Adventure Magazine Cover, October 1911 — page 73: what you’re looking at

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

Forbidden Treasure in her and she turned away from him. Stuart went on calmly with his task, but he spoke to her quietly. “Tf you will dismiss from your mind,” he said, ‘any notion that I have arranged this matter, you will do me the barest justice. I must in all common sense consider your safety. It will be necessary for me during this climb to offer you my hand and to assist you In many ways—sometimes, per-. haps, with a seeming roughness. I beg you to believe that I do it as reluctantly as I see that you receive it and that I shall be as un- feignedly glad when we are released from this compulsory companionship as you yourself.” She made not the slightest sign that she had heard what he said. Berwind, having fastened one rug upon his back and strapped the other one to Stuart’s shoulders, gave each member of the party a climbing-staff and, with a laugh and a word of encouragement, led them down the rocky beach to the fissure in the face of the cliff. The steadily increasing cold gave to their exercise a biting stimulus. {2 FROM the Vatna spiral clouds of (Sy sulphurous smoke wound their way ‘SAY upward. The great glacier was si- lent in the intensified cold. Where the tall black mountains with their fantastic scarfs of glistening snow rose all about them, the horns of the Bull mountain stood highest of all against the cold mists of the sky. When they at last reached the fissure in the great wall of rock, Berwind turned to enter it and stepped back suddenly with an exclamation. The others gathered beside him quickly, their rope dragging in loops about their feet. The fissure blasted in the solid rock held between its rough sides a boiling pit of sul- phur, seething and steaming. The thick, creaming, bubbling surface of the pit held their eyes in an ugly sort of fascination. Captain Healy was the first to speak. “That there would be a mighty nasty grave for a man,”’ he said with his usual melancholy sniffle. Berwind laughed. ‘‘On the contrary,” said he, restoring their spirits with his cheer- ful voice, “‘it would be a most desirable one. Cleanly, antiseptic and instantaneous cre- mation.” “Ugh!” said Mr. Lee witha shiver. ‘“‘Let us goon. We will catch cold standing here. Is this where we begin to climb?” 1019 “This is the place,” said Berwind. ‘Then lead on, Macduff!” said Mr. Lee pleasantly, ‘‘‘Where the River of Snorr flows into the River of Halpa, flowing between the Mountain of the Bull and the Mountain of Sigurda,’ and so forth. Can’t you see the poor devil coming ashore, with the monkey on his shoulder holding his tail out of the water?’”’ He pinched his daughter’s ear as she laughed at him. “River?” sniffed Captain Healy. “I don’t see nothing like a river around these here parts.” Mr. Lee looked at Berwind who was frowning back at him in a friendly appeal for discretion. ‘Ah, neither do we, Captain,” he replied, with a rub at the long suffering nose. “It is all part of a fairy-tale that begins ‘once upon a time many hundred years ago.’”’ CHAPTER XXII A WILDERNESS OF ICE AND FIRE HE ASCENT of the cliff was far more arduous a climb than Berwind had pre- dicted. Not once but many times had Stuart been forced to give his hand to Nora Lee, below him, and to draw her almost by main force to a place beside him. On one of these occasions, having partly drawn her by the hand and partly lifted her with an arm about her, Stuart was about to re- linquish his hold, when Mr. Lee below lost his footing and slipped heavily back, bring- ing the rope between them suddenly some- thing morethan taut. Stuart’s arm instantly closed upon her with all his strength and held her. Grimly and unsmiling he held her. But he felt his heart beating faster at each stroke. The suddenness of it all had startled the girl, which accounted for her docility, doubtless, as she permitted him to strain her painfully against his side. his other hand wound in the life-rope, watch- ing the Captain help Mr. Lee to his feet again. The moment passed. The rope swung loose again, Mr. Lee looked up, waved his hand and started upward. Stuart released her instantly. “I beg your pardon,” he said quietly. “‘There was nothing else to do.” To his surprise she answered him almost gently. ‘“‘Of course. Thank you.” He Comichook He was leaning forward, . CO