Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 63: what you’re looking at

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

Ambush the post. It’s impossible to clean it and I can soon rebuild with plenty of logs at hand. “Ves, they must go out tonight. The other four bodies are in the fur-house. Andrews and I will carry them, of course, but—but could I ask you to make things ready out there, Carlisle?” “Ves, Wayne, yes—certainly!” agreed Carlisle. “T’ll go right over to Cumberland House and get the men. You'll have time to eat your dinner before we’re ready.” “Thanks, Carlisle. I haven’t much appe- tite, but I can’t refuse what my girl has prepared. And you’d better stay at the post, Joan. You’d better not come into the forest. It’ll be no sight for young eyes like yours!” “Still, Vl come, father!’ declared Joan. “T would always regret it if I didn’t. I loved them all, just as you did.” “Well, well, whatever you think, girl!’ he nodded, turning back into the post. ‘In about an hour or so!” THE dance was swinging, the music ~*~ thrilling, vibrant, lusty, care-free when Carlisle and Joan returned to the trading-room of Cumberland House, but a word to Galt and the shuffling feet stilled, the violins ceased with a whine of protest. Seizing their outer garments, the men followed the chief trader, many taking torches and axes from the store. Lewis, at Carlisle’s request, put his bagpipes under his arm, and all poured out across the snow to the big clearing in the woods where the Winter’s fuel had been gathered. There they set to work under Galt, lay- ing dry branches in layers, each layer cross- ing at right angles the one beneath as in the end towers of the near-by piles of cordwood. Upon the branches they heaped the cord- wood itself, lengths of dry, dead birch and resinous pine, slivery, pitch-soaked, ex- tremely inflammable, bulking hugely high above men’s heads. When the work was nearly finished Joan and Carlisle crossed to the gate of the Free- Trade post to tell Wayne all was ready, but he and Andrews were at that moment coming out of the fur-house doorway which Richelieu held open for them. The Northwester could see the two at the entrance, but he offered no_ greeting. Silently he held the door out of the way and shambled up the steps, with an ax handle used as a cane to support his weak limbs; 6I closing the door again when Wayne and Andrews inched forth their pole stretcher with the long, still figure upon it. “Is he coming, father?” whispered Joan. “No, thank Heaven!” gritted Wayne. ““He says it’s too cold and too far for him to _ walk.” Five times they made the out trip, four times the back trip, before the row of bodies upon the pile of cordwood was complete. Then Carlisle’s men touched torches to the bottom branches in many places and step- ped back as Andrews began to read the burial service. The flames mounted and grew, redden- ing the snow, silhouetting the forest trees, painting the white and Indian faces staring up at the five fever-shattered, pox-pitted, rigescent bodies of men who had been true. The world turned back a thousand years, and like a pagan crowd of ancients the motley horde of Northmen watched the funeral pyre blaze. Men and women alike thronged about, all of Cumberland House, all of the Cree Tribes, even the old squaws whose mission it was to tend the fires in the bivouacs. The only two souls missing were Richelieu shut up alone in Fort Wayne and Burning Cloud guarding its open gate. Andrews’ ‘‘Amen” rang out sonorously. Across the momentary silence that followed trembled the throbbing of the fire, Joan’s stifled sobbing, the weird of Lewis’ dirge, the wailing death chant of the Cree women, while overhead sounded the solemn harp of the aurora, some unseen Hand pulsating its golden strings! ‘““Hoo—ah—h—h! squaws quavered. They mourned these true men as they mourned their own dead of the tribes, and their wailing shrilled eerily in the ears of Wayne and Andrews, of Joan and Carlisle, plodding back in pairs toward Fort Wayne. Hoo—ah—h—h!” the Seo) OF THE four Carlisle was the most Ny mentally alert. His was the first VAS observant glimpse of the Fort Wayne gate, and as he glimpsed it, he gave a star- tled exclamation and leaped forward in front of the others. No tall dark form showed in sentinel pose in the opening, but prone upon the snow lay the sprawling figure of a man. “Burning Cloud!” burst out Carlisle as he bent over and examined him. “Stunned with an ax handle. Look—there it is beside him in the snow!” CGO 1OOOLK (C@