Adventure Magazine Cover, December 10, 1922 — page 109: what you’re looking at

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

The Last Run yards, however, another and fiercer out- burst from the pack proclaimed that a vol- unteer for the throat-hold had been found among them and that the bull was down. Instantly, the two brutes on the ice stopped and raced back again to harry their human quarry. But in that lucky interval Andrew West had dug his skates into the. bark of the tree and climbed to a limb ten feet above the ground. He laughed loudly with the relief of over- strained nerves, and at that provocation the black besieger slashed at the butt of the tree as if it were a sentient thing to be de- stroyed. The gray one stood impassively close by, listening with cocked ears to the insane roaring of the leader. Suddenly, Andrew’s merriment died. He had become aware that the north wind was sweeping stingingly through the tree and there came vividly to his mind the axman who evaded the wolves only to become food for the crows. Already the sun had sunk close to the forest horizon, and not much more than an hour of daylight remained. With no means of sounding a signal for help, he would be lost in the freezing darkness where Johnny McKee could not find him. His one hope now was to disable the persistent brute be- low him and then escape from the tree. He laboriously chopped off and trimmed a section of limb and threw it down with great force. His jailer easily leaped aside, as if previously experienced in dodging mis- siles thrown by man. And once more the American laughed, and this time his mirth was genuine. An inspiration, born of emergency, had come to him. “You treed me on the wrong kind of a vegetable, you black devil!” he informed the pack leader, conversationally. ‘“This isa fir. I’ll build a little house of limbs high up where they’re thickest; I’ll line the walls with boughs to keep out the wind, and [ll put on a roof, too, if I have time. But, best of all, Pll make a thick bed of fragrant balsam—and sleep like a bug ina rug. And you! I hope you choke! Go on, growl your fool head off!’ The brute did his best to climb the tree, snarling murderously in his hatred of the human voice. Austin removed his skates and took deliberate shots at him, but missed both times. The gray wolf, uneasy at the repeated = ~ 103 fall of missiles, glided ashore and hid in the underbrush. No howl or snarl came down the wind now from Bottle Island where the pack was feeding voraciously on the slain bull. West climbed twenty feet higher and was disturbed to find there a tall dead jack pine leaning at a sharp angle against the fr. A determined enemy might mount it at the ground and attempt to creep up to him. He struck the dry surface of the pine an experimental blow with his hatchet, and the hollow trunk gave off a booming sound like a gigantic drum. “Well, you ham!” he shouted down, in- sultingly, as might one contentious teleg- rapher to another. ‘Thought you had me grounded, eh?” “Bang! Bangl Bang!” rapidly went the hatchet blows; ‘‘Bang/’’ a brief interval, “Bang!”’, and then three more swift “Bangs.”’ Out on the north wind went this roughly made “‘S O S” in the Morse code. It echoed plainly from the wall of tall trees across the lake. “S O S” again boomed forth, and almost at once there came upwind a soft triple whistling—the’ whip-like reports of a rifle that were mellowed by distance. “Oh, don’t go, gentle stranger!’ West mockingly called down. The black brute, seeming to sense the situation, abruptly became silent. Then he trotted out on the ice to gaze southward whence had come the answering signal. Standing thus, with ears pricked forward and head high, he stirred Andrew’s memory. “T’ve seen a picture like that,” he mused. “But where? Must have been in ‘Little Red Riding-Hood’ !” Then he hammered “S O S,” enthusiasti- cally, and now he could see from his high perch a small, swaying figure that he knew to be Johnny McKee skating at racing stride. The leader of the pack also recognized the nature of this reinforcement, but was not willing to yield the field entirely. He returned to the fir and again vented his rage on its bark, and then he slunk away to at hina | : ey ih) oy, t MA) 7 A deh al VS Ye if ; a afi AT es Vat We > RAM: a tn oa! . ® pie 7 #3-) ib a we Deets Bok whee SOLA y iv; i 4 v ¥ v é iY ¢ | 9) Pay dA Eyal MY ay v5 Vd ie si ' t vy WEE Te Rds PSP AAW At PON PET LURMM On eae TI OR Ywheue AML | othe a YET UE aR Ge fe 9 © COCA Nhe MAN a Pe 7 Why ME ee pty Sia ATIVAN CMEIA ee RUE, Ae TA, a Oe j \ an open spot among the trees near by and | stood like a thing of stone. When McKee was within a half-mile, West permitted himself an extravagance. “Have a nice little shiny hatchet on me!” he said, and cast it high over the tree in the general direction of that wild statue. — comicbook Ay A . ve WAG AtR CRAIN