Adventure Magazine Cover — page 162: what you’re looking at

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

152 Just above him the pack-horses plunged and floundered, snorting in terror, almost buried from sight. Mason glanced up at his partner with a laugh. ‘‘Now ain’t this one sweet pickle?’’ he drawled. “For God’s sake, boy, quiet those horses before they start a slide!’ Bradley im- plored, his voice hoarse and strained. He took the coiled rope from his saddle and flung it down-hill to its fullest length; it failed of reaching its goal by twenty feet. : , if I only had a longer rope,” he groaned. “Don’t get excited, old-timer,” chaffed him coolly. Apparently quite oblivious to the terrible danger that threatened him, he picked up his hat, carefully brushed the snow from it and placed it on his head; then, with de- liberation maddening to the anxious man above, started upwards toward the strug- gling pack-horses. There came a sudden, shane crunching sound, and a long crack appeared in the snow just below the trail. In dumb hor- ror, Bradley watched it widen and the snow below it begin to move—the birth of a slide. The movement swiftly gathered speed. Mason made a run for the safety of the firm snow at the side, a dozen yards away Beiore he had covered half the distance it became impossible to remain erect on the swiftly moving surface. He fell, re- gained his feet, fell again; then resumed his - way on hands and knees in a desperate, floundering crawl. The churning, heaving snow beneath him offered no hold for hand or foot, and at last he abandoned his useless efforts, apparently resigning himself to his fate, resting quietly in a _ half-kneeling, half-sitting posture. The wind of his downward rush tore at his hat; he pulled it firmly down upon his head, holding it with one hand, and then waved the other in a farewell gesture to the gray-faced watcher staring down from the trail. In utter, terrible helplessness Bradley watched him go, and knew the memory of those tragic seconds would haunt him to the end of his days. One by one, man and horses slid over a rounded brink a hundred yards below and passed from view—first Blue, then Mason, and last of all the frantic pack- horses. Mason Adventure They passed from view—and that was all; there was no sound of falling bodies— they vanished into silence profound and terrible; and to Bradley this very silence magnified the horror of the thing a thou- sandtold. For ages and ages after that he sat hunched in his saddle, his vacant, grief- stricken stare fastened upon the spot where Mason had disappeared. After a while, scarcely knowing that he did so, he rever- ently removed his hat. The terrible sense of loss that gripped him stunned him to the uttermost depths of his being. Steve was gone; the lovable, boyish partner of long years had left him for all time. A sudden appalling vista of the future flashed before him—a partnerless life without Steve—and all the pent-up agony the heart of a strong man can hold burst out in two brief words. “Oh, God!” The rain beat down upon his unprotected head until his hair clung to his scalp and forehead in long, wet strings, and little streams of water trickled down his face -and neck, unfelt, unheeded. How long he sat there he never afterward knew, but it seemed for years. A sudden hail in a clear, familiar voice startled him almost out of his senses. He whirled in his saddle scarcely believing his ears and faced fearfully toward the sound. Steve was riding up the trail on Blue— Steve, on whom he believed he had looked his last—not only alive, but wearing his cheerful grin, his hat tilted back on his head at a jaunty angle that to his thunder- struck: partner signified that he was well- pleased not only with himself but with all the world. “For the love of Mike, old-timer, put on your lid.’ Mason called. ‘What you doin’, anyhow—givin’ your dome a shower bath?” Bradley, amazed beyond belief, sat his horse as though turned to stone, his incred- uous gaze fastened upon the approaching rider “Put on your hat—you’ll catch your deatha cold.” repeated Mason sternly as he. pulled up beside the other. Though Bradley complied, he continued to stare with eyes wide, jaw dropped, still dumfounded beyond the Power of speech. “What are you yawpin’ at? Why don’t you say somethin’? Mason demanded truculently at last. DOOK C©