Adventure Magazine Cover — page 141: what you’re looking at

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

= _ But the post keepers of the Norway House district shook their heads and lay on their Se - “What?” roared Burnham. “You defy me? -__ You refuse to obey your governor’s orders?” = “We do not go like fools to certain death,” = ~ answered Sherman, speaking for all. eee Then you'll pay for your defiance, you cowardly dogs,” the governor stormed. — “A small craft will not live for five minutes in the sea that rolls on Lake Winnipeg to- + hight, ” countered Barrett. ‘Nobody but a ~~ madman would ask us to dare it.”’ _ “A small craft will live if the men have hearts to make it live,” Burnham sneered. ‘Where’s a a craft for me? Where are my men and I'll show you. Ha! Here come my Iroquois. = _ Here comes Henderson—a man of my own =" spirit.” Their paddles dipping like clockwork, Hen- _ derson drove up with his own craft into ‘which _ he had bundled Burnham’s crew from the beach at Norway House. _ “*What’s the matter here?” he demanded. a “Is he gone?” - “Gone,” cried the governor, “and not a man - = will follow. They’re afraid of Lake Winnipeg. ary up beside till I board you. We'll take him ourselves.” a Henderson cried a sharp command to the -_-_ governor’s Iroquois. With a swirl of their blades they shot Henderson’s canoe up beside - Sherman’s craft in which the governor stood, and Burnham leaped over the gunwales. 2 “Now, Henderson, the gift of a factorship if you catch him,” he promised. Round them crowded all the other brigades, Barrett’s of Split Lake, Sherman’s of Nelson River, McTaggart’s from Beren’s River, Cor- beau’s from Grand Rapid as well as the patrol- ling brigade from Norway House, protesting at the attempt. “Tt is madness.” «Nothing but suicide.” ““What gain if you do take him? Neither of you will ever get back.” These and many more comments made a medley of fierce speeches cast over the grinding gunwales. “Wait and see,’”’ Burnham bellowed angrily at them. “And get out of my way. Don’t carry your insubordination so far as to lay a hand on this craft.’ - He warned them off with a paddle blade whistling about his head. His Iroquois with ‘= oe oN Henderson steering for them in the steersman’s place caught their stroke and shot him out of “te the entrance of Great Playgreen Lake after - ES Steene. ae Before him Lake Winnipeg rolled its three E: . hundred miles of stormy waters, and the storm- ee iest stretch of it was that which foamed away 3 3 to Montreal Point. Across the open, vast ae, ass * The Long Traverse 131. whale-backed rollers surged with a dies rush . and broke with a roar against the rocks. The surf was white as a South Seas beach, and for a mile offshore the lather gathered in a hissing back-wash that betrayed the tre- mendous force of the wind. ONCE outside the shelter of Mossy Point, Burnham could sight his stolen canoe. Already half-way down to Montreal Point, with Steene, Clara and the Ojibway crew aboard, the great craft climbed the wave crests and shot down the tumbling slopes. He watched it poising and plunging, and suddenly he knew by the way it labored in the troughs when it went down that it was in trouble “They’ve sprung a leak, Henderson,” he exulted. ‘Look, see the way it rolls. That weight in her bottom is more than over- splash. I’ve ridden too many thousand miles in that craft not to know.” Henderson stared with him, all the while. quartering the mighty surges with a careful | paddle blade for fear one should catch them bow on. “By the spirits of the Crees, you’re right, governor,’’ Henderson nodded. ‘“They have. a lot of water aboard. See how they’re bail- ing. Was there a weak spot in your canoe?” “Tt will be where we scraped the Turtle Rock coming in last night,’ guessed the Iroquois bowsman, head of the governor’s crew. “We sealed it with gum only because there was no birch-bark at hand.” “TI remember now,’’ observed Burnham. “Tt.was in the seam too. The chances are it will open wide in this swell.” “Yes, and they will all be at the bottom of Lake Winnipeg before many minutes,” prophe- sied Henderson. “T hope they do,” growled Burnham, “all but the girl. Drive hard, men. We’re gain- ing, and we've got to catch them to take her off.’ The Iroquois bent their paddle shafts with : their mighty strokes. Henderson still cun- ningly slanted them up the slopes of gigantic waves that towered above them and steered them through the troughs. Fortunately for them his craft was not, strictly speaking, a small craft, although it did not approach the governor’s six-fathom canoe in size. It ran a full twenty-four feet, a freight canoe of the post runners, but it was designed for inland work and lacked the curving bows and» high scroll that turned the swell on big lakes. Still it fought wind and wave with marvelous success, for it was as Governor Burnham had said. Small craft could live on Lake Winnipeg even in storm if the crews had the heart to make them live. Burnham’s Iroquois crew had the heart. In ". TA CPP TNO oe Foo Se Lae LOVE ee eee ony YO REURMIT R SS gee en , [email protected]),