Adventure Magazine Cover — page 144: what you’re looking at

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

138 words—made it seem nearer and more possible somehow. ‘“‘But—but we’re American citizens,’ he protested weakly. Morgan considered. “Might help,’ he decided, “if there was any way of getting word to the Foreign Relations Committee at Moscow. Of course there’s always a chance that that guy on the train will put it through.” ‘What guy?” asked Barret hopefully. “That American. Just as the train pulled out.” Dimly Barret remembered an excited face at a carriage window—remembered hearing Morgan address it. In the strain of the moment it had made no impression on him. ‘“‘T guess maybe you was too shook up to pay him any notice,’’ Morgan suggested, noting his blank look. ‘‘There was an American on that train. He hollered to know if I was in trouble. I told him yes, but that was all I got a chance to say.” “But he’ll take it up when he gets to Moscow,” insisted Barret. ‘‘He’s sure to.” ‘‘Well, maybe—if he happens to think of it, and it ain’t too much trouble, and he don’t figure he’d be safer not to mix in.” “Of course he’ll take it up,” Barret as- sured him. “It’s bound to be all right.” “Why should he? We ain’t got any- thing on him. And believe me it’s a fool’s game mixing in in Russia. Dangerous.” ‘“You don’t have to tell me that.” “Well, whatever comes we’ve got a coupla beds,” remarked Morgan, stretching luxuriously on the hard, narrow cot. “‘Gee, it feels good to get in one again. I ain’t slept in a bed in a month.” “But where——”’ ‘“Box-cars—on the ground—anywheres that I could keep away from the police. I’ve traveled better than a thousand miles in that time too.” “What did you do to get the police after you?”’ Barret asked the question with some trepidation. The general hardness of the man’s appearance and talk, the narrowed eyes and sharp sardonic features disquieted him. He might, Barret believed, be capa- ble of anything. “They got tired of me and run me out.” The tone was brusk, almost offensive. Nevertheless, Barret. persisted. “But why?” Adventure Morgan shot him a sharp, suspicious glance. ‘“‘What’s it to your” Barret flushed and turned away, sud- denly hot all over. It had never occurred to him that this man could take him for a spy. “I beg your pardon,” he said icily, and was silent. For a moment Morgan watched him, his cynical eyes glinting from between half- closed lids. Then he laughed. “It wouldn’t get you nothing to dou- ble-cross me,’ he said. “TI’ma fool, and I’m sorry. I’m just so used to being careful.” — “Don’t mention it,” Barret told him stiffly. “Forget it. They claimed I was a Count- er Revolutionary, if you want to know. Sheer bunk. It wouldn’t have been worth my while. My own game was better.” For the life of him Barret could not stay angry. The man was such a frank, en- gaging scoundrel that he could not resist his advances. : “What was your game?” he asked curiously. ‘““Me?_ I was commissar at Nirdof.”’ If he had exploded a bomb, Barret could not have been more thunderstruck. “Commissar? You?” he managed to gasp. “Well, I'll admit that I don’t look much like one now,’ Morgan conceded, glanc- ing whimsically at lis soleless shoes and ragged trousers, ‘‘but since they chased me out of that job they’ve kept me moving pretty fast.” ‘“‘But—but a commissar! then? A Bolshevik?” “If it happens to suit.” He laughed cynically at the dismay in Barret’s round, pink and white face. “I guess pretty near everybody’s politics depends on what thev’re going to get out of it. When the revolution started here it looked like pretty good pickings, so I came over to ride it a while. And believe me I rode it right while the going was good.”’ “But man alive, you don’t believe this sort of thing is right?” “Forget it. There’s only one thing that’s You’re a Red, right, and that to stay on the band wagon as . long as it’s moving.”’ “And you thought the Counter Revoe 9) * lutionaries C© MICLOOKS ©