Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

Se ——— — — ——J —== —- PIE YY OS EZEBZZNG by = \ \\ a | AY ——— es \ Se an sal yy YY 2 Author of “Up the Pole,” “Monk Rides His Luck,” etc. 1 Nab “fb AOS . \ \ ———— — Y ALL our grandmothers used to ® 4) tell us, “Blackie’s” left ear must _ E™.] have been ringing that after- J noon. For while Blackie, in a ho- tel room in Felgo, was unpacking and try- ing on his new uniform of radio gunner, out on Fog Rock the operators attached to the Navy radio station were tearing Gunner Blackhurst, whoever he might be, to shreds. Had it been Blackie the bluejacket, who was coming out next day to join the gang, then all hail, more power and welcome, they would have sung to him in chorus. But Blackie was now Mr. Blackhurst, gunner (radio), U. S. N., coming out to assume command; and to him they had a different song to sing. An officer! On a station that had never had any one higher than a chief electrician in charge! Forty miles dead west, solitary Fog Rock jutted up out of the Pacific. It was a bleak, desolate little island on which were a light- house and a wireless station. Everything about that rock was wild: The countless rabbits, that were as numerous as rats along a waterfront; the myriad sea-gulls, that hatched their young up among its inacces- sible crevices and ledges; the hordes of sea- lions, that roared and swarmed in and That afternoon, however, the wildest live ing thing on the rock was “Graveyard” Wil- ton, the chief electrician in charge. Grave- | yard was raving wild. If he, Graveyard, had any prestige with the gods at all, Gun- ner Blackhurst faced a period in the dreaded fires reaching into millions of years. “Fog! Fog!’ he growled, after reading the message. It stated that hereafter the station would be under the direct supervision of an officer; that Gunner Blackhurst had been ordered to take command, and would be out next day. Graveyard had reigned supreme of the Navy gang on the rock for eight years. “T’ll say they gave this rock an appro- priate name,” he went on, pacing back and - forth across the room used for a radio office and a hangout combined. “If there ain’t a heavy fog outside, the higher-ups get busy and make fog for us!” “Goat’’ Perkins pushed back one phone. He was on watch, and had just received and turned over the message to Graveyard. “Pretty rich, eh?” he jeered: ‘“‘We’ve got to have an officer out here. This navy’s gettin’ to be a wonderful institution, what? And that means you move, chief. That bungalow of yours goes to the gunner, of about the many coves of its rocky shores. —course. What’ll you do—take the two-by-- And but for the happy arrangement that | four dog-house out on the end of the island, : permitted men attached to that station two .or double up with one-of us far-downs in weeks’ furlough out of every eight—that is, the quarters?” : six weeks’ duty and two weeks’ vacation— “When they drive me out of that bunga- A no doubt they too would have been more or low they drive me off the rock,” Graveyard less wild. announced grimly. “I'll get off here if I = COmicbooks.com) - . ; = - —s . ss nal - e > - a . -