Adventure Magazine Cover — page 141: what you’re looking at

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

They Always Run True to Form to come back another night, you know, Bertie,”’ - “Tt’s all right, Jimmie,’ Bertie assured him with plainly forced seriousness. “Tl be back in less than half an hour, and noth- ing’ll happen before then.” “Nothing’ll happen? You may as well not come back at all, Bertie. You'll only scare the beast away. I’m just about fed up with having lions come into my kraal and kill my donkeys and lug ’em off. And you're not helping a bit to stop it.” - The impossible Bertie reached solid earth and in the black shadows felt gingerly with a foot to make sure of it. | “S’long, Jimmie. Don’t go and shoot me by mistake as I come back.” The eyes of Jimmie peered into the black- ness as he lay with his head over the edge of the platform. “All right, Bertie,’ he said earnestly. “But be very careful to keep a good look- out behind you as you go along.” For a moment Bertie hesitated and stared up innocently. “What for, Jimmie?” “So that lion won’t sneak up on you and get you by the slack of the breeches.” An occasional firefly flitted along and dodged in and out like a tiny lamp among the heavy shadows. Mosquitoes hummed and buzzed and threatened. Cussing silently the impatient Jimmie slapped at them vi- ciously. Far, far away the unholy hyena sent his demon’s laugh again and in the intervals the jumpy notes of those “‘Car- men” selections coming from the musical- box meandered tinklingly through the bush and trees and seemed to mock the croaking, piping frogs. It was cold, Jimmie admitted to himself as he passed a hand over his almost freezing shirt—mightily, unpleasantly cold. For a moment he almost wished he’d gone over to the store with Bertie. Then he braced himself, and, with teeth:set firm, deter- mined to see it through. Two nights now he and Bertie had waited perched up in that blessed tree—this was the third. And each night the lion had come and eaten a bit more donkey, and they’d never seen it. It must be a very old lion, he thought, or a sick or wounded lion or it would have made a fresh kill and not returned to the same old carcass time and time again. All that trouble, and if that fool, Bertie, hadn’t been so sound asleep he could have shot the thing the very night it killed the donkey. ‘There he’d slept like a log out under the veranda and the lion had pulled the donkey over the kraal fence right by him and dragged it past him in the clear moonlight not fifty feet away. Slept like a dead man, Bertie had. For a moment the breeze died down and the still air rose from the earth and carried straight-up. Jimmie’s nose twitched. ‘“Phew!’’ he whistled almost silently. “Getting high! No lion’ll ever come to that rotting thing after tonight.” Slowly a half-hour passed. Gently the breeze rose again and Jimmie breathed relief. Breathed relief, yet listened in- tently—very, very intently. Something beside wind, he felt, was stirring through the bush. Something on padded, creeping feet— something sniffling with little short snorts— little grunts—was coming closer through the black shadows—slowly, slowly, sus- piciously, warily closer. Twenty yards away a twig snapped. Silently, carefully, Jimmie drew himself to the edge of the platform and strained his eyes to pierce the blackness. Nothing but the shimmering, dancing leaves appeared to move. Again a twig snapped sharply in the shadows. Quietly Jimmie changed his posi- tion. Almost painfully he tried to force his eyes to penetrate the deep gloom. Close beside him something appeared to move. Something big and strong and stealthily. .With a movement so steady as to be almost unnoticeable Jimmie reached for his rifle. Another second and the thing would have to cross an open moonlit space. Excitedly, yet with forced calm, Jimmie waited—waited it seemed a thousand years. The black shadows moved. A blacker mass moved through them. Jimmie’s rifle came up. His finger felt for the trigger. Crash! A hundred yards away something heavy sprawled in the bush. Z the infernal rotten root!’ came loudly on the clear night air. “Curse the lousy thing! It nearly made me bust ’em.” A minute later a perfectly happy young man arrived beneath the platform and looked up with a satisfied grin. ‘“‘Tor—ee—a—dor! ‘Tor—ee—a—dor!”’ he bawled lustily at the top of an ee liquid voice. / ; (E(9) JOOKS