Adventure Magazine Cover — page 99: what you’re looking at

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

The Torch-Bearers sulky bearing, which, taken with my uncle’s message, made me very uneasy. There was no way for the Tories to learn the nature of my errand; and yet something was wrong with Uncle David. However, I was in for it now and rode up the broad streets ankle-deep in the sand and dust and surrendered my horse to a black boy and hastened into the house by the side door. es JIM! Jim! You here?” gasped sum my uncle, taking both my hands only to drop them and hastily ex- tinguish a brace of candles. “Come away from the window. So Old Tan missed you! The rascal fell asleep and let you get by him. I'll sell him for a field-hand”’ “I saw him. Only your writing was so confusing I had to come and find out what’s gone wrong with you.” “Wrong with me?” he gasped. “Why, nothing’s wrong with me, lad!”’ “What else was I to think?” I demanded, feeling greatly relieved although none the less puzzled. ‘You wrote it was ‘sickly’ here. Sickly for whom if not for you?” ‘And you come back a-fearing something was wrong with your old uncle,” he whis- pered, his thin hands patting my shoulders. “God bless us, lad! I’m as fit a Tory as ever drew breath. But you? You’ve done something foolish. If you were down in savannah, where I could say you were look- ing after some of my property, they might leave you be till this blew over, or some tall fighting made them forget it. But now that you're here! ———’s pitch! Why did you come?” | “But vou? How did I know “Oh, I know, I know!” he groaned. “‘And more the pity! Fearing for your old uncle. It's you, lad; it’s you that must lay low. You must get out of the city tonight; and no pass will do this time. You must win clear of Charleston and remain in hiding——” “Uncle David, what the mean?” I exploded. “Hush! Not so loud; the window is open. <A Captain Tans has filed inforna- tion against you; sent it in by messenger.” _ Twas restored to com placency. “Bah! Out of the mouth of his fellow officers I can prove I did nothing to cause you any alarm, or me any trouble.” ~ “There’s more. One Tickridge, a North does all this 89 Carolinian, arrived last night and filed certain writings. Can he prove anything against you, lad?” “That's different, ” T slowly admitted. “He can make it embarrassing. Not that I did anything a man could help doing.” “No time for explanations now. We must work fast. Mayhap you were seefi on entering the city?” “By no one to recognize me I’m positive, except Levi Smith——” “Better by Cornwallis himself than by Smith. He’s already at work. Your way by the gate is blocked. I doubt if you could even make the Battery, and if you did I’d need time to get a boat in to take you off. I’m afraid we must fight it out here; so tell me what this Tickridge can say against you. I must know to work against him. I still have influence.” “He can say—and I'll not contradict him —that I rescued a young woman from his men. She was wearing 4 man’s garb——” ‘“TImbecile! To mix up with what doesn’t concern you!”’ ‘She was Elsie Macson, my cousin,” I informed him. “Eh? The Macson brat! Well, well— Needs must when the devil insists. I think I can square that off the books. He’ll bea newcomer, a provincial. I have powerful friends who stand close to his lordship.” ‘Wait! In rescuing her I represented myself to be Major Wemyss ‘We might as well cut our throats!’ he moaned. ‘Listen to me. You’re not mixed up in this. You sent me out on business affairs. What I did beyond your commissions can’t be blamed against you. So you're clear of the mess. I'll get out of the city tonight if possible. If I’m taken it’ll mean a hearing and perhaps a few days in the basement of the Exchange. But nothing can harm you.” “Oh, my ——! Stopit! Stop it! How dare you talk as if I feared for my old hide? Good ! DVve sweat blood because of you, lad, and never on my own account. Now vou speak as you believed His strong emotion affected me deeply; for he was not given to demonstration. “You miss the point entirely, Uncle David,” I soothingly whispered. “You must stand clear so you can help me if I need help. If we both go to gaol there'll be. uothing to stop us both from going on board cComicbook ©