Adventure, July 1, 1928 — page 64: what you’re looking at

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

THE ICE GOES OUT By FRANK RICHARDSON PIERCE VEFY/es => A story of Alaska, in which honest men and crooks propose, but inscrutable Nature disposes HE HAND of winter was on the Northcountry.. The saphad not started to run. Valley, stream and mountain, in the grip of the ice, lay like something dead. And then it changed. Slowly the sun began to swing north, and long before the sap began to run, or the first flight of birds, men began discussing the ice pool. The ice pool! Not January 1, but the break-up, mark- ed the beginning of the Northern year. Welch and several others would handle it this year. They had handled it for several years and given satisfaction. The ice pool was the great sporting event that sur- vived. The Nome Sweepstakes and other dog racing events had lost their import- ance; had dwindled as Nome itself had dwindled. But the break-up each spring was the nearest thing to a lottery that remained under the American flag. 58 Sometime late in April or early in May the ice went out. Men sent in their money and with it the day, hour, minute and even second they believed the ice would go. Luck governed the contest, for no man could tell the exact hour. The man coming nearest to the moment of the break-up won the pot, less the expense of holding the event. EACH spilled the contents of his poke on the rough cabin table. “Enough,” he muttered, “‘to buy twenty ice pool chances. This year ’m going to win! Each year I’ve come nearer; each year the pool has been larger, but this year I win!” “Don’t be too sure,” Atridge, his part- ner, observed. Leach stretched himself and stepped outside. The air was almost balmy; the sky a deep blue; the mountains stood out comnicloooks.com