Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

106 him. We're going to head them off.” “Howe” “‘By paddling across the lake while they’re driving around.” XII SHE led the way down to the lake where her canoe lay and Tom was pleased to see that the craft was a long and broad, stanchly built and decked over fore and aft. The paddles were not the light cedar playthings of vacation- land, but good, tough hickory, too heavy for the unmuscled to wield, but just the material for a woodsman to swing his weight against with confidence. Like most short, broad-shouldered men Tom was a better man in the stern of a canoe than many a taller and larger man with the same experi- ence. As in chopping, where the small man of good chest is the equal-ef the giant, so in the test of a long canoe race, length of leg and frame are no advantage. Tom took his course from the stars and, catching time with the stroke of the woman in the bow, began to ply his paddle with the smooth, steady swing which lifted the canoe forward with the finishing flirt. He was surprised to find that he needed to give but an occasional twist to his wrist to hold the craft dead to her course, and for an experi- ment he eased up the drive in his stroke. When he found that her stroke swung the nose of the canoe toward his side he settled down to paddle at his top speed, for then he knew that for the start, at least, she was paddling as strongly as he. They passed the town, and the few lights still burning were put behind with remark- able rapidity. Only the stars now lighted a world of blackness in which water and shore-line blended in a formless void. Tom Pine, old and tender-hearted Ulysses that he was, paddled on without a word of further query, too sensitive to the pain in the troubled woman-heart before him to torture it with demands for explanations. He was no student of books that consider and explain woman as a phenomenon; he was not versed in the lore of those who dissect and analyze the emotions of her kind. He was only an old man who had lived out in the open all his life, and had kept his heart*clean and simple, and who there- fore perhaps understood more of what Adventure moved in the heart of Ada Adair than many wiser men. And because he under- stood he kept silence, letting the night and the stars and God’s peace of outdoors work their miracle of balm. He sighed silently, for in his old-fashioned code, woman was a being to revere and shelter, and it distressed him to know that one of them was unhappy. When the nervousness of her efforts di- minished and ceased, and he sensed—in the darkness he could not see—that the night was soothing her, he felt better. “IT was insane,” she said presently with- out turning her head. She was calm now, was herself again. ‘“‘It doesn’t seem possible —it’s like a nightmare.” “Yep; I know how ’tis,” chirped Tom promptly. ‘“‘When I was a young feller, helling around with the boys I used to fight my best friend sometimes, and when I’d come to I couldn’t believe it had happened. Yessir, miss, I know just how *tis. Not that I mean to connect you in any way, shape or manner with hitting the hooch, miss, you know that, and if I talk rough you’ve got to consider, as the feller says. It takes all sorts of experiences to make up a life, miss, and I guess most of us have woke up ‘to things that seemed like @ nightmare or worse.’ ‘“‘They aren’t fit to tie his boataces” she went on, “‘but I was crazy to get even, and they gave me the chance to do it.” “‘ ‘They’? Now if it ain’t asking too much, miss, could you tell an old feller who ‘they’ happen to be?” “The killer, the thugs who posed as detectives.” “Hm. Well, who got ’em to make the play?” She did not reply at once. “The only one I talked with about it at all was this thug, Carns, the bad man,”’ she said. ‘He came to me and tried to make me believe he was a detective. I told him to quit acting. Then he told me the truth—that he had a job to put Thorson out of the way for awhile. I didn’t ask him who gave him the job; I didn’t want to know. I wish now that I’d exposed him and the deal before you and the whole camp.” “Yes, but you see you didn’t, miss, and seeing that you didn’t you’re doing the next best thing right now. Now this feller, Carns, miss, is he a real hard one?”’ ‘“‘He’s a bad man, yes. A Western killer oO COmiclboo S CO