Adventure Magazine Cover — page 170: what you’re looking at

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

4 ei _ 164 away, Around the wagons and scurrying behind outspan to satepen grew regularly less and less. The morning of the third day passed and still they pushed ahead, pushed though the horses in the blazing sun were caked with hardened sweat. The madman, riding out ahead, dis- mounted. For a moment in the deep grass he disappeared from sight; then with a waving hand he stood erect again, and, with face gleaming queerly, mounted his horse. The ashes of the fire in the outspan were hot, the wagons but one trek away. Swiftly the crazy man drew farther out in front of the crowd. Silently he drew away: from the track and plunged into the bush. In anxious excitement the two white | men and the Kaffirs followed. The track twisted around a sloping hill, rose and then dipped and rose. The rise was steep, and at the top a belt of trees streamed down into the valley beyond. The madman came to the top of the hill, dismounted and crept behind a tree. Mi- nutely he surveyed the scene below. A warning hand went up. “ZL-L-L-Z-LING!”’ Se The hand came down and the man threw himself flat. “Z2-2-2-2-2ingl” A second Mauser bullet tore into tough -bark and ricochetted past the heads of those close behind. z Unconsciously Bertie’s head went round, his eyes stupidly trying to follow the course of the bullet. ——!” he said guiltily. business, Frank.” “It does,” the graybeard said with slow grim seriousness. “My plan to get Tombs and give him to the police is smashed al- ready. “Z2-%-o-2-cing! Zing! Zing! Zing!” More bullets fired at random squealed and whistled through the trees and clipped a leaf here and there. Mutely the men dismounted and dropped the reins before their horses’ heads. Eag- erly in the thick bush they crouched and ran dodging to-the brow of the hill. In the valley below, but a scant hundred yards were twc outspanned wagons. “That looks like them for safety were a half-dozen startled natives; close by a bunch of saddled horses. Ixy each wagon, nothing but the top of the Adventure — head and tip of crouching ‘shoulders, showing behind sacks and boxes, appeared a white man waiting and prepared. Flat on his stomach the graybead lay and slowly studied the scene. Scanned it and painfully saw his greatest hopes gone wrong forever. Watched'it and knew that things must end exactly there: “It’s no use, Bertie. They’ve got wind of our coming and it’s now or never.’ “Seems like it, Frank. But we'll never rush those wagons in safety.”’ “No, Bertie,” the old man answered quietly. “But there’s one thing—they can’t get away in safety either.” “Not with our mad friend round, I think. + The crazy man, seen’ as a monkey poised to spring, was smiling—a smile hide- ous, devilish and grim. As he smiled his teeth clicked, as a cat watching a bird just out of reach. The madman moved, and as he moved a twig beneath him snapped. “Zing! Zing! Zing!” Three other twigs snapped round him. Gently the graybeard raised his rifle; slowly he took a careful aim. ‘eR 0 pl” A bullet tore a wagon-seat and skimmed past a man’s head. “Let ’em know we’re in earnest,” man said and smiled: “Make ’em a bit more careful, eh?” The head inside the wagon moved. Creep- ily from behind a provision box it slowly rose again. “Zingl Zingl Zingl” “Spread a way out and fire every now and then,” the graybeard told the Kaffirs. “Bertie—’ and he eyed the young man queerly—‘‘when our fellows fire and keep them down you dodge with me from tree to tree. We may get to them even yet.” Intermittently the Kaffirs fired. And at each shot the firing white man in the one wagon dodged and came again. Then from the second wagon came a quick, excited firing. “Zingl Zing! Zing!” the old The firing ceased and in the bush the ~ graybeard beat his way for fifty yards. With the greatest care he ever used in all his life Bertie dodged quickly from tree to tree along behind him. In the brief silence the white man in the second wagon moved his head _ higher, “comicbooks (c(0) mM