Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 155: what you’re looking at

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

The Relocation of Montana Creek It was for this last-named contingency that Sark and Bassett were especially on the look-out, as at the first subdued lumin- osity of day they drew up on the six lead- ing sleds. Five of the sleds had but a sin- gle occupant. Casino, still in the van, had Gunboat Kane as his running-mate. In the conception of chechakos, in the rush a lone driver seemed to have the advantage, but old-timers knew better. When trouble came, a running-mate to ward off collisions and help hail the dogs through ticklish spots was a great asset, far more than counterbalancing the handicap of his added weight upon the sledge at times. Also, a man erect on the tail-rope was in a superior position to observe the situation ahead than the driver lying down. Sark held this position on the tail-rope as they inched up on the hindmost sled just at the mouth of Jim Creek on the right limit of the Yukon. _ “Be careful if you pass, Tom,” he warned. ‘“‘There’s an ice jam here.”’ THE hindmost sled was to the left of the jam and well clear of it. There was plenty of room to pass between, but the moment Bassett whipped his dogs into the passage, the other team veered sharply over. “Look out! He’ll wreck us!”’ yelled Eric. Their sled was gliding at full speed, but Sark reached for the rocking runners of it and slewed the rear of it about. And even in the second of warning Bassett had vault- ed off at the front with the haul-rope in his hand. He jerked the opposite way from Sark. The sledge slithered sidewise around and flicked the huskies off their feet alongside the upper edge of the jam. By the barest fraction the abrupt stop saved them. The veering team ‘bounced to one side of them, the evil lead-dog slashing Eric’s leg in its course, and the outfit crashed into the sharp up-ended nose of the jam. “That was a swift stunt, partner,” laugh- ed Sark, staring a second at the broken- backed sledge, the cursing driver and the battling dogs. “The beggar git you deep?” asked Bas--. sett, solicitously, as he straightened out his team again and felt if his bundle of dog-feed was safe. He pointed to the blood which trickled down his comrade’s moccasin onto the packed snow. 153 Sark put down his hand. His gauntlet came up dark-wet and warm. “Not too deep,” he grunted. The odds are only five to one.” The other outfits had marked the fate of the one which tried to run Bassett’s sled into the jam. They tried that trick no more, yet they uncovered one which ap- peared equally effective. As Tom’s string glided up, the two rear- most sledges bumped close on either side of him, their lead-dogs’ noses even with his leader’s, their wheel-dogs’ brushes waving in a line with the brush of his wheeler. “Go on! “Sandwiched, Tom!’ ejaculated Sark. “Watch your balance mighty careful and get out if you can.” Bassett whipped hard, but he could not shake the flanking outfits. They hung onto him grimly, so near that he could have touched them with a stretched arm, inching in and inching out with nerve-tensing feints and always steering him over the roughest spots in the river’s surface. In the corrugated reach in the middle of the Yukon where Ensley Creek had vomited forth mush ice at the time of the freeze-up, both sleds by mutual consent swerved vio- lently into him. The shock of them, thrust- ing to a common center, counter-steadied each other, so that they suffered nothing but a swift outward slewing in recoil. But with the partners’ sled it was differ- ent. Caught on both quarters by the im- mense driving power of outfits which, dogs and all, weighed nearly half a ton apiece, their sled was catapulted straight up in the air. It came down on its side on the ice, but Sark and Bassett, hanging on to it, and twisting like cats while in the air, lit upon their moccasined feet and, running with the sled as the dogs dragged it along, quickly righted it again. Sark kneeled as before on the tail of the sled, Bassett put his hand into the bound bundle on the front to see that his dog-feed was still in place and whipped after the of- fending outfits. Thrice more those outfits turned the trick between Ensley and Cari- bou Creeks. Thrice more the partners’ sled bucked into air. Thrice more they flipped it upright again, and after every mishap Bassett felt for his dog-feed while dashing on. ‘““You’re plumb solicitous about that feed, Tom,” observed Sark, sitting on the sled while he bound a handkerchief around the CoOMmMichoooks CO