Adventure, August 1917 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

TZ he paddled away in the darkness and they went up the trail to the mission. When he turned into the slough and left the river behind, Joan’s clear voice came to him through the murmuring water at the foot of the rapids. As Wallace paddled slowly in the back- water toward his camp around a bend in the slough he experienced a queer feeling of un- rest. The dramatic conditions under which he had met Joan, his anger because of the risks she had taken, his fear for her safety combined with the fact that there was some- thing about her that he had never seen in girls he had known, had their effect, now that he was alone. But most disquieting of all was the reali- zation of the interest she had aroused, the desire to see her again, the persistency with which his thoughts returned to her. There was an attraction here more subtle than he had ever known, and as novel as it was subtle. It was all the more disquieting be- cause Wallace had believed that his future so far as women were concerned, was settled. There was a girl back in Detroit, a girl he had known since childhood, a girl he under- stood and who understood him. She was of his people, of his life. They had gone through school, through college, as com- panions. . There had been no engagement, no definite word of love. Hardly had there been a thought of love until that Summer when he had said good-by. Then, in that last interview, something intangible, unexpected, something more in- dicative of the future than of the present had come to him and made him know that when he finished the work at hand he would go to her and she‘would be waiting for him. It was as he had always thought love would come to him, a thing of slow growth which would in time reach down into the deepest roots of his being and come to mean more than life itself. So the thought of this girl had gone with him on his mission, had been with him more than usual as he sat through his evening vigil, and had begun to assume more defi- nitely the idea that she was his sweetheart rather than his companion. & 1X (4 NOW like a sudden shaft of bright ar sunlight after weeks of dense clouds, ma like a draught of strong wine to un- accustomed lips, Joan, typifying in every way the great wilderness in which ‘she had Adventure spent her life, had burst upon him. It troubled him, as it delighted him, but by the time he had reached his camping site he had - ascribed it entirely to the incident at the falls and believed that when morning came with its work, it would be forgotten. It was forgotten, but more quickly than Wallace had expected. He had purposely chosen a camping site up the slough so that his presence would not be known to any one passing on the river. When he had gone to the falls after supper he had left his guide, a half-breed he had employed at the railroad more than a hundred miles to the south, at the camp baking sour-dough bread. Each of the four evenings since his arrival he had done this, and always he had found Frank asleep in the tent upon his return. The fire was out, the camp quiet, as he stepped ashore. With a pocket-flash he lighted his way across the beach to where the tent stood at the edge of the brush. As Wallace lifted the flap he heard a moan from the ground at the right and instantly swung his light in that direction. Lying half under a thick clump of spruce, his arms thrown out, his head back, lay Frank, the half-breed. Wallace ran to his side, held the light in his face, felt anxiously for wounds or injuries. The man’s face was a pasty brown. The eyes were closed, the mouth wide open. Clearly he was only in a stupor. Instantly, indignantly, Wallace was on his feet, prodding the body before him with @ vigorous toe. “‘Get up!” he commanded angrily. ‘‘Get up, you drunken fool. Where did you get anything to drink?” But Frank did not move, did not seem to feel the kicks against his ribs. His eyelids never flickered and he lay as motionless as before. Wallace repeated his commands, kicked harder, reached down and rolled the man over, but to no avail. Disgusted, angry, he turned and went to the tent. He threw open a flap, flashed his light inside and started to enter, only to stop and gaze at the confusion before him. Blankets were tossed about, packs opened and the contents scattered. Even his shav- ing-kit had been unstrapped and razor, brushes and soap shaken out. But it was not at any of these things that Wallace looked when he had sufficiently re- covered from the shock to act. His first move was to go down to his knees and reach cComicldook C© 5}