Adventure Magazine Cover — page 161: what you’re looking at

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

The Dragon’s Claw fresh cartridges into the chamber while stray bullets still sung and splashed above him. “TI don’t believe they’ve got more than a couple of rifles at that,” he told-him- self. ‘‘Now for the next move. I don’t believe they’ll try another rush—try and starve us out. I don’t fancy they are wor- rying much about those Chinks I’ve got corraled. Neither am I. I wonder how many miles are left in that yellow cayuse.” His half-formed plan crystallized as he went back into the tunnel and flashed his torch over the bunch of bound Mongols. One man he selected as close to his own build, though lacking in height. This man he shuffled back to where the rest of the horses were stalled and, at the muzzle of his automatic, ordered him to strip. The man demurred, and McNeill clipped him on the jaw with his pistol, putting him out. Then he deftly peeled off the dirty, unsavory clothes and reluctantly put these on over his own underwear, after investing the Chinaman with the outer garb of Neill McNeill. The battery of his torch was dimming, fast as he had worked, and it-flickered en- tirely out before he had finished. But he got the limping pony to the top of the shaft and the Chinaman with it. He had col- lected the few things he meant to take with him and now, with the wondering, hating eyes of the Mongol watching him, he crawled through the bushes fora last survey of the enemy, crawled back and, with almost the last of his water supply, unflinchingly scraped off with a dull blade all the sprout- ing red growth on his jaws. Then he surveyed the lay of the land. To one side, where, almost three hours before, Remsden and his daughter had made for the river, the fissures offered him ample cover. ‘To the other the land opened to a flat plateau sparsely set with dwarf growths. McNeill forced the Mongol to mount the tethered yellow pony that was in no way anxious to move, tied his feet under the animal’s belly and his wrists to the saddle- horn. Once again he slid through the bushes and fired a random shot across the cafion. The echoes crashed as answering bullets came wildly back. He cut the tether, headed the pony for the plateau, pricked it sharply on the flank and fired a couple of shots beneath it that sent it flying fearfully through the scrub bearing a figure in Euro- pean costume on its back, crouching to 147 avoid the missiles that sped toward it at long range, and then McNeill dived swiftly into the nearest depression and, making the most of his start, fled for the Chang-Li stream. At nightfall McNeill squatted by the wall of a hut. Outside its door the Chinese were gabbling the local gossip. The boat of Duk Sing had been stolen. Sing had found it gone when he started for the eve- ning fishing. ‘The boat had vanished, but a gold piece was lying by the tether picket, wrapped in a scrap of cloth. So Sing was lucky, for the boat was old. And Chee Foy had found two ponies with their saddles. It had been a great day, said Wong Lee, the headman. It was good to talk but he must be going, for the tide was right and they were waiting for his cargo in Peking. He envied Sing his luck; money was scarce. As Wong Lee started to go aboard his cargo-boat where the polers only awaited his coming, a figure came out of the darkness and asked in the dialect of the district for a trip passage. “Not free, oh Wong Lee,” said the pleader as the headman scowled. ‘For, by the favor of my aunt, I have some small matter of money with me, and the trip is ur- gent. Iam sick.” 3 There was a fire burning on an iron plate amidships of the long craft with its thatched cabin and high prow. By the uncertain light Wong Lee looked doubtfully at the stranger. The man’s head was bound up in filthy cloths that concealed all but a strip showing nose and cheek-bones. The brow bandage came so low as to hide the eyes. “What is thy sickness?’’ asked Wong Lee. ‘“‘And where is thy money?” “It is not catching. Lo, I have been suffering long from decayed teeth and the night air brings on the pain, so I journey to Peking to seek adoctor. Here is half of what I possess.”’ Out of the waistcloth in which his auto- matic was tucked away handily, McNeill produced some copper cash and two small pieces of gold. He held these out on a palm blackened with dirt. Wong Lee swept all of it into his own paw. “Get aboard,” he said magnanimously. “T will send thee to a cousin of mine:who is a mighty doctor in Peking. Pole, pole swiftly, ye doghearts, the tide runs.” As the cargo boat shot out into the stream, McNeill, glancing back, saw torches Gomichbooks.Gco me