Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 151: what you’re looking at

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

Salt Water and Gasoline and somebody struck two bells, I’d com- mence flapping my arms.” “It’s good for you,”’ said Danny soberly. “It certainly is,’? said Bud, once more running his hand over the picture of the automobile before he stowed it away in his ditty box. Although Danny Wallace did not know it, his advice to Bud Cantril was well timed, for Bud was soon to attain that milestone of adolescence and inexperience, his twenty- first birthday, and with it would come an inheritance of five thousand dollars and a month’s furlough. The morning Bud started away, Danny was the last to shake hands with him at the port gangway. “Look out for yourself,” he said, “and don’t go breakin’ your neck in any lands- man’s rig on wheels.”’ Bud smiled happily. one, Danny.” | “To be sure,” said ‘the other sagely. ‘Go on and have your fling at it, but we’ll be needin’ you to point the twelves again for the fall practise.” “To the discard with the big sulky brutes,” he said. “I want something with more pep to it.” Danny squeezed his hand a little harder, slapped him on the back with his free hand, and shoved him toward the gangway. “‘Go and get it out of your system,” he growled... ‘‘It’ll do you good.” CA Danny had a single post-card from Bud Cantril. The picture was of a low-hung skeleton-framed automobile, and underneath in Bud’s scrawl were the words, ‘“This is some boat, and she’s mine.”’ Danny countered with a picture of the new double-turreted Montana taking a green sea over the bow on her trial trip, and there the correspondence ended, while Bud’s furlough ran to the last week and then to the last day without his reporting aboard. Two days later the captain sent for Danny and asked him about his friend. “Cantril is two days overtime,” he said. ‘“‘How do you account for it, Danny? The boy has a clean record, and I don’t want to see him go wrong. Besides that, he is the best gun-pointer in the forward division, and we are out for the fleet trophy this year. If you know where he is, take_a week off and go after him.” “I’m going to get DURING the month that followed, 149 - Danny Wallace nodded briskly and ran his long sinewy hand through his short, slightly curling gray hair. “T’ll be ready by eight bells,”’ he said. “Good,” said the captain. ‘Use any means you think best.” ‘‘What that boy needs,” said Danny to himself as he went forward to prepare for the trip, “‘is a little seawater mixed with his gasoline. I’ve heard it’s like pitchin’ a marlin’-spike into the gears.”’ Danny Wallace had neither the time nor the inclination to change his uniform for civilian clothes, and when he stepped off the train a day later, he was far enough away from a seaport town for his uniform to be conspicuous. Without asking for it the information that he wanted was vol- unteered by’ the hotel clerk who gave him ~ a room. “Down for the race, huh?” chattered the obliging young man, as he took a siz- able chunk out of the gold piece Danny tendered in payment, since the only bag- gage the sailor carried was a tooth-brush in the lining of his flat cap, and a handful of gold pieces strapped around his leg. “Guess you’ve brought a little chunk of money from the old ship?P”’ Danny smiled cautiously, that kind of . a smile which can be turned into either yes or no, and the young man went glibly on. ‘Well, it’s going to be some race. ‘The talent pick Jack Hewitt to win. He’s driving that Sunbeam freak, but some of the boys say he’s afraid to let her out on a circular track like ours. If anything does happen to him, there’s Bobby Dutro in the Merz, and Harding in the Harmon. That sailor friend of yours has a new pea- green bus which he calls the Crackler. Some say it’s the speediest proposition that ever rolled over a track. Take it all round, it’s going to be a mad little whirl, and for somebody with the price, I know where there’s a pass good for the course, the pits and the grand-stand.”’ _ “T guess you needn’t go no further,” said Danny, producing another gold piece. ‘‘When do they break the flag?”’ “Two-thirty,” said the other, “but I’d get there early. Here’s your pasteboard.”’ Danny found Bud Cantril sitting on a bench near where half a dozen men in oil- splashed overalls were crawling over and under and around a gaunt high-wheeled machine paihted a pea-green war color with CoOMmiclsoo CO