Adventure Magazine Cover — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

The End of the Trail ridge-poles. The floor was mother earth carpeted with a vast accumulation of filth, scraps of food, bits of bone, rabbitskin, rnoose-hair, bits of grease and fat, the rank- smelling fleshings of mink and lynx skins, spruce needles, shavings, and over all a layer of dust. During the Winter season this house was the home of some thirty people, of all sizes and ages. Their rough couches of spruce boughs cluttered the floor close to walls clear around the room. The bedding, robes of rabbit and caribou skins, was rolled up during the daytime to serve the purpose of chairs. Such as it was, the Beaverhead home was shelter from the fury of the storm; and the palace of a king could have been no more appreciated by the exhausted trappers as they carried their wounded companion into the dimly lit room. The family apparently was all at home. The old chief received them with great demonstrations of pleasure. His ancient, copper-colored features folded into deep wrinkles and his withered lips peeled back in shameless exhibition of rows of yellow teeth as he smiled a welcome, proud of the role he played as host to the white men. Most of the other adults of the family sat back in silence in the shadows along the wall, smoking vile tobacco and eyeing curi- ously every move the visitors made and every article of their equipment. Children of all ages scampered about the room, in their excitement kicking up clouds of the stifling dust and, getting into each others’ way, squalling and fighting among them- selves. Some of the younger ones ap- proached close to the wounded man where he lay on a spruce mat in the corner and stared into his face with their bead-like eyes. ‘“‘White man ketchum shot,” ome of them whispered. ‘‘Mebbyso him die.” Ryan and Daly—at the chief’s invita- tion—satished their hunger with huge chunks of half-cooked moose-meat and steaming hot broth from the meat-pot which simmered on the one stove in the room, a small sheet-iron .affair with a rusty stove- pipe running through the middle of the roof. Bishop still refused to partake of any nourishment. He talked weakly but al- most incessantly, denouncing himself for the most part, and bemoanmg the fact that he had to leave the world without having. accomplished a single thing for the help or 97 betterment of his fellow men. He enter- tained not the slightest hope of living; had given up to black and utter despair. It was near midnight before his moaning trailed away into sleep, and silence reigned in the room except for the snore of the sleeping Indians and the roar of the storm without. } IT SEEMED to Ryan that he had "the opposite end of the room aroused him. He sat up. Was it morning? Surely not. He looked at his watch. It was three o’clock. He watched the figures at the far end of the room. Two old women were working over the form of another prostrate on one of the spruce beds. Most of the Indians were up and children were peeping curiously from beneath their robes. Daly sat up. ‘“‘What’s the rumpus, Jim?” he asked. “Don’t know. They seem pretty much worked up, though, about somethin’.”’ One of the old women heard their voices and nodded to another. Soon a caribou robe was stretched from the wall to one of the posts, blocking their view of the corner where the women worked. After a half-hour had passed and the white men were unable to go back to sleep Daly’s curiosity got the better of him. See- ing the old man seated on a pile of robes, humped over with his head on his knees in an attitude of utter dejection, he asked: “Hey, chief, what’s the matter? Some- body sick?” The old man raised his ancient counte- nance, whose every wrinkle showed worry and sorrow. “Ugh!” he grunted sadly. ‘‘Leetle Maree Tsoe ver’ mooch seek. Mebbyso him ket- chum babee, mebbyso him die.” His head drooped again to his knees. “What do you know about that?” The white men looked at each other in consternation as it dawned upon them; in that setting of filth and squalor, back of the greasy old robe in the corner, there was being enacted the world-old drama of birth, the struggle of life with death that new life might be born. And it appeared evident from the old chief’s words that death held the upper hand. Then they noticed that Bishop, too, was awake. A woman came hurrying to the chief. She spoke quickly in the Indian dialect. ~m) scarcely dozed off when a noise at - GOMIIGoOoO S (© inn