THE ADAM CHASER
By B. M. Bower
Author of “Black Thunder,” “The Meadowlark Name,” Etc.
Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the September 7, 1925 issue of The Popular Magazine.
Treasures of the storied past, records of prehistoric settlements of the American Indian, lure a young archaeologist, Professor Abington, to the Sonora caves of Arizona where fate plays him a grim trick, and makes him arbiter of the destinies of living men.
CHAPTER I
A BAD HOMBRE
Halfway up a long cañon that cut a six-mile gash through rugged mountains thinly pock-marked with prospect holes, the radiator cap of John Abington’s car blew off with a pop like amateur home-brew.
For a matter of a minute, perhaps, that particular brand of automobile developed a lively hot-water geyser. Followed a brief period of steaming, and after that it stalled definitely and set square in the trail which ran through deep sandy gravel and rock rubble—a hot car and a sulky one, if you know what I mean.
Abington harried the starter with vicious jabs of his heel, then crawled reluctantly out into the blistering wind which felt as if it were driving down the sunlight with sharp needle points of heat that stung and smarted the skin where they struck.
The canteens were buried deep under much camp paraphernalia, a circumstance which gave occasion for a few minutes of eloquent monologue. Curiously, the driver’s vituperation was directed neither at the car nor the wind nor the heat, but at an absent individual whom he called “Shorty”—and at another named Pete.