Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 147: what you’re looking at

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

Four of Them Were Foolish him from the distant field where he was cut- ting a second crop of grass. The rail fence creaked as the huge, quiv- ering frame leaned upon it. From his eyes, expressionless as currants stuck in dough, Lou gazed upon the dusty. road flowing east and west.% He saw before him a number of small stones; quartz, gray fragments of granite, pebbles rounded by the tides of many generations of iron shoes and hob- nailed boots. He lumbered over the top- most rail, squatted directly in the footpath, and began to gather together the crude im- plements of his sport. For perhaps fifteen minutes he was ab- sorbed in arranging the trifles in vague pat- terns, his flabby lips moving with the feeble simulacrum of whispered words. It was a muggy day, with a hot vapor which screened but did not mitigate the sun rays. Lou sat in the dust, the sweat running unheeded down his cheeks, the dirt caking to his moist palms in scales of mud. A curiously veined rock in-the ditch beside him attracted him. It seemed desirable to him; something to round out his formless pattern. Without rising from his haunches, he crawled dog- like on all fours through the young alders, to the bottom of the dry ditch. Far up the road a pillar of dust appeared, moving steadily and at a moderate speed. As it drew nearer, a watcher might have seen, one by one, four heads, and then ‘the upper parts of four sweater-clad bodies meving in the center of the dust cloud; and finally, bare, muscular legs ending in half socks and dirty sneakers. Spike Hallo- ran’s quartet was taking its regular morning constitutional. The little Jap acted as pacemaker, with ’Arry treading close to his heels. Next, the big Russian plodded stolidly on, chest out, his fists clenched. K.O. Mooney followed at quite a distance, not because he found the pace at all exacting, but in the hope of ex- changing a glance with Eunice while passing the Hulbert yard; which fleeting tenderness he did gnot wish to have his _ fellows note. He did not see her in her garden; but a little later he caught the brilliant spot of color made by her sunbonnet ribbons against the dark green of a berry bush. She looked. at him as he passed, and this time she smiled, a little contemptuously; but he was too far away to note anything but that she did smile. He waved a dusty 137 hand in return and lengthened his stride to come abreast of Sergius Stepoff. When the little ju-jutsu expert came to- the straggling lines of débris scraped to- gether by Lou, he did not recognize them for anything more than an impediment. Instinctively he shortened his stride and deftly scattered them with a sidelong sweep of his left foot just as Lou parted the alder shoots, having secured the pretty veined stone he coveted. He had not seen nor heard the four ath- letes, nor did he recognize them now. He had known that there were some men living in tents at the far boundary of his father’s farm. Tobe accurate, he had known it sev- eral times; for each time he had heard them mentioned, he promptly forgot all about it, so that every reference to them came to his rudimentary brain as fresh gossip. This is one of the advantages of being an idiot. Each morning creates a new world, and each night destroys it. He saw his beautiful creation despitefully scattered by the foot of a stranger. Witha swiftness that was uncanny considering his bulk he rose and darted forward, uttering strange, incoherent howls like those of a fret- ful child, greatly magnified in volume. Ichyaga paused, and the cockney bumped into his shoulder. The Russian stopped, too. Asfor K.O. Mooney, he was still some distance behind. . A shapeless paw reached for the Jap, whose own hands shot out swift as twin cobras, and fastened upon Lou’s forearm. They were trained hands, to which the tear- ing apart of decks of cards and the bending of silver dollars were threadbare tricks. But on that great limb they could maintain no hold. It was like grasping a jellyfish which yields here only to bulge there. Frantically seeking something substantial to fasten to, the feet of the son of Nippon left the ground as Lou whirled about on his flat feet, arm extended. The momentum of three hundred and fifty pounds swung Ichyaga straight out, where centrifugal energy gathered him into its resistless em- brace, and, his fingers slipping, he whirled through the air end over end like a pinwheel. He landed light as a cat upon his :feet, but, still urged onward, one foot caught in a tough bramble, and he stretched his full length, his head fetching up splittingly against a rock. ‘Thenceforth he was no_ longer in the picture. COmicloo CN Up) (©