Adventure Magazine Cover — page 86: what you’re looking at

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

ewes LS SENS Cf \ \ Sx y i BT ee Y 333 “e 2 OILS a7 E WAS a magnificent figure of a man. The glow of the setting sun tinged his golden skin to a richer hue, and the pink of the evening sky, against which he was silhou- etted, made him appear bigger and broader than he really was. He stood rigid for a moment on the crest of a little knoll, looking back the way he had come. Then he turned and entered the dense grove of coco-palms that clung to the gentle slope leading to the beach. Before him sounded the croon of the surf, as the long glassy swells of the Pacific broke in creamy whiteness along the shore. Be- hind him the jungle lisped and murmured in the heat of the dying day. Thousands of terns and frigate-birds, swooping, wheeling and quarreling overhead, burst at frequent intervals into hideous croakings. From the grove itself came the low cooing of the red- crested pigeons. For all that the native traveled fast and that the path through, the grove was a well- beaten one, it took him nearly half-an-hour to reach the clearing wherein was set the little house of the trader, and the long, low shed where the trade was stored. Both buildings had been erected on the shores of the only good natural harbor on that part of the coast, with a view to giving the infrequent trading-schooner every oy of a AK bak | ye ces VV y, FAY | ra) hee -bOML CY , Pichurel \wel{cn « protection from the swell and _ every facility for quick loading and unloading of cargo. The grove straggled on past the buildings, getting thinner and thinner, until it ran to the very edge of the white coral sand, sweep- ing in an easy slope of smooth softness to where the surf laughed and whispered. The blue waters of the harbor were embraced by two rocky points that ran down from the hills of the hinterland and about a mile into the sea, ending in a series of slivered reefs over which the foam boiled in the calmest weather. Naked, except for a scarlet loin-cloth and a few beads suspended from his neck, and with scarlet hibiscus-blossoms stuck rakish- ly behind his ears, the native padded up to the veranda of the house and halted befere the white man who idly sat on the steps smoking a long cheroot and attired in thin silk pajamas. The trader was a short and stocky figure, with sandy sun-bleached hair, and eyes of the deepest blue, showing startlingly vivid in the deep tan of the cheeks. He might have been anything from thirty to forty, and from the steady set of the square jaw and the narrowed keen look of the eyes, he was a man who had seen and done much. On the steps near him lay a heavy belt and revolver-holster that he had evidently just 80 MICLOOOKS C@©