Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 72: what you’re looking at

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

70 Upper Country posts,” pointing them out with rapid stabs of his rifle muzzle, ‘‘speck- led through Richelieu’s crew like the pits in his face! And when my brigade leaders paddle in his pay, Carlisle, I ask you where in creation are my brigades?”’ ‘Sleeping under the green ferns, Ralph,” Richelieu answered swiftly before Carlisle could speak. “You cursed slime! there?” flashed Wayne. Richelieu stiffly shrugged his military shoulders. “Diablement, do I control the elements and the plagues? The Red Death raged, and the Red Death took whom it wished. Voila! It is the will of God. But my quarrel is not with you, Ralph Wayne. Non, nor with Mademoiselle Joan. I will have a word to your profit with both of you when I have finished with this cannaille Carlisle, broken his barrier and razed his post to the ground.” Wayne half-lifted his rifle stock to his cheek. “By the Doom—will you have a word with us?” Carlisle pressed Wayne’s rifle barrel down. “This is my business, Wayne,”’ he warned the Free-Trader. ‘‘Keep your weapons still. Get Joan back to the shore end yonder. She may be carried into the water if they try a rush.” Carlisle half-turned to enforce his re- quest on Wayne, for the instant lessening his vigilance, and in that moment of un- wariness Richelieu thought to seize the advantage. “‘Holal’”’ he shouted res to his brigades. “Form the line!” Who put them Wa LIKE lightning the paddles urged, the hindmost canoes drawing up on a level with the foremost, edging in, bellying sidewise, jockeying like race-horses at the barrier, forming an unbroken line from shore to shore. All in a second they executed the maneuver with two or three darting paddle-flips, and as the prows evened and still glided in swift motion, Richelieu waved them forward. “Charge!” he ordered and hurled them on with a violent gesture of his arm as if they had been a squadron in action. Like charging cavalry the canoes leaped ahead, like immense horses carrying many Adventure riders, the foam streaking from their noses, the spray spattering behind them, Richelieu towering in the bow of Todd’s craft as on the neck of a charger, leading them reck- lessly like the fearless soldier he was and whipping them to frenzy with the stinging lash of his tongue. Straight at the boom they reared, but Carlisle sensed their trick. A canoe’s length away, the whole array would swerve broadside on and spill the Northwesters out on the boom with momentum enough to carry all before them and sweep the Hud- son’s Bay forces into the water. Richelieu was shrewd enough not to mass his attack in one spot but to batter the whole boom simultaneously. His force was al- most equal to Carlisle’s and he knew that the swift rush of the canoes would dash his men upon the boom with a smashing impact that no merely stationary force could with- stand. It would be like a single line of infantry before galloping horsemen, over- ridden, crushed, shattered by sheer impetus. He knew that Carlisle knew it too, and he passed a quick order along the line. “Shoot once!”? he commanded. ‘‘Then jump for their canoes before they reach the boom!” Yelling demoniacally, the Northwesters were driving in, only a few yards distant. Todd’s canoe was surging fairly for Carlisle, Richelieu still upright in the bow, the flap- ping folds of the flag partly hiding his body but the ugly black-bearded face showing clear above, his mocking eyes gleaming over the barrel of the pistol he held in his hand. “Par Dieu, Carlisle,” he grinned. ‘“‘It is the end for you, the end of everything, the end of your strife, your Company, your dream of mademoiselle!”’ Carlisle did not trouble to answer. His own pistol in his hand, he waited, his eyés never shifting from Richelieu, his body slightly bent forward from the hips, his moccasined feet gripping the wet bark of the logs. When the canoes were still two paddle- strokes away he saw the muzzle of Riche- lieu’s pistol flip upward, caught the puff of smoke, heard the weapon’s bark, felt the wind of the silent lead through his hair and its burning groove along his scalp. Straight into the black-bearded face he fired, but the swaying flagstaff snapped, while Richelieu still grinned there, mock- ingly, sardonically, sighting his pistol afresh COnniclo@oo SS (C@