Adventure Magazine Cover — page 137: what you’re looking at

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

ay Deo ___ es — sake nek A Romance of Americans in the Balkans by Frank Savile SYNOPSIS: Gervase Agnew, civil engineer, saves the life of Katrine Gresham, daughter of his em- ployer, an American railroad president. ‘The latter’s partner, Gordon Glaisher, engaged to Katrine in a formal way and jealous of Agnew, half forces Gresham to put Agnew in charge of building the Bir Railway in the Balkans. Agnew, learning of Katrine’s engagement, accepts. In the muddle of international politics centering about the Bir Railway he finds its construction covertly opposed by Italian secret societies, with Gessi, a sectional engineer, as leader. Jovan and other Balkan patriots are working on the road itself. Thring, Agnew’s assistant, explains that the former engineer, Sanders, who died a victim to Lucia Gessi’s wiles, must have had a secret plan for overcoming an unbridgeable break in the road. Gresham goes to the Balkans to protect his interests, accompanied by Katrine, who has broken her half-hearted engagement to Glaisher. Vilip, their courier, is, like Jovan, a gentleman-patriot in disguise. Uiko, a fisherman, at Agnew’s instigation, finds that the Turk, Esuli Bey, has been tampering with the underground outlet of a lake to obstruct the railroad construction. To get Lucia to tell Agnew Sanders’ secret plan Jovan persuades Katrine to intensify the Italian girl’s passion for the engineer. Several attempts are made to assassinate the Americans and Albanians. CHAPTER XV where a weeping willow gave shelter from the rays of the already high risen sun. A log, the center of a collection of float- ing débris, swam slowly into the orbit of ESULI IS EXPLICIT SULI BEY sat back in his deck- chair, lighted one of the cigarettes which he kept for moments of spe- cial contemplation and suffered his gaze to rest benignantly on the reed-girt stretch of water at his feet. He and his companion, Chevalier Silvio Sarrasco, late Commandante of the Italian Navy, were enjoying the pleasures of idleness after a satisfactory mid-day meal. They had taken their chairs to the border of the lake the Bey’s vision, and as he watched it he smiled. It was a dazzling smile—the per- fect teeth shone gloriously white below the exactly trimmed mustache, and the Com- mandante, as it was turned upon him, re- sponded to it with confident affability. “Your Excellency finds amusing— what?” he hazarded. Esuli extended an index finger. “That log,” he explained complacently. “That log, which the current now brings slowly 893 COMIGHOO =