Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 69: what you’re looking at

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

Ambush 9 ‘So it seems, Wayne,”’ returned Carlisle quietly. “To my brigades?”’ “No, to the Northwest brigades.” “But what’s the difference? You close the waterway, and you stop all who travel down. By the Doom, do you think I will stand and by and see it done?” Carlisle’s gray eyes looked steadily into Wayne’s blazing ones where he stood upon the end of the boom, and as he gazed, the Factor seemed to see back into those far- gone years which had molded the man so harshly. With strange occult vision he saw the pall of smoke and the sweep of pillage through the Wyoming Valley and Wayne’s long pilgrimage into the North with his child of four. He sensed the vision and dream that had lured Wayne in his loneli- ness to do what many another adventurer had failed to do, to blaze the trail of empire beyond the Missouri. Carlisle saw, felt the greatness of Wayne’s dissolving dream, and there was no emnity in his heart, nothing but regret and pity, and he laid an earnest hand on the Free- Trader’s arm. “On my honor, Wayne, this move has nothing to do with you!” he assured him. “You won’t try to hold my brigades, then?” flashed the incredulous Wayne. “You'll let them pass around when they come?” Carlisle hesitated, then nodded helplessly. “Ii—if they come,” he evaded, “I’ll put out no hand to stop them.”’ “Tf!” blurted Wayne. “What in creation have you up your sleeve? Do you think my men aren’t as loyal as yours? Just because some of the drunken curs joined in the rout like sheep when they got the smallpox scare, you needn’t class them all as that. Look at Mason. Look at Murdock, and the rest. Had you ever truer men under your red flag?” “No, none truer than those,’ admitted Carlisle. “None truer in all the world for that matter!” Wayne shrugged his shoulders darkly as he turned away again. “Then that settles it,’ he growled. “They'll come all right, and when they take passage -through here, they take it for all time, Carlisle. Either that or He finished his sentence with a shake of his head that was more sinister than any spoken threat. 67 Gravely, without answering his threat, Carlisle watched him striding back to the post before he turned to give final directions to his men. Some dozen he appointed to work in two shifts, walking the triple boom with poles in their hands deflecting the drifting ice so that it would squeeze under and leave the barrier clear. The rest he split into two camps to bivouac upon the benchlands at either end of the boom, ready at the coming of the sleepless scouts he had posted here and there all the way up-river to the Seepanock Channel. There was nothing more to be done but wait. The long twilight of the Northern evening had crept in upon the completion of the day’s work, and through the dusk Carlisle followed in Wayne’s footsteps back to Cumberland House. IN THE deepest dark before the Xe | dawn Wells’ scout Spotted Deer, a ead Cree Indian of tremendous endur- ance and skill, fell in upon him, breathless and sweating. “They come,” he grunted in Cree, spent with his running. ‘‘Many canoes. Many voices of white men, the French Company’s men singing to their paddles.” Instantly Wells struck fire with his flint and steel to the dry birchbark, heaped be- side him on the hillside, and blew it into flame. The flare was hidden by the bulge of the hill from any one up-river, but could be readily seen by an appointed eye in an ap- pointed place down-river. As Wells strained his eyes into the dark, he caught the an- swering flare a mile or two below, a bright flame and unmistakable but no larger than a handful of fireflies held on high by a spor- tive boy. Immediately Wells smothered his flame with earth, and far down he saw the second flare go out and knew that his message was speeding swifter than the swiftest bird. All the way along the Saskatchewan from island to island, from headland to headland, from hill to hill the red eyes glowed and winked out in the dark, and the last one glared for Waseyawin stationed upon the steep benchland above the Hud- son’s Bay men’s bivouacs. Swiftly Wase- yawin lit his torch and waved it in answer. The far spark died in the gloom. He dashed the torch into the soft muck and bounded down the hillside. COnnicloo@olK< (C@