Adventure Magazine Cover, December 10, 1922 — page 173: what you’re looking at

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

Seven Fools “We've got to,” declared Jones. “He might be turning off to tell friends in the camp about it.” So they set in on the rocky way, and they went a half-mile or so before brush and rock and an uncertain way forced them to give up. There was no route that they could find. As they retraced their steps they cursed at Cotton and growled and grumbled. “But there is a way,” reiterated Cotton. “Can’t fool me.” They resumed the trail. It was wide morning now. They met people making down trail to Ice and civilization. ‘Some- times these were inclined to talk and ques- tion, but the five said little, letting it be understood they were hiking on a bet. “You picked winners all right,” a man replied once, nodding to Fags, who coughed miserably as he pulled at a cigaret. Jones and Morton-Dyer sized Fags up and whispered together, foreseeing that the white-faced, tremulous youth might attract undesirable notice among the people at the Ridge. ‘They resolved to get him on past other people no difference what might occur so that he could not give news of the gold strike. And they warned him to be alert. “Til do my duty by you all,” Fags prom- ised wearily. The last lap of the climb of ten and one- half miles was stiff. Up all night, unused to such travel, having pushed themselves hard, the five were weary and soaked with per- spiration. Finishing the climb, and step- ping abruptly to Heliotrope Ridge, that was thrust into the ribs of Roosevelt Glacier like a blunt thumb, they felt the chill of the ice field against them. It reminded of opening the kitchen refrigerator. The Ridge was crowded with tents and people, like an old tree loaded down with chirping sparrows. The travelers paused a moment to catch their breath and to be- come familiar with the location. The ice field, green in places, dirty white in others, stretched up and up to the very base of the rugged crown of the master peak. Right at hand water poured with a giant gurgling into a stream—the foun- tainhead of Glacier Creek. Along the border of the Ridge was one of the lateral moraines—hillocks and drifts and furrows of boulders and wet gravel and mud thrown up by the mighty plowing of the ice drift. At the outer edge the moraine had dried, 167 and tents were pitched in smoothed places a few yards from the ice. It was the fad this year to go “glacier outing.” Men and women in stylishly made-up khaki and boots or leather puttees, sat now before many of the tents at breakfast, either around makeshift tables or on the green grass. Over them stood the last gnarled, sturdy trees of the forest, for this was at the timber line. These people paid little heed to the five as they made their way toward the center of the mushroom canvas town. Near the rangers’ old wooden shack they found the “business district.’”? Commercial minded men had put in two or three big tents for stores and a restaurant, and here the gold seekers breakfasted on hamburger sandwiches and coffee and stocked them- selves with spiked boots, alpenstocks, goggles, grease paint, mackinaws, rope— necessary adjuncts to mountain-climbing and glacier-traversing that the merchants had on hand to rent or sell. And each, by unspoken agreement, bought a small canvas packsack for the gold nuggets. At the last they had an old man prepare lunches for them. He talked genially. ‘You seem to be in a rush,” he observed. “Going up on a bet,” said Jones, and added in vibrant boast. ‘Bet that we can’t lose.” “No parties up for a day or two now,” went on the old man. “Storm expected any time.” “Oh, we’ll rush up and back. Fellow up yesterday, wasn’t there?” “Fire guard. Ona bet too, he was. Hear he stripped a couple o’ suckers down below for a thousand bucks.” “How do you know he got to the top?” asked Morton-Dyer. ‘Smoke ‘signal—one o’ these here little hand bums the sassiety folks is fiddlin’ with this Summer so the parties can let their friends down here know when they get to the top.” “Old fellow came down from the moun- tain, too, didn’t he?” asked Jones, and they all focused tensely on the caterer. “Everything that goes up comes down.” “Yeah, but an old fellow, prospector like?” “With saggin’ pockets,” ventured Fags, “and needin’ some new boots.”’ The merchant was willing to please the Summer folks in their vagaries. “Um,” he pondered aloud. “It do seem mG 200KS com (E(0)