Adventure Magazine Cover — page 104: what you’re looking at

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

ahh, Ie Tt sorcery and Everhard. half-angry; and his question was not a ques-. tion, but a statement. “T don’t understand you, Everhard.” I said nothing. He paused. Then: ““*Bout a-week ago she wanted to see Chinatown. I took her through. She’d heard a lot about Sin Chang—wanted to meet him. He gave a dinner for her. Why?” ““Does she ever use opium?” I asked. He swore angrily as if it were a question unworthy of answer, and went out. Then I got hold of Jackman, who eyed me a little dubiously, and sent him out with half an envelop, told him to match it and bring me baek two or three. When they came I went into my room, and with a needle to hold the wax above a candle-flame, after an experiment or two I succeeded in softening the under part of the seal until it would take hold of the paper at the envelop’s flap. The figuration of the seal was not dis- turbed. One would have had to examine it -with care, with much care, to discover that it had been tampered with. When evening came on I ventured out. First I went into a drug-store that like all other drug-stores had so far elaborated its apothecarian character as to have a soda- fountain, cigar-stand, and service for the de- veloping and enlarging of photographs. The sleek-haired young clerk, very youth- 103 ful and not without importance, explained that I should have brought the negative of the entire family group in order to get the result that I asked for from the picture I presented. I let him talk until he had said all that he seemed to have memorized for. such cases as mine, theh repeated the orig- inal request to have an enlargement of the woman’s head. Thereupon he made re- luctantly some notations on a slip of yellow paper, and assured me resignedly— ‘“‘We’ll do the best we can:”’ It would, according to the proverb, have been an impertinence to ask more of an angel; but I did not comment on that. I then headed into the. lights and shadows of Barbary Coast, where there was more of a Chance of my being recognized, identified, than amid the crowd on Market Street. I pulled the brim of my black felt hat a little lower, turned up and buttoned my overcoat, and accepted the risk. Risks seldom amount to anything if one accepts them with a degree of caution. I set out to locate Madame Hazel Gui- gane, who I had reason to believe could do me a little favor without trouble to herself and who, I knew, was trustworthy in many respects, though generally considered—and with justice—as one of the worst women in the city. z She sometimes referred to herself a “Queen of the Hop-Heads.” TO BE CONTINUED Eomichbooks:- co