Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 77: what you’re looking at

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

Ambush your face was stained as brown as an In- dian’s. Do you remember?”’ “Yes,” nodded Carlisle, ‘‘I remember that masquerade, all right, and I remember how I cursed it when you came.” “Why?” she teased, ‘because it was so dirty?” ‘No, you cherished hypocrite, because I wanted you to know me asI was. I wanted to stand in the skin God gave me.”’ “Conceited thing!” Joan bantered. ‘As if that amounted to much! And as if I cared at all!” She fluted out her laughter freely as she darted down the Grande Portage slope of the trail, away from the reach of his im- pulsive arm. Graceful as a fawn she ran, breaking into song in the sheer joy of her surroundings and inner being, and Carlisle, his heart singing too in anticipation of the union and the reunion that was to be, sprang lightly after. They swish-swished in. their moccasins across the corduroy paths of the beaver meadows, over the small, bridged creeks, down the hundred-foot gulches that dropped like steps toward Lake Superior. Through the patches of poplar and birch and the heart of the grand pinery they descended, now slowly to a walk, now quickening to a run till they traversed the last mile of the long slope and came out into the clearing close to the Northwest post. As at Port Charlotte and along the whole length of the Portage, there was not a man to be seen. Yet men had been here not long before, for in the canoe harbor the re- covered fur sloop Otter and many big Rab- iscaw canoes from Montreal were tied, and upon the curving sand beach burned the evening fires of the canoemen. Breathing themselves while they waited for the others, Carlisle and Joan stared at the scene before them with the sympathetic eyes of children blooded to the wild. Afar surged the vast green expanse of Lake Su- perior gilded with the molten wash of gold spilled over the high, wooded mainland ridge where the Pigeon River brawled down to its rest on the mighty bosom, scrolled with its white-crested waves. Nearer at hand spread the channel, a mile and one-quarter wide, screened by the tree-crowned island that almost yielded to the primeval embrace of the mainland. As they had seen it a year ago, so they saw it now, the sheltering island with its rubble vo of great, gnarled boulders littering the beach, its long, sloping point sheering up and its rampart of bush standing solid above. Their eyes followed the amphitheater of the bay, a crescent sweep of shallow water, delicate green in color and clear as air, edged by a low, flat shore that was backed in turn by terraced Laurentian hills. Tier upon tier the hills rose as of old, the lowest three hundred feet in height, the highest over one thousand, covered with crowding forest of birch and spruce and pine thrusting out virgin arms to embrace the lesser island. Yonder was the natural barrier, the forty-foot cliff of rock walling the back of the level shore land and curving westward into the lake. Not a tree or a stone was changed or gone! Along the eastern side foamed the small stream in unvaried volume, and there, with- out addition or diminution the post build- ings crouched behind their eighteen-foot cedar palings with the gate fast closed, while the same tent villages and teepees and cabins dotted the eastern bank of the stream with the same cattle grazing on the meadows and terraces farther back. In the midst of their silent gazing they heard the feet of Wayne and Andrews and the packers behind, and with one accord they moved on along the path that led to the closed gate of the post. ©) son’s quizzical Welsh face peered ~ down at them over the top of the palisades. “By St. John, Carlisle!’ he greeted. “Art here, then? Had word of ’ee. Hast come in peace or in war?” “In peace, Davvy, old friend,” laughed Carlisle. Open the gate.” “Ha! Is good news,” grinned Davvy. “Wouldst not want tuh slaying of all with my own hands. Am all alone here.” Joan, Carlisle and the rest burst into hearty laughter as Thompson’s head dis- appeared from the palisades to reappear a moment later in the open entrance. “That was a bold front you put on for a solitary man, Davvy,’” chaffed Carlisle shaking his hand prodigiously. ‘‘I won- dered why Port Charlotte and the Portage were deserted.” “Word of thy doings came down tuh waterways,’ Thompson explained, ‘and EIGHTEEN feet in the air Thomp- CoOnnicloookxs ‘“‘There’s no need to trouble you. - (C@