlier. In the stern of the canoe he stowed the tin of gasoline and a few other props. He had planned a showdown for Schiller, and it would be do or die!

As he paddled down the river in the gathering dusk he could hear the beat of the tom-toms and the weird chant of the Blue Men who had been his captors.

Schiller was about to assume his throne as the outlaw king of the jungle. He intended to use the Blue Men to kill every white intruder who dared challenge his power. And to all intents and purposes, nothing on earth could halt this egocentric fiend.

As he closed to within a half-mile of his goal, Metcalfe stopped poling, and reached for another tin in the forward section of the dugout. This can contained luminous paint. Stripping down to his shorts, Metcalfe covered his entire body with bold slashes of the phosphorescent stuff. Roger Metcalfe would either destroy the jungle dictator... or he would die in the attempt.

He had just finished adding the last luminous touches on his body when he paused to admire himself. What he had painted was the framework of a human skeleton.

And as he drifted closer to his objective, where Schiller had appeared on his front porch before the clamoring natives, he could already see the hated dictator standing proudly at the railing.

The chanting became louder as he approached, and he hadn't so much as a pocketknife for a weapon—only the can of gasoline behind him...

Peering through the haze, Metcalfe could see Schiller lifting his arm dramatically for attention. Now he would be giving his own coronation speech as self-appointed ruler of Snake River country.

However, as the outlaw opened his mouth to speak, an awesome sight presented itself out on the river. Hundreds of Blue Men craned their heads at the sound of a strange roar. A flame leaped out in several directions on the river. For the long, slim dugout canoe had suddenly became a dragon belching flames. The bow of the dugout, where Metcalfe had planted strips of bark to resemble a flaming tongue, resembled a dragon's mouth!

In the stern, there seemed to be a wagging dragon's tail. It was, indeed, as though some supernatural monster was coming upriver to devour them all. In an instant the assembled Blue Men were in panic.

Only Schiller, glaring from the front porch, knew what was taking place. Somehow, he acknowledged, grudgingly, that Jungle Patrol vermin Metcalfe must have slipped his bonds and dreamed up some mischief.

Now it was time to take steps!

Reaching slowly for his shoulder holster, where his deadly .45 pistol hung, he grasped the feared "fire-stick," as the Blue Men called it. Now they would see what he could do to such supernatural intruders. They eagerly looked forward to this show down of the magic-makers.

In his phosphorescent disguise, Roger Metcalfe was only a few feet from shore as his flaming dragon advanced. On every side, the natives were fleeing for their lives.

Slowly Schiller raised his .45. As the natives held their breaths he pressed the trigger. There were a series of sharp clicks. No explosions! Schiller's eyes started from their sockets. The natives halted in their tracks and stared. Roger Metcalfe climbed out of his flaming dugout and advanced on the cursing Schiller.

Ten feet away, the would-be jungle dictator made a frantic break for liberty.

But he wasn't fast enough. As he wheeled, the phosphorescent specter brought him down with a flying tackle. A bit of judo sent the pistol flying from Schiller's grasp.

A moment later, Metcalfe's fists were beating him into unconsciousness.

Now it was the natives' turn to close in on the fallen leader. But with a blast of fire from the tongue of his dragon-dugout, Metcalfe held them off. And then, as the natives backed away, he tossed the limp outlaw into the bottom of the boat and headed toward the middle of the stream.

The Blue Men may have been without a new leader... but the Jungle Patrol had the ruthless outlaw who would now pay the full penalty for the murders he had committed.

The Dead Man Plays

"The judge let you off because of insufficient evidence," Patrolman Dick Stevens addressed the sneering racketeer, Pete Beers. "I'm positive you murdered him—and someday I'll find the evidence that'll get you a trip to the hot seat."

"Pipe down, flatfoot." Pete grinned as he spoke. "Your pal Morris disappeared and you're trying to pin a murder on me. But it won't work!"

Dick stepped forward and touched the shoulder of the departing racketeer as he whispered, "Beers, remember this. Morris said he'd keep playing his violin even after he was dead. Yep, all I'll have to do is follow the strains of the music and I'll find the murderer."

"Sez you," Pete barked as he walked away from the patrolman. "But dead men can't play."

Dick clenched his fists at the thought of the thousands of dollars Pete had extracted from small storekeepers for unwanted and unneeded protection. He also thought of his pal's investigation and sudden disappearance. More than ever he was out to get the haughty Peter Beers.

...It was dark and moonless that night. The huge house was ablaze with lights as Pete Beers shook hands with the last of his departing guests. Guests who had enjoyed a lavish party celebrating his release from prison. Pete turned to his butler and said, "I'm turning in, Mike. Wake me at noon. Most of the shops have been laying down on their protection payments since I was detained by them dumb cops. I'll have to get after them, this place can't be run on peanuts."

Pete climbed the huge stairway to his bedroom. It was a spacious room. He grinned as he glanced at the expensive furnishings. "Some different from that cell," he muttered aloud.

Resting on the soft bed, he dozed off but was soon awakened by the sound of music. He lay puzzled. It was violin music, soft and sweet.

He jumped slightly as the words of Patrolman Stevens ran through his mind. "All I have to do is follow the music to the murd..." Pete squirmed. He turned several times but the musical sound kept on. He could stand it no longer. Pete jumped out of bed, switched on the light and snatched his gun out of the holster.

"I'll settle this once and for all," he yelled aloud. "I'll have no dead man playing in my house."

Pete slipped down the stairs that led into the cellar. "Afraid? Bah, what could scare Peter Beers," he muttered aloud.

The violin played on and on. The music echoed throughout the long cellar. Pete's flesh was covered with goose pimples. He gripped his gun tightly and made his way to a corner of the stone wall.

Carefully, he felt the wall. "You can't play, you're dead, DEAD!" he screamed. "I put you there and you can't play."

The musical strains grew louder and louder. The notes imbedded themselves in Pete's tortured brain. "Dead men can't play," he screamed out loud.

Suddenly, the music stopped. A dark form stepped from behind a pillar to Pete's side and whispered, "Drop that gun or I'll..."

No, no—Morris, don't touch me, you're dead, you're dead, I know it, I killed you," Pete screamed hysterically as the gun fell from his fear-paralyzed fingers.

Swiftly, a pair of handcuffs closed on the frightened racketeer's wrists. "When that wall is pulled down," the voice of Patrolman Dick Stevens said softly, "I'll have the evidence needed to send you to the hot seat, Pete Beers."

Dick led the astonished racketeer to the staircase. At the foot of the stairs, Patrolman Stevens stooped down to pick up the violin. He turned to Pete and said, "I forgot to tell you that Morris taught me how to play."

BONUS CONTENT

PUBLICATION HISTORY

The Sting of Death

Punch Comics #1 (December 1941) - Chesler Comics

Dynamic Comics #11 (September 1944) - Chesler Comics

The Dead Man Plays

Punch Comics #1 (December 1941) - Chesler Comics

Dynamic Comics #11 (September 1944) - Chesler Comics

The Hawk #11 (March 1955) - St. John Publications

Ole Faithful

Scoop Comics #3 (March 1942) - Chesler Comics

Punch Comics #11 (November 1944) - Chesler Comics

The Weekender Volume 1, #3 (September 1945) - Rucker Publications Ltd.

The Texan #3 (February 1949) - St. John Publications

Death in Disguise

Dynamic Comics #15 (July 1945) - Chesler Comics

The Hawk #11 (March 1955) - St. John Publications

Dynamite Dukes

Dynamic Comics #15 (July 1945) - Chesler Comics

The Texan #3 (February 1949) - St. John Publications

Phony Loot

Red Seal Comics #15 (January 1946) - Chesler Comics

Shot in the Dark

Red Seal Comics #16 (April 1946) - Chesler Comics

The Texan #5 (August 1949) - St. John Publications

Storm Patrol

Dynamic Comics #18 (April 1946) - Chesler Comics

Northwest Mounties #2 (February 1949) - St. John Publications

Authentic Police Cases #9 (October 1950) - St. John Publications

Authentic Police Cases #34 (July 1954) - St. John Publications

Pistol Packin' Preacher

Red Seal Comics #16 (April 1946) - Chesler Comics

The Texan #1 (August 1948) - St. John Publications

Murder Scare

Punch Comics #18 (July 1946) - Chesler Comics

Authentic Police Cases #6 (November 1948) - St. John Publications

Two Minutes to Doom

Red Seal Comics #17 (July 1946) - Chesler Comics

Authentic Police Cases #5 (October 1948) - St. John Publications

Authentic Police Cases #7 (April 1950) - St. John Publications

Pseudo-Murder

Crime Reporter #3 (October 1948) - St. John Publications

Authentic Police Cases #8 (August 1950) - St. John Pubblications

Phony Love Affair

Teen-Age Romances #4 (August 1949) - St. John Publications

Bushwhacker's Bullet

The Texan #12 (February 1951) - St. John Publications

Gambler's Ghost

The Texan #12 (February 1951) - St. John Publications

The Most Dangerous Cow

Wild Boy #5 (December 1951) - Ziff-Davis Publications

Wild Boy of the Congo #15 (June 1955) - St. John Publications

A Fair Exchange

The Hawk #1 (Winter 1951) - Ziff-Davis Publications

Approved Comics #1 (March 1954) - St. John Publications

The Hawk #5 (March 1954) - St. John Publications

Tough Luck

Fightin' Marines #4 (February 1952) - St. John Publications

.45 Caliber Kingdom

Wild Boy #6 (April 1952) - Ziff-Davis Publications

Wild Boy of the Congo #13 (February 1955) - St. John Publications

Fifty Million Frenchmen

Canteen Kate #1 (June 1952) - St. John Publications

Operation Wolverine

Atom-Age Combat #1 (June 1952) - St. John Publications

The Bird-Man Legend

Wild Boy #8 (October 1952) - Ziff-Davis Publications

Wild Boy of the Congo #12 (December 1954) - St. John Publications

Prickly Porcupine Runs Away

Christmas Carnival #2 (January 1955) - St. John Publications

Love is a Mirror

True Love Confessions #7 (May 1955) - Premier Magazines

Marvin the Monster in "Un-natural History"

Little Eva #21 (December 1955) - St. John Publications

Full of Fun #2 (November 1957) - Decker Publications

COVERS

The images featured on the following pages are the covers of the comics in which the stories in this anthology were published. These covers are presented in an order which relates to the chronological publication of the stories (featured on the previous page) with comics in which a story was reprinted breaking rank to follow the cover of the original publication.

Cover Artists

Punch Comics #1 cover by George Tuska

Dynamic Comics #11 cover by Gus Ricca

The Hawk #11 cover by Matt Baker

The Texan #3 cover by Bob Lubbers

Dynamic Comics #15 cover by Ruben Moreira

Red Seal Comics #15 cover by Joe Beck

Red Seal Comics #16 cover by Joe Beck and Otto Eppers

The Texan #5 cover by Matt Baker

Dynamic Comics #18 cover by Gus Ricca

Northwest Mounties #2 cover by Bob Lubbers

Authentic Police Cases #9 cover by Matt Baker