Adventure Magazine Cover, October 1911 — page 158: what you’re looking at

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

1104 which made him, before the same year was out, one of the most notorious of inter- national criminals. He carried off, within three months, a series of startling imper- sonations and forgeries which put the police of the world on his track. Rewards were out for him in five countries. His name and likeness were placarded everywhere. The press rang with his crimes and narrow escapes. You must have heard of him— Bevis?” ‘“‘Yes,”’ she answered, wondering. “The friends of Bevis wiped him from their memories. His family hid its sorrow as it could. Meanwhile this cultured scamp, this artist criminal, continued at large. He was pressed for means. Trading upon the shame of his relatives, upon their fear of his capture and the revelation of his identity, he began a system of blackmail. His favor- ite victim was his younger brother. Are you listening?” She murmured assent, abstractedly. Her strained gaze never left the tooth of shale. ‘To this brother Bevis became a scourge and a parasite,’’ went on Hargood, “‘ dogging his steps, mocking him, begging, threaten- ing, terrorizing, tyrannizing. With the years the scandal had faded somewhat from the public mind. The younger brother had ventured to hold up his head once more among men. And this was the opportunity of Bevis.” He paused, for something rose in his throat. Presently he resumed, calmly. “TI am the younger brother of Bevis Hargood. “It was easy enough until I met you, Julia. I paid him what he asked, did his will, withstood his polished sarcasm, his envy and his taunts. Asa child he had been my idol. Asa man he was my burden. But when he learned, as he did, with fiendish certainty—that you meant much to me, he became intolerable. He saw me slipping from his grasp, he saw me—pardon this, Julia—sharing my life with another and strengthened against him by dearer interests. A month ago he came to me in New York. ““*You are, perhaps, thinking of marry- ing?’ he asked me. I can not indicate his provocative and insulting manner. ‘“‘“What then?’ I asked. ““He tapped me on the chest. ‘Poor Collis,’ he said, with his stinging sneer. ‘Poor old chap! I have too much affection for you, Collis, too much abiding affection. brother. jured, crushed, crying pitifully for help. Adventure I shall watch over you, believe me. You shall come to no such fate while you have an elder brother to prevent it.’ “I started up at him, crying to know what he meant. He waved his adieu from the doorway. ‘I shall watch over you, Collis, never fear,’ he taunted. ‘I shall be with you at Philippi. When the affair be- comes interesting, look out for me. I shall be on hand. I imagine the young lady’s Lae does not know your elder brother, ollis.’ “That was the last I knew of him, Julia, | until yesterday on the Reisenweg, in the fog. As we crossed the bridge in the ravine I saw him. He was seated on a boulder off the path and he looked worn with travel. Apparently he had come far on foot. “He looked at me, and the sneer was on his face. I feared he might speak. In the veiling curtain of the mist you did not notice him. I was thankful for that and hurried away. “Then came the landslips. I know now that you read my agitation. You were right. I did show weakness. I was almost certain the first slide had plunged down the ravine, where I had just seen him. ““Do you mark what confronted me? If IT went back with you and found him alive he was capable, with his devilish aplomb of revealing himself and my shame on the spot, —nay, of grossly insulting you. I dreaded your learning my secret, Julia. Of all things I dreaded it. I had hidden from you, with despairing caution, that Bevis, the criminal, was the brother of the man who had come to love you. “‘I never meant to tell you as long as he was alive, never meant that you should know, even though I had to give up my hope of you. I may say it now, Julia, I think. I formed the resolve after that last meeting in New York. Whatever hap- pened I had no right to call you to share that burden. But, do you see? If we re- turned to that ravine and found him he was capable of shattering my last chance on the spot. ‘“‘And yet—and yet, Julia, he was my I pictured him lying there, in- Pictures come vividly to my mind. I am made so. And the thought that he was in instant need drove me frantic. If we went back, it might be only to meet his taunts and sneers and to lose you. If we did not go cComicbook (C©