Adventure Magazine Cover — page 101: what you’re looking at

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

Yankee Tricks double-whip bent to the starboard end of the Bruiser’s foreyard. The British crew, their mouths watering after three months of straight “‘salt junk,” looked down with amused interest at the Yankee and his two deck-hands as they fitted the patient but puzzled cow with a broad canvas sling. “All right!’ shouted the lean New En- glander. ‘‘Heaveaway!” — Up rose the astonished cow as a gang of blue-jackets hauled on the line. At the same instant, a three-foot strip of loosened deck planking, running from stem to stern along the sloop’s rail on the side away from the brig, was lifted and thrown aside by a mysterious imptilse from below. Up through the trench-like opening sprouted a long row of tall brass-bound shakoes, sunburned faces, high leather stocks, and broad shoulders tightly uni- formed in bottle-green. “Fire!”’ roared Lieutenant Noah Bloggs, commanding the Snapping Turtle’s marines. Bullets and buckshot swept the Bruiser’s crowded rail. Leaping out on deck, the Yankee privateer marines charged through the smoke, followed and accompanied by a swarm of seamen pouring up through hatch and companionway. out of the crowded hold.- Together they scrambled over the warship’s side, driving her startled crew back from their guns before they could cast loose and fire a single carronade.° But the Bruiser’s crew were a tough and sturdy lot. They fought with rammers, handspikes and capstan bars for lack of better weapons, till the watch below turned out with a cutlas apiece and another to throw to a shipmate. Outnumbered and unprepared, the English put up a plucky battle in the waist. Bayonets crossed with boarding-pikes, pistols cracked and blades clashed fiercely from fo’c’sle-head to poop. The British captain, pressing forward at the head of the rallying afterguard, came face to face with the tall, lean Yankee helmsman of the sloop. “Take that, you pirate!”’ “Sorry I’m not in uniform,” apologized Asa Swift as he parried the other’s thrust. “But I guess I can fight just as well in homespun.” “Fired before you ran up your colors— hang you for that!” retorted the naval officer, lunging in carte. “Showed you the color of our uniforms into the agitated eyes of the cow. OI before we pulled a trigger. Don’t you make fun of our marines’ private regi- mentals—my partner’s mighty proud of ’em. There! Guess you’d better give me what’s left of your sword, captain.” Swift’s heavy cutlas, skilfully swung, had snapped the Englishman’s slighter blade short off. “Take it!’ barked the captain of the Bruiser, hurling the useless hilt in his foe- man’s face. As Swift staggered back from the force of the blow, the other looked about him and saw that the day was lost. Except for the last stubborn stand of a few ‘“‘die-hards,” the fight was over and the brig in American hands. Before any Yankee could overtake him the English captain turned and ran aft and below to his own cabin. There he snatched up a small volume and hurled it out through the open stern-window. AS THE book left his hand, the e. thrower was thrust roughly aside. ssa! [ooking up from where he fell on his hands and knees, the Englishman saw a long, lean body in gray homespun diving overboard through the cabin window. Down dived Asa Swift, deeper and deeper, till his fingers touched and held the little book that had struck the water and sunk like a stone just before him. Up he came with aching lungs and a triumphant grin. ““Moo-oo!”’ said a protesting voice close beside him. “Why, hello, Sukey!” said Swift, smiling “You ought to be thankful you dropped into the water between the sloop and the brig, in- stead of staving yourself in on the gunwale when they let go the line. We'll pension you for life in a clover-field. It’s no use your trying to swim ashore, old lady. You're still fast to the fore-yard.”’ The end of the whip-line had jammed.-in one of the blocks, towing the indignant Sukey stern-foremost in the wake of the two conjoined vessels, as they drifted slowly to leeward. Catching the bight of the rope, Swift shouted: “Brig ahoy! Cow overboard!” Noah Bloggs, in the act of hauling down the British ensign, looked astern and nearly fell overboard himself, ‘“‘What in creation are you doing down there, cap’n?”’ NOOK (C©