Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

{Era . 0 Se =e oe Ed 4" ¢ 4. Adventure Ranch Number Ten belonged to him. . He could ride upon it again, perhaps find one like old Bill Royce, the foreman, left.. And then he could go on until he came to the other Packard ranch where his grandfather had lived and still might be living. After all of this— Well, there were still sunny beaches here and there along the -seven seas where he had still to lie and sun himself. Now it was a pure joy to note how the boles of pine and cedar pointed straight toward the clear, cloudless blue; how the little streams trickled through their - worn courses; how the quail scurried to their brushy retreats; how the sunlight splashed warm and golden through the branches; how valleys widened and _ nar- rowed and thickly timbered ravines made a delightful and tempting coolness here and _ there upon the mountain-sides. It was an adventure with its own thrill to ride around a bend in the narrow trail and be greeted by an old, well-remembered landmark; a flat-topped boulder where he had lain when a boy, looking up at the sky and marveling at the whispered promises of life; or a pool where he had fished or swam; or a tree he had climbed or from whose branches he had shot a gray squirrel. A wagon-road which he might have taken he abandoned for a trail;which better suited his present fancy; the trail led with closer ° intimacy into the woods. It was late afternoon when he came to the gentle rise which gave first glint of the little lake so like a blue jewel set in the dusty green of the wooded slopes. As he rose in his stirrups to gaze at the vista through a long line of tree-trunks, he saw the bright, vivid blue of a cloak. “Now, there’s a woman,” thought Pack- ard without enthusiasm. “The woods were quite well enough alone without her. As I suppose Eden was. But along she comes just the same. And of course she must pick out the one dangerous spot on the whole lake-shore to display herself on.”’ For he knew how, just yonder where the blue cloak caught the sunlight, there was a_ sheer bank and how the lapping water had cut into it, gouging it out year after year so that the loose soil above was always ready to crumble and spill into the lake. The wearer of the bright garment stirred and stood up, her back still toward him. “Young girl, most likely,” he hazarded an opinion. Though she was too far from him to be at all certain, he had sensed something of youth’s own in the very quality of her gesture. Then suddenly he clapped his spurs to his horse’s sides and went racing down the slope toward the spot where an instant ago she had made such a gay contrast to dull verdure and gray boulders. For he had glimpsed the quick flash®of an up-thrown arm, had heard a low cry, had guessed rather than seen through the low under- brush her young body falling. As he threw himself from his horse’s back, his spur caught in the blue cloak which. had dropped from her shoulders; he kicked at it savagely. He jerked off his. boots, poised a moment looking down ‘upon the disturbed surface of the water. which -had closed over her head, made out the sweep - of an arm several feet under the widening circles and dived straight down. _ And so several feet under water they met for the first time, Steve Packard with a sense of annoyance that was almost out- right irritation, the girl struggling fran- tically as his right arm closed tight about her. A quick suspicion came to- him that she had not fallen but had thrown herself downward in some passionate quarrel with life; that she wanted to die and would give him scant thanks for the rescue. This thought was followed by the other that in her access of terror ‘she was doing what the drowning person always does— losing her head, ready to bind his arms with her own and drag him down with her. Struggling half blindly and all silently, they rose a little toward the surface. Pack- ard tightened his grip about her body, man- aged to imprison one of her arms against her side; beat at the water with his free hand and so just as his lungs seemed ready to burst he brought his nostrils into the air. He drew in a great breath and struck out mightily for the shore, seeking a less pre- cipitous bank at the head of a little ‘cove. As he did*so, he noted how her“struggles had suddenly given over, how she floated quietly with him, her free arm even aiding in their progress. A little later he crawled out of the clear cold water to a pebbly beach, drawing her _ after him. And now he understood that his destiny and his own headlong nature had again made a consummate fool of him. The same JOOKS (EO)