Adventure Magazine Cover — page 97: what you’re looking at

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

Flatfoot Strategy with every “yah!” Gillen’s head bumped the ground. Then the gang came swarming about us. Great Heavens, it was about time! Given another half-minute, Snoots would have beaten his brains out! It took the combined strength of about a dozen arms to break Snootful’s hold. After that it took three big huskies to hold him while Dixie and I were reasoning him back to his senses. And not until we’d been buzz- ing in his ears for a half-hour did the mad red leave his eyes. Even then he continued to eye us with suspicion. He walked away from us, presently, went over and sat down on the stoop of the doc- tor’s shack. “Dawg-gawn!” Dixie ejaculated. “He must be some het up when he don’t feel that hot boa’d undeh his skin. Hot dog! I couldn’t hold mah hand on that step fo’ two seconds—an’ he’s sittin’ hisse’f right down on it in his ba’e skin!” Meanwhile Gillen had been carried to a nearby tent and stretched out ona cot. It took the doctor nearly an hour to revive him. During that time the twenty or so of us ganged about the doctor’s front stoop received various rumors from different phar- macist’s mates coming out of the tent. First it was a fractured skull; then concussion of the brain. Gillen would live. He didn’t have a chance in a million. If he did live he would be a lunatic for the rest of his life. He was dead. He’d be all right in an hour or so. Finally Doc came out and slowly ap- proached us. His face was drawn, grim, and his eyes were fixed on Snoots, who still sat on that red-hot step. “Bennet,” he began, ‘what were you try- ing to do, pommel that fellow’s brains out?” Snoots scratched the back of his neck and replied— ‘“‘No-doubtly I was, sir.’ Fim.” . Doc grinned. “Lucky for you that —— gave him a skull of armor plate. What was your idea?”’ “Well, sir, when I sees you pullin’ them handcuffs I figgers ’'m no-doubtly headed fer over the road anyway, so I might as well make it worth while. I didn’t know you was wise, Sir, an’ only playin’ off. Dixie never told Breeze an’ me.” ““o,”’ spoke up Dixie. ‘Fo’ the reason that you and Breeze talk too much with you’ mouths.” A short silence followed. We all held OI our breaths. It looked as if Snoots was in for something. Doc’s face wore the grim aspect of a judge about to pronounce sentence. “You're a queer fish, Bennet,” he said at length. ‘Out of one mess and into an- other. Just when I was about to spring a surprize on you—give you the fun of put- ting the handcuffs on those two crooks— you had to spoil the whole show. And what did I tell you three weeks ago about keeping your hands off that fellow? Ehe” “But, si = ‘Don’t ‘but? me!” Doc pointed a long finger and his voice rose. “Lad, there’s more education for you in this little experi- ence than you’d get reading ethics and phil- osophy for the rest of your life—if you’ve got the common sense to see it. There’s just one fellow in this world you’ve ‘got to watch. Know whor” “Myself, sir.” “That’s him. And you’d better watch him! I don’t believe in hell, but I know there are penitentiaries. They’re hell-holes, lad. I was head surgeon in one for a couple of years, and I know. Keep away from ’em! Watch that fellow inside of Bennet! He came within a finger-snap of sending you to a penitentiary for life this afternoon! “You know—” He lowered his tone— “the only intrinsic difference between you and the ape is that you can reason and he can’t. That’s the wedge between you— reason. And all you do when you let your- self fly off into a red rage, is pul] out and throw away that wedge. Beat it now and get on some clothes.” morning and went aboard the sta- — tion-ship. A couple of weeks later we were transferred to the receiving-ship at Norfolk in one of the colliers. We got good treatment there. They gave us all the furlough we asked for; some of us got as high as sixty days. Snoots begged the doctor to try to get Gillen and Johnson off with straight kick- outs. But Doc would not haveit so. Said he: “Tf they were just a pair of ordmary thieves, I'd say yes, give them a chance. But a man who'll try to brand another with a crime, just out of petty revenge— absclutely no! They rate the limit. They’ll sweep navy-yard streets.” And they did—for three years. WELL, sir, we broke camp next oO COmiclbook (©