Adventure Magazine Cover — page 154: what you’re looking at

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

718 Another week and he would join her. He had given his promise. He had sealed the troth with a kiss. “Women,” resumed Mac presently, ‘“‘won- en, and in the North at that—ye wouldn’t leave the North, would ye? Think of it, man! Cooped up in a road-house, afraid to hit the trail—you might not come back, shell say. There’ll be kids an’ a terrible hankering fer the trail, fer the dogs, fer a record run through a blizzard, fer a fight. Curse you, boy! can’t you see? I’ve talked to a lot of them. It’ll be worse for you— lots worse. You’ve been used to it all the time—to the trail, to an occasional scrap, to the worst men in Alaska, to the drag of the snow-shoes—and then a rest, a warm, warm bunk, an’ good grub a-plenty. But I reckon it’s no use. Who is she? Good? Straight?” You're right, Mac,” returned the young man gravely. There was a noise outside the cabin; the door opened. It was Pierre, the Indian runner from the Fort. His face was stiff with the cold; he grunted stolidly as he pro- duced a piece of crumpled paper. “T guess something’s the matter,’ mut- tered McFergus as he surveyed the Indian. ‘Kind of winded, eh? You must ’a’ piked some!” Presently the Sergeant gave a long-drawn whistle. ‘It’s from the old man,”’ he said, speaking to Graves. “Red Curtis has turned up. He’s hidin’ in Fetzger’s cabin, just a piece below our cache. ‘Get him alive or dead,’ says the old man. ‘Send Graves.’”’ The Sergeant paused. Through his yellow teeth came a reflective oath. Then he went on: “‘There’s a big reward up, ain’t there? Along in the thousands. Wait, there’s ‘wo rewards up—one for Red an’ one for that side-kicker of his, Bond.” Again the Sergeant’s thumb followed the lines of the note as he perused it once more; and as he read he swore. “You're goin’ to quit in a week, eh?”’ he went on. ‘‘Fetz- ger’s shanty is eighty miles up the north trail. Let’s see; you ought to be back in- side of five days. That'll give you two days to rest up.” Charlie Graves sat silent; a half-smile played around the corners of his mouth. “Send Graves” was the word from the Fort. It would be his last capture, his last fight in the Queen’s Service, he reflected— his last and his greatest. If he succeeded, ) Adventure his name would live long in the Yukon coun- try, for on Red Curtis’s head there long had been a price. Curtis was a claim-jumper, murderer, renegade; talked of from Seattle to Behring Straits, and demi-god in the eyes of the lawless; gambling, stealing, killing—with his daring reenforced by luck which was the marvel of all Alaska; eluding the police with patient vigilance; turning up in Dawson when reported at bay in Thief River; and justice, slow, but quite as patient, trailed him like a hound. “Well?” queried McFergus. ‘“‘T’m on,” said Graves, rising. GRAVES urged his dog-team into the trail and swung along behind his sledge. His face, fringed with the flaps of his great parka cap, wore a happy look, and his thoughts, speeding now onward to Fetzger’s cabin and now along the back trail to the little road-house and a girl, min- gled joy with sorrow, for this was his last assignment in the Service. He called to his dogs and sent the tip of his long lash sting- ing among them. And the animals knew from the bite of the rawhide that they must make a record run. The trail was well packed and hard; the load on the sledge was trifling, for Graves traveled with swiftness; and the runners speeding over the ice-veneer of the trail, gave forth a merry sound like the singing voice of a cutlass. He could reach the shanty by the next evening. Reflecting on the past and looking for- ward into the future, the man felt strange misgivings at conflict under his arctic shirt. He fell to musing on the words of McFergus. Perhaps Mac was right after all. Perhaps his love for the girl would not prove stronger than his passion for the trail, for active service. His love had been threefold, em- bracing McFergus, the capture of criminals, and trials of endurance. A year ago he would have scoffed at any other love. But that was before Jean Vai- esque had sent to the States for his daugh- ter. McFergus had never loved, nor the old man at the Fort, nor the rest. That was why they laughed their little, quizzical, angering laughs when they heard. Men in Alaska soon forget what a womanis. They see only the creatures in the concert-halls and gambling-houses of Dawson—females, but not feminine. Mac had asked with a COMICLOOCKKS. ECO