Adventure Magazine Cover — page 135: what you’re looking at

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

Gentlemen of the N orth broken into song if I had not quieted him. I set off, making my way toward the center of the pandemonium which seemed to focus around the corral. Lights were now springing up in the open places, the naked children dancing and piling on fuel and looking like so many devil’s whelps. Before I reached the corral the village was well illumined. I met Choke-cherry, who bawled out something I could not have understood even if I knew his language. But as he carried a gun and had his mouth stuffed with balls, I assumed he was ex- pecting an attack from the Cheyennes. He caught my arm and led me to the door of a hut and ordered the mob to stand one side. As the command was obeyed I looked down a narrow lane of humanity and beheld the two Assiniboins. They had been killed with a knife, and both were scalped. I slashed my fingers across my wrist, the sign for the Cheyennes, and he nodded. He stopped to harangue the crowd and I worked clear of the shambles and hurried on to the corral. I reached the corral and was startled to behold a line of mounted men riding down a slight rise and toward me, being well within the light of the many fires. Al- though they were continually descending the rise, the head of the line never reached the corral. I watched for a minute, greatly puzzled. Then a stentorian voice rose with such tremendous volume as to carry a great distance. It was repeated several times and was answered from the center of the village. In another moment several Indians came running by the corral, [2] one of them swinging a torch. I recognized Choke-cherry and the Pillager in the group. I called out to him and I knew he heard me, yet he kept on with the others to find the man with the loud voice. Knowing he would return when he had finished his errand, I proceeded to pick out our animals. As I led them out of the enclosure a warrior caught my arm and pointed interrogatively at the nags. open plain and then made the sign for Cheyenne and indicated I was taking the horses into a hut. He nodded and hurried on. I started to lead them away and a hand fell on my shoulder, and the Pillager was wrenching the halter ropes from my hands and hurriedly driving the ponies back into the corral. “Why do you do that?” I demanded. “Bad medicine at work,” he gloomily answered. ‘“‘Le Borgne comes back from the hunt. Did you not hear his voice? When he heard the noise in the village he knew something was wrong and has thrown a hundred of his hunters around the village with orders to shoot any one trying to leave it. We must stay.” Without a word I followed him back through the excited throngs. Some per- verse agency seemed to be thwarting us. Something of the girl’s strange fear began to assail me. It was not Le Borgne, for a ball from my double-barrel would nicely eliminate him. It was, rather, that the whole village stood for ruthless and brutal domination through physical strength. When I came to the hut, tapped on the door, and gave my name, I was confront- ing the hardest task I had ever encountered. TO BE CONCLUDED. ne : S A Sai ~ ae ; i oka” 3 4 COA ig 4 ~ no ( 6 Q paz ty Ps Cn yh . be ro MON iin ape. ol y ' 4A Mi KIS (ee cg eae O ed, j SLE Le e ( ew % I pointed out toward the com (@) ibooks.¢co