Adventure Magazine Cover, December 10, 1922 — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

102 breathing, only occasionally panting with protruding tongue. When the man stooped to unfasten his skis, the pursuer again dropped flat, but with hind legs gathered tensely for a for- ward leap. Rifle at elbow, Andrew quickly strapped on his skates. kneeling posture. “T execute you,” he mused, bitterly, cen- tering the sights on the grisly head, “for leading that silent rush at the axmen!”’ He pressed the trigger, exultingly. The rifle roared like a shotgun and kicked with unexpected vigor against his shoulder. Powder particles stung his face. When he blinked his eyes clear he saw in sickening dismay that a half-foot of the muzzle was split and bent. The black brute had lightly leaped aside on the flash, but again was creeping forward. “Choked with snow when I dropped it!” West said aloud, in self-accusation. At the sound of his voice the beast boldly stood erect and growled ferociously. Andrew took a great breath of prepara- tion, grasped the now useless rifle with both hands as if it were a hockey stick, whirled and fled. Behind him came the leader of the pack, baying loudly with the hunting-call, and out of the forest streamed the young wolves to a devil’s chorus of screams and howls. Wild ululations echoing and re-echoing from the forest made the number of pur- suers seem quadruple, and in a few mo- ments the skater understood why. Nearly , thirty larger wolves were loping out from the shore of the lake to join the chase. Within a quarter-mile the black leader was at West’s heels, and he turned sharply aside barely in time to avoid the clashing jaws at his shoulder. Almost immediately a large gray wolf also leaped and snapped futilely at the same side. Dashing away at a tangent, Andrew saw that many of the wolves slipped and rolled over and over in their efforts to turn after him. Onhis next sidewise spurt a young pursuer on the edge of the pack slid help- lessly in front of him. Before it could regain footing he checked with the skill of a hockey expert and swung the stock of his rifle on to the snarling, snapping head. The stunning impact numbed his fingers and the weapon bounced off onto the ice. Then he took aim from a. Adventure He swung away on anotler tack to avoid the leader’s determined rush and the simi- lar attempt of the great, grayone. Back of them the pack piled up in a screaming, struggling, tearing mob over the doomed young wolf, His hunter’s hatchet now in hand, An- drew began to plan for the undoing of any other unguarded pursuer. He knew that he could not escape the length of the lake, but his chances were good if he could work a zigzag course close to the shore and gain the haven of a tree. Twice again he avoided the lunges of the leader and its lieutenant, and then he dis- covered that the other wolves had struck the moose’s trail on the ice and were drift- ing toward the other side of Bottle Island. The bull, made desperate by sight and sound of the pack, evidently had struggled ashore there on three legs. West whirled into the. back stroke and then stopped himself on tiptoe in a spray of powdered ice. “Pll fight you now, you devils!’ he said, grimly, making ready with the hatchet. It was not bravado, but a sharp need of a breathing space that influenced him to take this risk with his two pursurers. The black one was raging but cautious. He had seen the man in action with the clubbed rifle, and the shining hatchet also was formidable. The great, gray wolf stopped short fifty feet away and looked on as if only mildly interested. As the scene shifted, he quietly moved forward, but kept his distance. Growling now, the black brute circled about for an opening and made little feints at rushing. The least stumble or indecision on the skater’s part would have brought a headlong attack. } Continually facing the menace of the fangs, West managed to glide backward until quite close to Cork Island. He se- lected a certain outstanding tree for his haven, but had no clear idea of how it could be climbed with this deadly antagonist only a leap or two away. And now a wild baying from the off-side of Bottle Island told that the rest of the pack had surrounded the disabled moose. They seemed to be calling for their leader to leap in with the death-stroke. The black beast turned and, with the gray one at his shoulder, sped away to make the kill. Before they had gone a hundred Gomichbooks (E(0)