Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

Ambush “What do you think, Drummond?” snapped Carlisle feverishly. ‘‘Follow and be captured or try to run through the fire?”’ “Ba gar,” breathed his brigade leader, “she’s so hot I’m t’ink we burn to cinder. Still de smoke she seem to start close. Mab- be I be take wan look an’ see. If de rivaire be smokin’ for miles we nevaire do it. If she’s shallow fire mebbe we make de dash.”’ In an attempt to gage the depth of the conflagration Eugene leaped out upon the barricade, but as he thrust a bronzed face over the topmost trunk, another face was thrust into his from the other side, a brown- bearded, long-jawed plainsman’s face, weather wrinkled and alkali seared, the yel- lowed teeth jarred apart in a triumphant rin. : “Mason!” exclaimed Joan Wayne in an odd high-pitched tone. “By the Doom—yes, Mason!” echoed her father. And Carlisle, Drummond, Andrews, Mis- sowa and Waseyawin suddenly remem- bered him, one of the Missouri men, Wayne’s brigade leader, whom they had last seen in the grip of the Northwesters as they dragged him and his companions off to the cellars of Grande Portage. “Come on,” implored Mason frantically. “My pardners fired her back a bit to skeer them cusses off. ”Iwas the only sartin way we seen. Come on. Ye kin run through her!”’ The Missourian had an ax in his hand, and even while he implored he brought it into play upon the up-thrusting branches of the barricading trees, slashing a three- foot passageway down to the water level. There was neither time nor need to cut the floating trunks. At a command from Carlisle the whole brigade swarmed out upon them, the six canoes were whipped from the water, passed through the gap and launched on the other side. “All aboard!”’ shouted Carlisle. ‘‘Now —wet blankets on your heads and paddle like very demons!’’ He swiftly set the example, soaking a blanket overside and drawing it as a pro- tecting canopy over the girl, the priest and himself. “That’s the trick!” approved Mason who had tumbled in beside Wayne in Drum- mond’s canoe. ‘“‘ *fwould be a turrible sin to scorch yon ha-ar of Joan’s. It’s a short run, boys, but hot as Hades!” aI ¢ FLYING down-stream into the face ain of the flame, the heat struck them with magnified force, like a searing furnace blast. Either bank was a moving wall of fire, sputtering and shrieking in a medley of impish voices: flare of dry leaves, crackle of underbrush, sizzle of green pine- needles, pop of resinous knots, crash of half-consumed stubs and the patter, plop and hiss of embers ceaselessly raining upon shore rocks and river surface. And all these lesser voices blended as Separate notes into a symphony of vast volume, of awesome power, the Gargantuan roar of the fire giant bellowing a thunder- ous diapason. Carlisle felt the blanket on his head grow warm and commence to steam. He breathed in gasps in the stifling heat and smoke, the blood pounding so hard in his head as to make him dizzy. He wondered if Joan would faint in that inferno, and he blindly put out his hand toward her to re- assure himself. His fingers touched and closed on hers, burning fever-hot beneath the blanket folds. ‘“‘A moment more and we'll be through, Joan,” he cheered. Joan had one hand covering her mouth as an additional safeguard against the smoke, but her fingers tightened on his in answer, and the grip sent a fierce thrill through his frame. ‘“The devil!’ boomed the cavernous voice of Lewis somewhere behind. ‘We’re gaein’ doon!”’ At the cry Carlisle threw back a corner of the blanket in time to see Lewis’ canoe disappear suddenly, leaving its four occu- pant swimming with the current. The ter- rific heat had melted the pitch on the birch- bark seams, letting in the water as into a sleve. “Gae on,” Lewis urged. ‘‘Dinna stop for us. It’s muckle cooler swimmin’.” Before the man of the Hebrides and his Indians had taken a dozen strokes in the water, down went Hampton’s canoe, and twelve heads now dotted the river surface, diving, reappearing and diving again to escape the blistering breath of the flames. Lea’s craft, waterlogged and careening, promised to follow suit, but Drummond’s heavily-laden canoe still flew like an arrow, and the Factor’s canoe ahead, likewise heavily-laden so that its seams lay mainly under water, traveled as yet unharmed. —CORNIELO© S (C@