Adventure Magazine Cover — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

Rg 5): Tat ¥ ; . ie NS) GAYA S sicaes OMETHING was moving among the coconut-palms—a Something that lurked, noiseless, cunning, erect on two feet like a chim- panzee, a gorilla, or worse, like a man. Mayland, who had cursed his solitude through the dragging weeks during which he had been marooned on the island, shuddered now at the prospect of its ending. He had seen the Thing peering out at him as he had craned for the thousandth time from be- neath his fluttering calico-shirt signal for his ship that never came home. It had seen him also and had drawn back into the thick tropic tangle. This drawing back was a bad sign. Mayland was will- ing to take his chances with anything that crawled or crept on four legs. At the thought he patted his crude bow with the grapevine string and his clumsy stone ax. But in the South Pacific men lived in tribes, and he could not fight a tribe. Fearing the hurl of spear or the flight of poisoned dart, he crept into the edge of the jungle. Crouching there, ready for instant retreat, he strained his vision through the thick web of spike and frond and listened to the abnormal pounding of his heart. He had not long to wait. From behind the trunk of a stately tamanu tree farther up the slope a human head moved cau- tiously. The flutter of intervening leaf and blossom prevented any certainty of im- by Stuart B. Stone pression, but Mayland saw that It wore a wreath or bonnet of plaited dry leaves of the coco-tree, that It was draped in more of the same primitive apparel than a South Sea islander usually troubles to wear, and that It carried a formidable bludgeon. Mayland pushed aside a big leaf for better view, then regretted his action. The leafy bonnet dis- appeared. The underbrush crackled. Mayland, unable longer to withstand the pressure, bounded to his feet, emitted a long, hoarse war-whoop and gave chase. For a quarter of an hour he tore his way through the luxuriant jungle. Once he glimpsed his quarry speeding across an open strip of beach. It was going like a grey- hound. Nothing short of gunpowder could have brought It down. Mayland, scratched, bruised and panting, trudged recklessly back to the jungle’s edge and sat down in the half-light of the forest to think the matter out. He had for- gotten the first fright of the discovery. He would have relished a sudden coming to- gether, a fierce combat, and an énd of things, one way or the other. It was the future he dreaded, the long, dark, creeping hours when he could no longer feel safe from hu- man spying and scheming. Yes, it would have been better had a dozen of them seized him unawares. By now he would have been simmering in the kettle. All would have been over. 831 C© MICLOOKS CO