Adventure Magazine Cover — page 156: what you’re looking at

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

720 Graves, just as the match, flickering in a draft from the door, went out. But Cur- tis had seen the face and recognized it. Graves, standing in the darkness, heard a muffled cry, unhuman, like the noise of an animal. Neither man could see, but the lust of battle calls upon instinct in places where vision fails; and as the man leaped from the bunk Graves sprang forward to meet him. There was the clutch of strain- ing hands, the gasp of quick intakes of breath, the stamp of pawing feet upon the floor, and then the snap of steel as the hand- cuffs closed with a click over the wrists. And now Graves collapsed in a faint across the renegade, for even the beast- flame was flickering low. Again and again he tried to rise, and to ward off the kicks of his handcuffed prisoner. At length the flame flared brighter. Staggering to his feet, Charlie Graves of the Queen’s Service struck a match, and then, with sheer tyr- anny of will, forced his tired hands to bind the prisoner with strips of raw-hide. pees IT WAS daylight when Graves “s3 opened his eyes. Consciousness of bodily pain and soreness of joints brought recollection, and his eyes sought the figure on the floor. Curtis was gazing at him out of strange, frightened, bloodshot eyes. At length words came faltering through bloodless lips. “I guess I’ve got it, Graves,” he began with a little laugh. The other understood and, bending over the shaking figure, raised the lips. The gums were livid, with great swollen blotches fringing the teeth. “‘My God!” he ex- claimed. “Scurvy, eh?” queried Red Curtis. “T reckon it is, all right,’ returned the other quietly. “Felt it comin’ on,” said Curtis. ‘Pains in the back an’ legs—kind of allin fer about a week. That’s why I couldn’t mix it up — When the was it? Last night? No, the night before. Say, got any potatoes or lem- ons?” “Nothing but dried salmon,” returned Graves. “The Sergeant’s shanty is eighty miles back,’”’ he added. “Never mind,” said the other. “It’s gone too far anyhow. I guess Red Curtis has led you fellers your last chase. But say, Graves, I was a heller while I lasted, wasn’t I? What did they think about me back there?”’ Adventure Graves was silent. There was something in the claim-jumper’s coolness that com- pelled admiration. After a while he re- turned, “ ‘Alive or dead’ was the word.” The gray eyes of the dying man were fixed hungrily on the other’s lips as they shaped themselves for the words; while the look of old-time hauteur dominated the pinched features. There was another pause, longer than before. Presently Curtis spoke. “Say, Graves, you won’t leave me here to die all alone, will you? It’s been a holy fright the last week. I was glad you came, glad. You won’t go away, will you, Charlie?” Charlie Graves of the Queen’s Service started. A strange look had glimmered forth from the gray eyes, and the inner pat- tern of the famous criminal, which the other was busy piecing out, underwent rapid changes. He looked away. Queer emo- tions checked him. He sat repeating the words: “You won’t go away, will you, Charlie?”’—repeating them slowly, hardly comprehending. It took a long while for their meaning to become patent. All the while the sunken eyes were fixed on him; he knew, but he dared not meet them. The girl came into Graves’ mind—the girl back at Jean Valesque’s road-house. She would be waiting for him; the time was near. He had promised, had given his troth, had sealed it with a kiss. He thought of old Valesque and of Mac. Mac would be waiting. In all these years his right-hand man had never failed him, had never failed to return to the cabin at the appointed time. And, besides, there was little salmon left in the canvas bag; and the cache was twenty miles away. Red Curtis might die in an hour, to-day, to-morrow—but, again, he might linger for a week. Men with scurvy die like cats. Graves knew; he had kept death-vigils before. And the promise—the troth! No—he could not stay. But this was Curtis—Red Curtis! This was different. Surely he would die soon—to-day perhaps. “Curtis,” he mused, “Red Curtis, mur- derer, claim-jumper, renegade, the greatest in all Alaska, matchless!” Presently Graves muttered: “I reckon I can stick around, Red, old man.” Then began a lonesome vigil beside the dying man. Graves placed him upon the bunk on one side of the shanty, and sat gaz- ing at the wall of the cabin. A day passed; another dragged itself slowly by. Two of COMmMICLOOCKKS.CO