Adventure Magazine, March 1916 — page 89: what you’re looking at

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

The Secret of Caprice the listeners that the men had come from the boat and were once more threading the path between the shore and the fire. Again the footsteps passed so close that the two lying there under the sheltering branches of the underbrush held their breaths in tense anxiety and the fingers of the girl clutched Ward’s arm-in a firmer grip. As the men passed, Ward once more fo- cused the glasses upon the fire and lay watching the scene with a sense of impend- ing climax. He saw that Captain Carter was seated alone, moodily gazing into the flames while Matt was pacing excitedly up and down on the other side of the fire, stop- ping every now and then to say a few words, while his great arms flailed the air. And, each time, Carter removed the pipe from - his mouth, looked up, shook his head deter- minedly and resumed his brooding contem- plation of the flames. Matt swung about at the approach of the other three. Carter merely glanced up with . @ narrowing of the eyelids and then appar- ently turned his attention once more to the fire, but Ward could see that he kept casting covert glances from the corners of his eyes toward the group. Matt joined them and they stood for some time talking in tones so low that even Carter could not have been able to hear them. As Ward watched, there was something in the brooding man’s expression that focus- ed his attention to the exclusion of the other four. Carter’s narrowed eyes became still narrower and he seemed to be gathering his feet under him in a more firm position, like a cat poising for a spring. He relaxed for a moment and resumed his apparently stoical attitude of moody contemplation and Ward, shiting the glasses, saw that the younger Carter had left the group and was approaching his brother. He sat down beside Daniel and began to talk earnestly while the three men whom he had left stood silhouetted. against the fire’s glow, deep in a conversation of their own and not seeming to be interested in the brothers. Again the elder Carter showed his obsti- nacy. As the younger one talked and ges- ticulated, he shook his head silently until, at last, he heaved his big shoulders, took the pipe from his lips and began to answer. As he talked, his brother’s eyes fell. The older man noticed this and talked more earnestly - © Sg ~~ 2 ~ o > on _ * oy om my ~ Cs _ 87 and, with every word, the younger looked more and more crestfallen. | At length the elder paused and the other cast a quick, furtive glance at the men he had left. brother, he rose-and rejomed them. As he did so, Ward saw Captain Carter gather his feet once again in his crouching position. Slowly and carefully, his eyes still apparently fixed upon the fire and his lips still puffing contemplatively at his pipe, he began to edge over toward one of the tents. His hand at the same time sought one of his pockets and was withdrawn, holding a large clasp-knife which he quickly opened and replaced. Ward saw him suddenly turn his head and say something over his shoulder as though he were flinging a warning to some one inside the tent. Twice he repeated this and then, with a quick spring, disappeared into the half-open flap. The unexpected move acted like a bomb thrown among the other men. They sprang toward the fire, but Matt, calling a loud order to Savage, swerved and ran for the other tent, followed by the cook of Caprice. The younger Carter, with a snarled curse, sprang in between them as if to block, their paths, but Tom, seeing the move, leaped at him, swung him about and, with a full cir- cle of a giant fist, caught him fairly between the eyes. He fell like a log. ~ With the climax upon them, Ward rose and handed the glasses to the girl, drawing his revolver from his pocket as he did so. “Watch closely—and stay here,” he warned in a whisper. “I am going a little closer.” He saw her raise the binoculars to her eyes as he left her. With’the noise of the turmoil in the camp, it was easy for him to hurry to the protecting trunk of a great tree on the very rim of the light, from which he could clearly see all that was going on. He had scarcely reached it before he saw Carter fling aside the tent-flap and spring out, fol- lowed by another man. The newcomer stood for a moment before the tent, calmly surveying the scene in front of him. He was a man of commanding presence with the mark of the leader of men upon him. His fine broad brow was crown- ed by silver hair that gave him an appear- ance of age belied by his firm, well-preserved features and the erect and soldierly dignity of his carriage. Then, with a rapid nod to his Eomichboo (9) com