Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

4 40 dry than what we've had so far, and [ . c’n tell you you ain’t begun to feel it yet. This here’s a case of one man dyin’ or two. Ida sight rather be the one to die easy than one of the two to die of thirst. That’s all there is to it.” “Oh, no, it’s not.” Hasting now spoke more easily. “If one of us has to go, there’s only one of us that can really give the other a chance by going. I'd have this boat tipped over in ten minutes. You know hew to sail her.” “I’m captain—you’re passenger,” re- iterated Purdue. “Just as bad to desert your ship and your passenger as to let him jump over- board. TVIl go. I—I guess I'll go right now.” Hasting got up from his seat and looked at the boiling surge of water. Water! Purdue could see that the idea had caught well at last, but he had more to get from this young man than the mere riddance of him. He held on, there- fore, with more argument. Then he wished he hadn’t. ‘All right,” Hasting suddenly offered, “we'll draw cuts for it. Ill break a _match. If you draw the head of it, you go overboard. If I get it, I go.” His hand fumbled in his pocket. At length he brought out a match. Purdue watched every move for a second or two until he saw that Hasting had got out half of another match with the whole, one, and that it was the half without the head. Mentally he resolved to practise the trick for different use. He drew, knowing that neither of the little sticks protruding from Hasting’s fingers had a head on it, then Hasting triumphantly showed the third stick. “T win,” he said quite calmly. Purdue did not grin. It took real effort to avoid it as he saw Hasting’s clumsy movement to get rid of the extra piece ‘of match-stick. “You—you wouldn’t happen to wanter write some little message to anybody, would you?” he suggested then. “I got a pencil. If you ain’t got no other paper, ~ you c’n tear a piece off the chart. 1 was figerrin’ on givin’ you a note to show that I’d gone of my own accord, if any- body should ask questions.” “Why,” Hasting exclaimed, “T’ll do that of course. And—I think I'll write Adventure a couple of other notes, too. I hate to tear up a good chart but ae ae “Go ahead! I can get another chart quick enough,” Purdue urged. Then he watched while Hasting wrote. The first note was practically a certificate as to the manner of his death. It was the second which Purdue’s far-sighted eyes read across the boat’s cockpit with a feeling that his fortune was really un- believable. It was addressed to Rose Gardiner. The particularly cheering paragraph ran: Purdue insisted on going, but I made him draw cuts about it and fooled him into think- ing I had won the overboard prize. I think I'll still have to pretend to learn something of sailing and surprize him with a leap when he isn’t looking. I know I can’t sail this boat home. He’s a very real man, Rose—more of a man than I, that I should go when he told me why he wanted to teach me to run his boat. I suppose this looks a little like suicide, but I hardly think it merits all the blame for the cowardice that rightly belongs to suicide, I am thirsty enough now to realize that some sufferings are—— It was as the swift pencil reached this point that Purdue hastily shifted his gaze from it. Hasting had paused and looked up. The city man held the tip of the pen- cil to his lips, a thoughtful pucker be- tween his reddened eyes. He looked down and seemed to reread what he had written. : Purdue waited. Meanwhile: he in- wardly gloated over the effect that let- ter would produce. It would do all he could have hoped to accomplish by having those two school-teachers as wit- ‘nesses of a bluffed heroic attempt at a rescue, The rest of his plan would be simplicity itself. He would really run well out to sea, then he would saw off two feet more of the mast and drop it to where it would give color to a tale of inability to make headway. If either of the remaining notes mentioned the lack of a compass, he would have to throw away one that had cost as much as a new mast was going to cost. Of course, a little before making land or being rescued, there would be the water-cask to get rid of. There were a dozen ways of attending to that. Oh, he had been too shrewd for fate. If he couldn’t get what he wanted one cS) choo - e- Se ee ee oe i ee et a He never dreamed I'd take it - C6) im ae "= ss ; {Teak aS - St OE ee BO el oe