Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 135: what you’re looking at

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

The Torch-Bearers “Rather a devilish poor play that. Now _ we're lacking a horse for the young woman.” ‘“‘We may be wanting four stout walls to hide behind until help can come,” I an- swered shim. ‘When we find my cousin we'll fall back this way. If the road’s clear we'll pick up that horse. If we’re hard pressed we'll take over the cabin.” “Evict the scoundrel? Entirely right. Now to find their beastly camp.” We swung around the cabin, still keeping in the woods, until we came to where the ground sloped down into a hollow. The laurel and eypress grew thickly to the edge _ of the slope, then ceased, leaving the ground bare of any coWering. Several camp-fires burning below informed us we had reached the end of our search. “Good ground for maneuvering his troops, with cover on three sides, ’? mused Posby. “He has the military sense. If the girl’s among those fires it’ll be Lord Harry’s job to get her out.” I realized this, and my spirits began tosink. On the north the woods encroached nearer to the fires than at any other point. To take the horses down the slope and through the woods would require too much time and caution and would more than double our chances of being discovered. So I told the captain we must leave our mounts there in the laurel and make the rest of the dis- tance without them. He cheerfully agreed to the wisdom of this, and added: “If we don’t find the young woman we won’t need any horses. We'll be like those old chaps who held the mountain-pass till all were well done in.” | . This sentiment fell in with my notions. If we didn’t get the girl out of Ganner’s clutches I for one did not care to ride back to Lynch’s Creek, but it was most generous on the captain’s part to feel that way. We hitched the animals with a long halter, so they might nose about and play at grazing and then began our forward movement in a half-circle. I do not think Ganner had any sentries out toward the north. So far as that goes the only sentry we were to see that night was the fellow at the cabin in the clearing. If there were any outposts we were very fortunate, or else they were very deaf; for we received no challenges; and at his best the captain was noisy at times and had a most reprehensible habit of profanely com- 125 plaining when he slipped on a wet root and fell. Without any alarms we made the wooded point nearest the fires and began estimating the number of the bandits. I counted twenty-seven and Posby counted thirty. Ganner was reclining near the central fire and I should not have picked him out very readily if not guided by a strange, whining laugh, the like of which I had never heard before. But there was no sign of the girl. Surely I would have surrendered all hope had I not recalled the talk between Ike and Bill down the road. Both had spoken as if the girl were alive. But if not here in camp, where was she? “What was that thing on your left?” whispered Posby. ‘Looks like a small house.” It was near our position and sharing our concealment of the night. Had it been be- tween us and the fires we would have sighted it at once, but being at one side it would not have been surprizing if we had not dis- covered it at all. “Tt’s a cabin!”’ I told him, my heart filling with hope. “The girl’s there!”’ “Then we’re wasting time among these bushes,” he replied, preparing to advance and investigate the cabin. 3 I restrained him and studied the cabin with a new fear. While it was the only place in the hollow where Elsie could be concealed from our view, I could discover no guards about the structure. .A stout cabin, securely fastened, might need no guard, but Ganner was not the kind to take any chances, especially when the prize was Elsie Macson. I led the way until directly behind the squat shape and was disappointed to find it was even smaller than I had supposed. Posby was much ruffled wien I insisted he remain behind and allow me to scout alone. Quitting the growth, I crawled toward the fires, practising some of the woodcraft I had learnéd in my boyhood among the friendly Cherokees, who were ever visiting my uncle’s plantation. I needed but little cun- ning, however, to crawl two hundred feet. There was none of the band near the struc- ture and I made the distance rapidly. Even before I gained one end of it I knew it had been used as horse-hovel. Risking vagrant rays of light from the fires I rounded the cor- ner and found the front open to the weather. Thus were my hopes dashed. My heart oO eComiclbooks ©