Adventure Magazine Cover, December 10, 1922 — page 172: what you’re looking at

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

166 As a matter of fact they heard one bird before reaching the ridge, and that was a squawking bluejay flitting in the sun. As a whole they were not talkative but subdued. Casey Jones’ waxy, strained face and his mumbling, that had almost become sobbing; and little Fags’ persistent cigaret smoking and coughing, gave them a ene of uneasiness. When the sun came, and set the tree boles clear against the light, Logical Jones called attention to them—graceful, mighty, three feet through at the base and reaching sky- ward a hundred and fifty or two hundred feet. “Perfect cones,” said he. ‘‘From base to apex the lines run true. From base to apex a conical symphony. Do you know why man isn’t that harmonious?” “Why?” Logical laughed. “Hanged if I know! Maybe it is because man thinks.” “Thinks evil,” chimed in Casey, does evil.”’ They passed a camp now and then, and oc- casionally met asmall party on the way down. Then Casey began to whimper. More than that, he began to give in. He lagged. He could not whip himself on any farther. To the threat that they would take the pack ‘and he only grunted. Finally they saw he could - go no farther without rest. All were tired enough to rest for that matter, and when they reached the next torrent, where they could get water to drink, they refreshed themselves and lay down in the trail. All but Casey Jones. He crawled out on a jumble of fallen tree trunks where the mist drifted up from the rushing water below. “Lordy,” he muttered, “I'd like to stay down there forever.” Minutes went by with the men blinking at the sky or lying with closed eyes, resting deeply. The roar of Glacier creek, the grind of the lava boulders, the more stac- cato voice of the falls and creek at hand—all were a lullaby that helped them toward peace for the moment. They were jerked to attention by an odd noise different from all the others. They turned their heads. They sat up. Casey Jones was gone, and a twisted cable of galvanized wire around a log over the _ drifting spume hinted at the way of his going. They crawled out and peered down into the twilight below the logs. The fat engi- neer hung there with the pack still awry on Adventure his shoulders, six feet below, in the cool mist, the wire looped around his neck. “Second baby down,” murmured Fags inanely, like the twittering of a bird. ‘“‘____!”” rasped the sailor, drawing back, “Casey’s gone and started it!” They got away from the logs, silent, shocked, as men unused to that sort of thing are apt to be. “The pack?” questioned Morton-Dyer. “Money?” Logical Jones gave it a second’s thought. He shook his head. They struck out at once, walking rapidly. “Casey’s started it,” repeated Jack dole- fully. ‘“The fool!”’ “What? What are you talkin’ about?” “Violent ends. They goes in triplets. Two more of us five has got to go by vio- lence. I never knowed it to fail.”’ NOT one of the five had been above the timber line and to the glaciers. But Cotton had been several miles over the trail, and he began to tell them as they sped along that he could take them by a short cut to Heliotrope Ridge. The dope was to cross no glacier water, he said, but to keep on upward to the right. One of the girls had told him. The others kicked against leaving the trail and taking chances. They quarreled irritably, irritated as they were anyhow by the hurry and the sticky heat. When they reached what appeared from the heavy silt and discoloration to be an immediate glacier-fed creek Cotton turned off the beaten path. They protested loudly. “T’m going this way,” he asserted. ‘When I know a thing I know it.”’ Now, as when he had gone back into the hotel for his overcoat, there was a stubborn whang in his voice and his face was a stub- born moon. It set the others to snapping. “You’ve got just what nature gave a billy goat,” charged Jones in disgust. “A hard head!” “You’re the mind of this party!’ Cotton sneered. “Oh, a little shrewder than the average,” conceded Jones loftily. “It’s my name, Logical.” ‘Fine, fine!” put in Morton-Dyer. need a bright boy to keep me company.”’ Cotton abruptly headed up-stream. “Will we go too?’ asked Morton-Dyer, uncertain for once. KS i <j VAR we a Gomichbooks (E(0)