Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 46: what you’re looking at

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

later, proffering his gold cigaret-case, “or, would you rather have a cigar? Think I’ve got one somewhere.” Purdue’s impulse was to refuse. All through, this play of being chummy came as near to being hard on his nerves as any detail of the deed he planned. Being friendly was not the easiest thing in the world for him, and with a man he hated and intended to keep right on hating, it was real work. He took the cigaret Hasting offered. , Hasting anyhow. Why couldn’t the fool shut up and not keep a man pretending to smile and trying to answer questions? Oh, well, it wouldn’t take over an hour to get across to the point standing high and clear in the fresh air, just beyond one of the inter-island chan- nels of the Bay of Fundy. He could almost see the old maids’ bungalow below the top of the bluff. Every one else from Mananlico called it Ward’s cabin, but Purdue had re- christened it for the season after he had made the discovery that it was being oc- cupied this year by a pair of school- teachers witha mania for photography which had brought them hurrying down to snap his boat every time he had gone near the point. Poor school-marms, they little knew that they were to have a part in today’s affair. If old “Cappy” Ward had lived to stay at His cabin that year, Purdue woud have had to go farther. The school- teachers kept no boat, could not have handled one in these waters if they had it, but their alertness for new pictures, especially with the Jessie P.’s big sail in them, was another part of the phenome- nal luck that had backed Purdue thus far with his scheme. Not that there was going to be anything about it to make them useful as formal, sworn witnesses. Their part would be that of voluntary testimony to his heroism in his efforts to save his companion. Right opposite that point, where the wind came strongest from the south of the island, along the north of which they now skirted while the tide ran like a mill-race against it, the Jessie P. was going to capsize. Her mast might or might not break when it hit the water. A new mast would, perhaps, cost him as much as ten dollars. Before tomorrow’s Adventure = sun-up, her owner, in a borrowed dory, would have got the wrec’ towed to where it could be righted. For an ordinary swimmer, unfamiliar with the shore, a lot of good luck would be needed to escape a fatal battering on the rocks. For Purdue the thing would be mere child’s-play. He knew where the big break in the outer fringe of rocks would afford a perfectly: smooth pas- sage to the comparative safety behind them. aoe did not know how to swim at all. : If, as Purdue expected, the New’ Yorker got blanketed by the sail or tied down by the sheét-lines, Purdue could well afford the strength to make a few futile dives before himself swimming to shore and safety. If Hasting. managed to keep free and to cling for a while to the hull, Purdue would talk encourag- ingly and help him hold. When Hast- ing’s strength was gone and he was prac- tically drowned anyhow, Purdue would even essay to get him ashore. In either case a little play of extreme exhaustion would demonstrate to the two school- teachers that he had all but given his own life to save that of his companion. Ten dollars for a mast, perhaps a wet- ting, a half-way stiff swim, and he could go back to Rose Gardiner as her deepest sympathizer in the loss of her Summer lover. He had been Enoch Arden enough to surrender his own hopes for ffie sake of her happiness, enough even to become friendly with his successful rival, enough to make a desperate effort to save his rival’s life at the risk of his own. é LL, in view of the fact-that Rose, besides being the beauty of Manan- lico, was the only child of old Captain Gardiner, whose two big schooners had not earned him less than a thousand dol- lars a month for the past four and a half years of war prices on shipping and were, even in ordinary times, still good value for ten thousand dollars apiece, Jess Purdue was ‘cheerfully willing to admit that he had spent more and worked. harder to salvage a lot less of value. His only real wish was that he had discov- ered Hasting’s inability to swim five or six weeks earlier. \ (E@) AMIE JOO S ; 2. ‘ ae ee ¢ 4 = Pam Fv - Fg AO Ar — = . OTANI, gt et heed MO Ge oe ee Re. oe eg See Se renee