Adventure Magazine Cover — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

20 “Brother Lassiter,” dried the revival- ist, “I’ll be resting in the bosom of Abra- ham when these here mountains are washed down in the bottom of the sea.”’” He looked up at the immemorial peaks standing dark against the star-powdered sky. The Stendill agent sat looking at the fel- low with his oily black hair gleaming and winking in the gleam and wink of the fire- light. He was warming himself by a couple of fagots—and forecasting his existence for zons tocome. The essential irony of it filled the promoter with a kind of melancholy. eal hope He forgives my sin, Brother Las- siter.”’ “I hope.so, Birdsong.” “I’m going to wrastle with Him in prayer tonight. Ill wrastle all night or git my answer. If He sends His miraculous power and helps me down into this bottomless pit tomorrow, so’s I can spread His holy Word, I’ll know He’s received: me as His child again. I’m sorry I displeased Him, Brother Lassiter.” The promoter allowed the conversation to lapse, and smoked a cigar to dull his thoughts for sleep. As the camp-fire died down, the promoter wrapped himself in his blankets and settled himself for the night. Birdsong got up and went outside to his prayer. The Stendill agent lay oe for upward of an hour, looking at the coals, watching sparks flare into tiny brilliance and die, listening to the drone of the colporteur’s prayer as he prayed never to die. Lassiter never knew quite when he fell asleep, or whether he fell asleep at all or not. It seemed to him that one moment he heard the colporteur outside praying, and the next, Birdsong was by his side, shaking his shoulder and flashing an electric torch in his face. Birdsong was undressed and evi- dently had been in bed. Now he leaned down and whispered to Lassiter that some- thing was bothering the mules. The Stendill agent got to attention with difficulty and after some blinking reflection managed to inquire what the mules were bothered about. The man from Yell did not waste speech, but aroused Nunes by flashing the light in his face. The Colombian sat up suddenly, gasping out— ““Sevores, she is innocent—do not im- agine——”’ The Arkansan hustled his companions Adventure into their faculties and bade them listen outside. The men listened. In the direc- tion of the mules they heard a queer scratching and a padded bumping. The New Yorker was not impressed that anything could be done until the colporteur opened the flap of the tent and motioned his companions to follow him. Lassiter crawled out of his blankets without enthusi- asm, found his shoes, then followed shiver- ing into the cold night air. I, one THERE was no moon. The con- saan formation of the lava lay uncer- eee tain in the starlight. The colpor- teur walked toward the mules playing his light in front of him. It illuminated the burned ground for twelve or fifteen feet, then faded into darkness. Lassiter shivered from the chill. Presently the three dark figures behind the spurt of light could see the bulk of two mules lying down. By this time all unusual sounds had died down. Lassiter was inclined to get back to his blankets. But with a countryman’s persistence, Birdsong stood switching his light here and there, looking for the third mule. | ““H-He can’t hobble far in his tether,” chattered Balthasar. “Yes, but he may fall over the cliff.” Birdsong turned his light in this direction and peered into the darkness. The three stood for several moments, listening, trying to locate the lost mule when with a sense of relief Lassiter saw the _animal’s eyes shining some fifty feet back toward their camp. He pointed it out. “Now we got to round it up careful,” cautioned the Arkansan. “A mule’s a plumb fool at night. Wedon’t want .it loping off that clift. We better spread out and git be- tween it and the jump-off.” The men accepted the directions and began a deploying movement around the stray. Lassiter kept his eyes fixed on the glowing points and knocked his shins against cusps of lava in the darkness. His climb the preceding day had made the inside of his thighs and his shoulders sore. He kept sidling around his quarry, mentally querulous of his discomfort, when he chanced to observe another pair of eyes glowing beside those of the mule. For a full half minute, Lassiter kept si- dling among the stones, so near asleep was he, before the significance of these new eyes DOOLK C@