Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 152: what you’re looking at

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

150 little dog feed at the right moment win many a race, and I’m jist goin’ to be ada- mant and bind on this bundle.” “All right,” Sark gave in, viciously jerk- ing tight the last strand of the gee-pole’s lashing, ‘‘you can have your way. It al- ways takes days and weeks to change your mind, and I’m sure not going to try to do it in a few seconds. Get out onto the creek ice there with your stakes. It’s two min- utes to six by my watch.” Not only by Sark’s watch, but by the watch of every man was it two minutes to six, for all who possessed watches had set them with the Gold Commissioner’s, and those who carried none relied upon their posted fellows for the time and moved with their fellows out to the starting-line. The starting-line was the middle of the creek ice. Fawcett had so ruled, and there were drawn up all the entries in a race such as the Klon- dike had never seen before. It was a sight that thrilled Sark and Bas- sett, old-timers as they were, a sight that set their blood pounding faster, their sin- ews all tingling and made them forget their late difference over the question of the dog- feed. Low-sunk like a snow-walled defile lay Montana Creek, hill-flanked, spruce- sentineled, along its twisted miles. A glare of brush fires beaconed its course, vying in brightness with the searchlight aurora and the blazing stars above. The flames played forth over the creek ice, reddening the stream from bank to bank and etching out the tense parka and mackinaw clad figures, stakes and axes in hand, hunched forward on the starting-line awaiting the signal to stake, and upon the sledges, bunched in places closer to the bank, ready to bear the stakers on their way. The dogs seemed to have imbibed the spirit of the men. They plunged and bick- ered and snarled, and among them the flash of fangs and the howl of fury advertised a rivalry no less keen. The second-hand of the watch Sark held ticked around on the sixtieth minute of the hour. It had almost gained it when he flip- ped the watch back into his pocket and stared fixedly at the tense line. Lucky Jess Tolume’s signal up at the head of Montana was too far away to be caught by the stakers at this point. But Captain Constantine, half-way up, caught it on the stroke of six, and the men heard his gun crack and Faw- cett’s answer down at the mouth like an echo. Adventure fee CHE line surged forward. As far as | ea Sark could see, both up and down the creek, there were scores strain- ing in the first strides of the race. The ice shook under their stride. They leaped upon the snowy bank as upon an enemy. Their axes flashed in the - firelight over the lower center stakes, and beyond the scores that Eric saw he knew there were other scores leaping like these as upon an enemy with their ax-blades swing- ing red in the flames and their souls ablaze in competition. He counted ten men in the dash for Bassett’s claim, three outsiders, Casino, five of Casino’s gang and Tom him- self. Tom and Casino were in the lead. Their axes fell together upon their first stakes, and they were off running side by side, glar- ing into each other’s faces like two bellig- erent huskies. Lurching along the line of the lower boundary of the claim, they disappeared in the darkness beyond the range of the fire. After them into the darkness and hard on their heels plunged Casino’s five friends. Once into the gloom, Sark could not gage his partner’s progress, but he had seen how the gang was heeling him and he began to have forebodings. He had a half-notion to rush off and back Tom up in the staking, but a wave of wisdom told him that he dared not leave the outfit. A tampering with the unguarded team or sledge might work worse disaster than a loss of time in locating. So all he could do was to sit tight and breathe a prayer after Bassett for a smooth way for his feet. Yet the way of Bassett’s feet was any- thing but smooth. Forty paces into the dark and just in a slight depression in the ground Casino’s right leg shot out in a foot- ball trip. Bassett stumbled over it, half fell, recovered himself and swung a blind blow at Casino’s head. His mittened fist took Casino behind the ear, but so far be- hind that the blow glanced off the tight- drawn parka hood. The muscular impulse of the swing pivot- ed Tom around when his fist glanced and completed his fall. He collapsed face down- ward into the soft snow. Four of his five remaining stakes flew from his hand, and his ax slithered after them. This in itself approached calamity, but greater calamity smote him every moment. As he attempted to scramble to his knees, COMmicboooks (CO