Adventure Magazine Cover, October 1911 — page 156: what you’re looking at

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

IIlO2 IV WHEN he returned to a sense of his surroundings he fancied himself for a time to be not in the land of the living. Outward and below, his gaze met floating puffs of cloud, through which daz- zling sunbeams danced and flickered. Look- ing between his feet he caught a glimpse of the wrinkled surface of the glacier straight below him. Lazily he noted a particular crevasse of V shape, wide as a street when he had passed it a few hours before, that now showed no bigger than a line on his palm. He seemed to be peeping into a gigantic cut-glass bowl filled with cream whip. The jagged circle of peaks that marked the horizon was the edge and through a hole in the froth he saw the earth itself, no bigger than a prune. Suddenly he became conscious that his shoulders and heels were resting lightly against a wall of rock. From that he grew to the conviction that he was hanging by his own belt, which had tightened up under his arms. His head swam and actuality swept back to him. He was suspended, without support, over two thousand feet of space! “Julia!” he cried, and again, “Julia!” in a voice that held all of agony, dread and love. The quick response from a little way above was the sweetest sound he had ever known. He craned his head, but could not see her. The rope by which he hung ran up to a jutting rock and from there out of his sight. She was some ten feet higher on the moun- tain than was he, he judged. Warmth stole through his veins again as he listened. “Tt’s all right, for the present,’ she was saying. ‘‘We came down a short distance apart and the slack of the rope caught over a projecting elbow of shale. The shock al- most wrenched it loose, but it holds. Don’t move, please.” “But you?” he demanded impatiently. ‘Are you hurt? Are you safe?” ‘““Safe and not hurt,” she answered quietly. ‘I slid into a depression here like a trough, where I have a fair grip, enough to keep us as we are.” Hargood grinned with pure relief and de- light. The snow had passed and the sun now flooded the sheer wall of the Brughorn in brilliance. Under its searching glare the man’s strong face showed only serenity and gratitude. He laughed aloud. There was no tremor in his voice. Adventure “Then here we are, hung over that tooth of rock like a pair of skates on a nail, one above the other ” he checked abruptly. “What about that rope?” he went on, in a subtly altered tone. ‘‘How has it caught? You say it’s hitched over an elbow of shale. How firm is the shale—quick!”’ “‘I—I think it is safe,’’ came the answer. The words stumbled. Hargood felt it and the corded muscles of his jaw gathered as he frowned out into the sun-filled void. “Take hold of the flap of your belt, do you hear, Julia?” he said, and his speech was crisp with dominance and command. “Loosen it—loosen the flap from the tongue and hold it in place with your hand. Are you minding what I say?” “Well?” she returned. “‘Now watch the elbow of shale where the rope is caught. If the rope slips, or the shale crumbles, even a trifle, don’t wait to see what happens—let go your belt flap!” She was silent for a space. ‘‘But what will you do?” she asked. There was a curious note in the question. ‘‘Never mind me,” he said, with positive savagery. ‘‘Do what I say.” “But why?” “Do itl? “T won’t, till you tell me why.” ‘So I won’t yank you with me if the rope gives way,” he roared in exasperation. “Then if I loosen my belt, and the rope should give way e 3 “My weight would simply whip your belt clear of you and leave you safe in that de- pression of yaurs.” “Ah,” she said slowly. ‘But don’t you see, the rope might start to slip and then catch again. If I let go my belt right away at the first alarm ss ““Do what I say!” he shouted. A tiny thrill ran along the line, like the pluck of a bird’s claw. The man did not feel it. But the girl, lying on her side in a shallow break of the cliff, felt and saw. Her eyes were fixed upon the point a few feet beyond and above her, where the rope hung over the frail tooth of rock. She choked back a cry. | “Have you done it?” he called up to her. “Yes,” she said meekly. And | it oe gulf beneath his feet with an eye at peace, he cast about for the surest way to ease her. STARING down through the dizzy cComicbook C©