Adventure Magazine Cover — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

98 The old man wrung his hands in an agony of despair. “Him die!” he groaned. Preety queek leetle Maree die.”’ Bishop threw back the robe which cov- ered him and rose to his knees. Ryan and Daly sprang upon him, seized him by the shoulders and sought to force him back upon the bed. “Lay down!” they cried. ‘Do yuh want to kill yer fool self?” “Lemme go! Lemme go!” Bishop pro- tested in a terrible voice, and struggled from their grasp. They sank back, staring in unbelief as Bishop rose to his feet and with slow, steady steps crossed the room. ‘““Me white doctor,” he explained to an old woman who sprang up to block his path. She drew one side and Bishop disap- peared behind the caribou curtain. Several moments passed before a woman again emerged and spoke to the chief. The wrinkled features then broke forth in smiles, and it seemed that all around the room the attitude of fear and sorrow was suddenly changed to one of gladness. But to the waiting men it seemed an eternity before there issued from beyond the cur- tain a high thin cry, a squall that was quickly muffled into silence. Then Bishop emerged. He walked slow- ly, with fists tightly clenched and eyes set and staring straight ahead as if he were crossing on a narrow log across a bottom- less abyss. Beneath the stubble of beard which covered his face his lips were curled in the shadow of a smile. The northern wilderness had never be- fore appeared so utterly lonely and desolate and human effort so puny and unavailing as it did to Ryan in the gray dawn of the following day. When he awoke he rose and turned back the robe which covered his wounded partner. One look at the sick man’s face was enough. The ghastly paleness, the deep- set blue encircled eyes told him that despite their valiant efforts, their hours of torturous struggle with the cold and the wind and storm, Bishop was very near to the end of his trail. He left the warmth of the cabin for the storm-swept world without. The trail lead- ing on to the post was blocked with great drifts of snow, and here and there huge trees torn up by their roots by the force of “Him die! Adventure the gale lay prostrate across the way. He satisfied himself that travel over that trail was utterly impossible and turned deject- edly back toward the cabin. It was then that he noticed the Indian graveyard in the clearing back of the house; the queer little huts built over each grave to shut out the cold and the snow, carrying the fight against these greatest enemies to human existence in the north even beyond the span of life itself. Above each tiny hut, like long, slender fingers of ghostly hands, there towered the monuments erected in honor of the dead, long straight poles elis- tening white against the somber background of the encircling forest, with quaint wooden images, a fish, a lynx, a rabbit, spinning in the wind at the top. For a long time Ryan stood motionless in silent contemplation of the graves; then as the cold bit in and made him conscious of himself again he bowed his head as if to the dictates of a higher will and began to kick the snow from a level piece of ground a few feet from the nearest hut. “Might as well get busy,” he mumbled. “It'll take us at least three days to thaw down a hole here, an’ I’m sure goin’ to make it at least six feet just as Doc asked. She sure is a of a place to plant a decent partner like Doc in.” “What the deuce yuh think yer doin’, scratchin’ around like a sick malemiut get- tin’ ready to bed down?” Daly had seen him from the house and approached silently through the snow. “It is a bed sure enough, Mike,” Ryan answered sadly. ‘‘The last bed for the best partner a man ever had.”’ Daly burst out laughing. ‘Yer crazy asa loon, Ryan. Bishop’s feelin’ fine this morn- ing; temperature down, pulse normal. He was tickled as an old granny when they showed him the kid he helped bring into the world last night, and.the mother smiled at him from across the room. Now he’s settin’ up, and an old squaw’s feedin’ him soup. He laughs and says he sure is goin’ to get well. I reckon when he got to shiftin’ around last night he found he wasn’t as near dead as he thought he was; but instead the wound had really begun to heal and a But there was no reason to continue ex- pounding his theory, for Ryan was well on his way to the house, plowing through the deep snow like a bull moose with a wolf- pack at his heels. COMicaoo® S (©