Adventure Magazine Cover — page 34: what you’re looking at

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

20 without exception—the cleverest gamblers in the world, and though this is largely due to the fact that they are the most ‘crooked, they have the qualities of poise and bluff but, excepting the Cantonese, are not particularly distinguished for what in the Occident is regarded as courage. They prefer to meet a man from behind rather than to his face: a Saxon doesn’t feel that he has paid an enemy unless that enemy knows who has struck him to death; but a Chinaman’s soul, and the soul of almost any Oriental, is satisfied with poison or a blow from the dark. About noon Swanson came down. I don’t know what he was intending to say, but I imagine something indicative of surprize. He got his surprize from another angle. In about twenty words I gave him a calling down that he could not soon forget, pointing out that he was a fine fellow to put any faith in—to go to bed drunk when important work was to be done. Why had he not been on deck to meet Thompson and me when we came? Why had he waited until half the day was gone before coming near me? A fine fellow to have to trust! Where was Thompson? If he, Swanson, had not been drunk and asleep when we came he might have learned. Yes, I was the man that had loafed around in the Ship’s bar. I was also the man who was a friend of the bartender’s. I was the man who had “something on” Thompson; and I had impressed upon Thompson the need of taking me into the game. Swanson was invited to notice that Sam Tyler was on board; and he was invited to consider the matter of going on with the game under the new deal or trying to get out and save his own hide, in which case he would probably share the fate of the captain of whom we mu- tineers would soon dispose. The lookout had not told him Thompson came with me? Of course, the lookout hadn’t. The lookout knew nothing: he had said the mate was asleep, and I had known that meant in a drunken sleep, so the launch had gone back without Thompson coming on deck. Thompson did not intend to come on deck anyway: he would have explained from the launch. 7 Advensure The mate was mystified: but when I showed the maps, he realized that I had got pretty close into the confidence of Thompson; and if I had not intended to go on with the plot, why had I not carried my story straight to the captain? My procedure was a bit irregular, but effective. He was nervous, uneasy, but convinced. Besides, Swanson hated the captain. . What about Thompson? I suggested that Thompson had seen fit to sell out his interest in the plan to me; that certain persuasions had been made which appealed to Thompson as irresistible; that whenever I saw a good thing, I natu- rally wanted to share. “Ts it or is it not a go?”’ I demanded. He seemed to think I had the cards pretty well stacked; besides he wanted to even a grudge against the captain, and he believed in the map. A sailor always believes in a treasure-trove map. This one may have been genuine for all that I know. It was never used. So, all things con- sidered, and perhaps convinced that I would be as firm a leader as Thompson, he declared that it was “a go,” and offered his hand. I ignored the hand and told him that he had better walk a straight line. That made him angry, of course. But I had a better card up my sleeve than he suspected to keep him from trying to do away with me and getting the maps. “Look here,’ I said. “I know what is going on inside your head. Here are the maps—three of them. I have copies. I have concealed them. When you find them—the copies—it will be time to slug me over the head and drop me over the side. But not before. Remember, the copies— very accurately made—are all that is left.” With that I struck a match and burned the maps under his nose, while his mouth hung agape. “There are a half-dozen desperate fel- lows,” I explained lest his slow brain did not fully appreciate the peril in which I had placed him, “enlisted by Thompson on this boat. They expect to go after gold. The ship can’t be worked without them. You are their ringleader. If they find out you can’t produce the maps, your life won’t be worth a salted herring—and you can’t produce the maps if anything should happen to me. That’s all.” Gomichooks. co