Adventure Magazine Cover, December 10, 1922 — page 162: what you’re looking at

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

A Complete Novelette by Barry Scobee Author of “The Drouth,” “Even U p,” etc. HE Summer was hot. For the first time in the knowledge of white men the snow cap was melted from Kulshan, the great northern master peak of the Cascade range. And the sky, clear and blue even in the end of August, made no sign or threat. The wild was peopled. Residents of the coast country, tortured by the unheard-of heat of one hundred ten degrees—as: they would have been*frozen by zero weather in this northwest land of mild extremes—had fled to the mountains for coolness, had crowded even to the very receding edges of the glaciers. The glaciers, on the westerly side, began at Heliotrope Ridge.! This ridge of earth and rock, thrust into the ice like a gigantic wedge, was reached after one had traveled a single-file trail from the village of Ice, which snuggled at the edge of a great national forest reserve. Ice was the jump-off for the thronging ~ men and women and entire families going back and forth between the hot lowlands and the half-cool camping grounds. These people, with tents and blankets, pots and pans, were requested to register in a book conveniently maintained if they planned to enter the forest, and thus it came about that many came into contact with a “native” of. the village—a strapping, swaggering man of thirty or so commonly _ known as the Smart Aleck. Smart Aleck could wag his ears, was good at rough-and-tumble wrestling, and pos- sessed a notable range of tones for mimick- ing people. The presence of the many visit- ors gave him an opportunity to show off, and also, though he was unaware of it, to launch uncalculated tragedy. Smart Aleck lived alone in.a two-room unpainted shack that had been a harness shop. It was on the nameless main street, without near neighbors on either side, but diagonally across the street was the two- story, slate-colored, green-trimmed frame hotel, which sat in a wide yard of its own. Close around these two structures, as wel! as on a hundred creeks and trails, were the white and khaki-colored tents of the sum- mer campers. And as is customary with people unused to living in tents, the camp- ers were always up and talking at the break of day. , The Smart Aleck habitually clung heavily to his cot as long as he could against the droning hubbub, but usually he was up before six. On a morning after late arrivals on the stages had been forced by lack of beds to sleep in the office chairs at the hotel, he was up earlier than usual. Strangers around the hotel porch were a magnet that he could not resist. A hasty breakfast finished, he loitered to his porch, yawned magnificently as an introduction to the new day and to the peo- ple on the veranda across the street. A man under thirty sat on the edge of the veranda of the Mountain Inn swinging rus- set oxfords and clocked socks, all topped off by a candy stripe silk shirt and smooth hands. “Hello,” said Smart Aleck briskly, strid- ing up. 156 Gomichoo (ECO)