Adventure Magazine Cover — page 80: what you’re looking at

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

_ master comes. It is-time for you and me, ___ m’sieu, to be hurrying on to saye Ephraim ' Willis,’ she panted. 1s “Do Pheas doy dogs usually go muzzled?” “No. The Iroquois keep clear of the Blind Seneca’s camp. It would be bad for their med- icine if they harmed his pets. And he, although he is crazy, knows enough to keep the pack away from the villages of the Long House. ~ _ “TY do not understand why they ran away. ~. But let us go!” “How many are there?” 7 “There was a dozen in the pack. Wait. I will count. : She’ plied her switch till all the brutes were cowering at her feet, then swiftly passed her . : hands over their heads | “T count ten,” she said. “What of it?” | | “— was thinking,” he mumbled absent- mindedly. A: soft whistle disturbed his meditations, and every dog was erect and making over the back trail ‘ “Ths Joseph Brant’s sigfial,” cried the girl; and she replied to it. THE boy glided through the bush and stood between them, the dogs meekly grouped behind him. “They got way from me,” he panted. “I had the leaders on a rope. T hey broke loose; then all went. I have run for miles. - “The ranger who struck me, Joseph Brant, Brant of the Mohawks—is he dead?” “God forbid! Wego to rescue him,” said Putnam. “Then he shall owe part of his life to me,” said the boy. “I will show him I can save as well as kill. I am sending the pack up the trail at the throats of the Potawatomi. All the sor- cerers in their nation can not save them once I take off the muzzles. The Blind Seneca is mak- ing medicine for the white puppy, which is now with its mother. So I borrowed the black pack.”’ € “That was what I was thinking,” SS exulted Putnam. “Wait!” —- And the boy seized a panther shape and a dragged it to Putnam and rubbed the muzzle ——. against the ranger’s leg, all the time talking ‘sharply in Seneca. see This was repeated with the others, and Put- E nam checked off ten, just as the girl had ves counted them in the darkness. | “Now they understand you are a friend of an mine,” haughtily the boy informed them. “Good. That will make it much pleas- anter,” said Putnam. ‘The Laughing One and [| will go up the right-hand side of the gorge where the cover is good. The other side is choked by fallen timber. We will creep very softly ae 1 \ é ’ ; AUC Met i! J pe, | ; Ah rey * Ns hs i mm ts ; we eo ANN iP : (EF it R 4 : oe ‘ Adventure the red brother of Sir William Johnson, Joseph - close. Get the dogs to the mouth of the gorge but do not send them in until you hear the cry of aloon. Then send them flying.” - The boy found the thongs trailing from the necks of the leaders, tied them round a sapling and began removing the muzzles. showed no disposition to precede the leaders, and the Blind Seneca’s discipline had been too severe to encourage useless baying. At young The pack — Brant’s suggestion Putnam paused to help in re- © moving the rawhide muzzles so that the dogs might thoroughly identify him as a friend. “They have run far. I can manage them now,” said the boy, walking between the lead-. ers. “When you call, we come.” Putnam took the lead and soon sighted the fire up the gorge. He swung deeper into the wood, the girl keeping close behind him and gritting her teeth to keep from screaming. Well concealed by the heavy growth, they worked their way through the mouth. They heard low voices of sentinels. Once through the opening, they stole down to the floor of the gorge and advanced more swiftly. When they halted they were within ten rods of Willis. The savages were placing a circle of brush around the prisoner, taking care it should not be close enough to end the sport prematurely. And they mixed a certain amount of green boughs with the dry so that there should be the torture of smoke without the relief of asphyxia- tion. ‘They are releasing his feet and arms,” whis- pered the girl. “Call the dogs.” “Keep quiet,” sternly ordered Putnam. “We don’t want the dogs till the red hellions get so interested in their work that they won’t see them coming.” He knew full well the meaning of the loosened thongs. It was to permit the prisoner to sway his body ahead and to one side to escape the scorching flames. His efforts to escape being roasted would afford exquisite amusement to the spectators and would be futile once the fire had run around the circle. Willis too understood the motive, being a vet- eran in Shawnee warfare; and as a brave kneeled to lengthen the cord about his ankles he brought up a foot and stamped it on the warrior’s head, driving it into the dirt. Shifting his weight, he held the man a prisoner for a few moments, kicking and squirming and nailed down by the neck. On extricating himself the enraged brave snatched out an ax and was for braining the captive at once, but laughing warriors pulled him back. “Lord, but that boy’s got the right spirit!” whispered Putnam. The girl, watching Willis’ defiance, pressed the gun to her bosom and mumbled: “He is a very brave man. sustain him!” NOC KS Eo The good God (G@)