Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 51: what you’re looking at

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

Ambush wh) WITH the throb of the trapped ‘a wild thing in her breast Joan sprang ‘ aside from his reach, doubled back upon him like an agile hare and raced for the gateway, firing as she ran. The North- westers still struggling to pinion Murdock and the other three Free-Traders, there was no one in the entrance to stop her, but Richelieu was gaining on her at every stride. She had on her snowshoes, and he, in moccasins only, outran her on the packed snow of the yard. The lurch of her run- ning caused her to shoot wild while Riche- lieu dodged and laughed jeeringly, strain- ing every moment to catch her before she left the palisades. Once, twice, three, four—five times she fired without effect. Then in the gateway she whirled, snapping the sixth and last shot in Richelieu’s face only arm’s length away. She saw his head flip back as if jolted with a fist. His body slumped, feet forward, on the snow and slid in against the open gate. Joan turned and ran with pal- pitating heart across the deep snows out- side. She knew there was not a Free-Trader left in Fort Wayne, no safety for her in her | own post. There was only one destination in her mind—Cumberland House. There was only one object of appeal—Carlisle. With him there was at least sanctuary from Richelieu and his wild crew, and, mag- nanimous enemy as he was, he would surely come to the aid of her father as he had done once before! Like the wind she ran, springing from the heel on the resilient webbing of her shoes, twisting her feet in the swing of the stride to clear her ankles of the fast-shift- ing frames, spurning the snow in white jets behind her. She looked back fearfully over her shoul- der to see if Richelieu had arisen again or if any of his men were following, but she saw nothing, heard nothing but the shout- ing and laughter in the Northwest post. The noise faded with the distance. She was alone on the cameo snows lighted faintly by the stars and a wan aurora that brightened the horizon to the northward. Cumberland House loomed ahead, the snow-roofed buildings crouching within the drifted stockade, rimmed by the black wall of the forest, and she pressed to the limit of her speed. As she swerved into the tram- pled path before the gate, another sound 49 beside the shuffling of her snow-shoes drifted to her ears. She paused, listening in the void of the frost, and immediately her wilderness- trained ears interpreted the other sound, a blending of toboggan creak, husky pant, snow-shoe crunch, whip-crack—the weird harmony of a coming dog-train on the trail. Wondering, Joan wheeled, staring out over the snow-blanketed ice, and under the play of the aurora she glimpsed it, revealed, concealed and revealed again by the flash- light flares, the whole train imaged against the pallid background like a painting of the Northland wastes. She caught the impression in its entirety, the long, winding furrow dotted with the loaded toboggans each exactly alike except that the more distant diminished in size; the track beaters ahead of the dogs leaning forward on their smoking shoes; the strain- ing, steaming, six-dog teams; the drivers on the run, their whips writhing through the air; the armed guards with rifles slung upon their hunched shoulders. And the figure in front of all, tall, big of frame, flattening the drifts with great seven-foot snowshoes cut long and swift in their lines for open-river work, seemed to her vaguely familiar. There was something in his poise of body, in his stride, in the way he held his head, looking straight forward under the hood of his capote that insinuated itself into her consciousness. With a flash of enlighten- ment, illumination of brain or heart she could not tell which, she suddenly knew him. Even under the furred capote she knew him. “Paul, Paul!’’ she cried, and dashed down the snowy bank toward him. CHAPTER X THE RED DEATH “You, Joan,—now the God of North- }?? men is good!” exulted Carlisle, catch- ing her hands and bringing her to a stop upon her coasting snow-shoes. “I was never dreaming is But his gauntleted palm had closed upon the hard steel weapon in her grip, and his tone changed. “Good heavens, What’s wrong?” “Oh, come quickly, Paul, you and your girl, what’s this? COnniclooo S (C@