Adventure Magazine Cover, October 1911 — page 78: what you’re looking at

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

1024 blow out the electric light and please report any incivility at the desk. If you will allow me ”? with an instinctive offer of service, he turned to Nora. But she drew back. ~ “No, thank you, Mr. Stuart,’”’ she said quietly. She glanced fleetingly, contemptu- ously at the igloo destined for her use. “As you please,” said Stuart, turning away. “But I think, Berwind, as physician to the party you should try to persuade Miss Lee not to expose herself any more than our necessity demands.” ‘“‘Of course you must sleep in the shelter! ”’ cried her father, rubbing his nose furiously. “You mustn’t be silly.” “Really, Miss Lee,’ began Berwind. But Nora leaned down and snatched up one of the rugs, laughing. ‘‘Don’t impute such disinterested motives to me. I shall lie over here by the hot spring where the ground is warmer and the air softer, and I shall have good fresh air to breathe and altogether be vastly more comfortable than any of the rest of you. Good-night, father! Good- night, everybody!”’ She went off with the rugs in her arms. After an interval of pottering about, she at iast curled herself up in the rug and pulled her gray fur coat closely about her throat and head and composed herself with appar- ent calm and content to sleep beside the margin of the steaming pool. iv <i DR. BERWIND, partly convinced that she was quite safe and partly aware of the utter uselessness of arguing with her, devoted himself to making his patient comfortable. Captain Healy, taking an ample flask from his pocket, had retired for the night with such hopes of warmth as he could extract therefrom. But Stuart waited in the cold, white mist, watching the members of the fog-bound party disappear, one by one, until he was alone with Nora. At a sufficient distance from her to remain unseen by her, he waited. In the still, twilight night, the half-hours went by, joining themselves one to the next and so becoming hours. It was not pleas- ant to wait there, walking to and fro and fighting with the physical weariness that sought relief in sleep. But he fought it out to the bitter end until convinced by her stillness that she had at last fallen into a doze. He turned and went toward her, unbuttoning as he went the fur-lined coat Adventure which all night had secured for him a cer- tain degree of protective warmth. She looked like a forlorn little kitten, curled up in the insufficient covering of rug. Deserted by all her waking dignity she looked very little and helpless. As he slipped out of his coat, the frozen breeze struck him with sudden sharpness. With stealthy gestures and a gentleness as skilful as silent, he spread the soft, thick, fur garment over her. As he bent nearer to arrange one sleeve as a screen between her face and the cold fumid breeze, his lips twitched in a little involuntary smile. For she turned peacefully against the furry warmth with a little childish noise of satis- faction. ‘‘M-m-m,”’ she murmured contentedly. The little involuntary acknowledgement, ambiguous though it might be, brought to Stuart’s heart an odd, tender pleasure. He stood a few moments looking down at her, and then, with a quick shrug of his shoulders—the meaning of which involun- tary action he hardly himself understood— he turned away. The cold was making him bitterly uncomfortable. Up and down he tramped till he had worn quite a path in the snow, swinging his arms to keep the cold blood moving in his veins. In staggering, misty shapes of white the fog-wreaths swept seaward past him, like the ghosts of long-drowned men returning to their graves. Alone, loomed and towered the faint out- lines of Sigurda. Through the clouds below him the straw-colored sun burned its grad- ual way. Like a curtain slowly, steadily withdrawn, the vapors shivered and melted farther, farther away. The high promon- tory that guarded the mouth of the fiord appeared first, faintly gray, then deepening, glistening black. Beyond, as the misty veil dissolved and lifted, stretched the whiteness of the sea. STUART took in his breath. “By the Lord Harry!” he cried sharply, and he stared again. That wide, white floor below him He stood staring. The rent clouds above his head at last disclosed a glimmer of blue and the mists vanished. As far as he could see toward the enwalled horizon stretched high-heaped fantastic waves and peaks of rigid white, of fixed and icy green. “Stuart!”? The voice came abruptly, COmiclbook C©