Adventure Magazine Cover — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

60 her as he dived, after demolishing the boat. And in the middle distance, shoulder to shoulder, side by side, three huge shapes showed in spouts and gouts of spray, head- ing against a rising sea in the opposite direc- 7 Ni ve Vy / hi U4 Le UY, yy ye oy Lda Adventure tion—two “cow” sperm whales, shouldering away and bolstering up on his course, as it were, our ponderous leviathan wounded “bull” sperm—victor of all he surveyed, in- cluding love. Uf; \ J by Y : y i H y ( " i ) Bil / BC 7 Author of ‘‘Evrybody Likes a Gunman.” = IRE! F-i-r-e!” = Dalton heard and heeded the peremptory, repeated cry that shrilled warningly upon him out of the quiet night. -He stepped quickly from the cleared right of way to convenient shelter behind a huge hemlock. “Fire! F-i-r-e!”’ It was nine o’clock on a September eve- ning and the clear northern sky was filled with the shimmering aurora borealis, which fell in profusion upon the dark canopy of spruces overhead and trickled in fitful glimmerings down through the black forest spaces beneath. Early evening had brought along its usual mosquito accompaniment; but advancing night’s keen breath had at last benumbed the sanguinary ardor of these tiny pests and caused them to flee for shelter to their secret haunts under the grasses, leaving the air in peace save for that shrill, repeated warning: “Fire! F-i-r-e!”’ The lone traveler waited in silence be- hind his hemlock barricade.- Suddenly the stillness was engulfed by the deep boom of an explosion, and its echoes were prompt- ly caught and multiplied, reverberating in sullen diminuendo among the encircling . granite hills. Simultaneously there came a rushing crish-crish and thwack-thwack as of hard bodies hurtling through the foliage and making strong impact against the tree-trunks beneath. This succession of crishes and thwacks, lasting several seconds, was followed by quiet throughout the forest save for the deep, drum-like whirr of a ruffed grouse startled sleepily from its covert, or the frightened chatter of some of the smaller birds whose nests had been rudely shaken by the blows. “A kiute,” explained Dalton to himself. “T must be near McLeod’s camp.” Leaving his shelter behind the friendly hemlock, he stepped back into the right of way and plowed steadily onward through the muskeg. A couple of hundred yards farther he emerged into a clearing. At his left, by the side of a winding stream and bathed in the splendor of the subarctic night, a cluster of log shacks showed clearly. As he’ stood watching the peaceful camp two forms stepped into the starlight from the wide jaws of a rock cut ahead and made their way across toward the buildings. ‘These must be the men who fired the blast,” reasoned Dalton. He walked over and intercepted them. CORNICLOO© (C@