Adventure Magazine Cover — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

Two bear on the captain’s back between his shoulder blades. “IT couldn’t miss, at fifty yards,” he said. His finger tightened upon the trigger, then relaxed, and he dropped his hand at the same instant that Jem sprang to stop him. “Now what would I be doin’ that for?” asked Black Michael, puzzled to find a rea- son for his own actions. ‘‘What would be the use 0’ shootin’ : “‘No use at all,” said Jem quickly. “And what difference does it make that we lost the thing, anyhow?” They stared at each other with puzzle- ment in their eyes. Black Michael put down the revolver and snatched a pair of binoculars from the binnacle case. “Y’m wonderin’—” he murmured as he put them to his eyes. He saw their mysterious visitor drop from the Hawk’s rail to the deck, pick up a bundle of clothes and go aft with them under his arm. He climbed the bridge lad- der and disappeared, but a voice, a clear, cool voice with a chuckle in it, seemingly coming from the wing of the bridge, called to them: “You darn fools! Why didn’t one of you think of doing that before?”’ “IT think—” muttered Black Michael, “Tt think—no, I dunno——”’ Wondering, he stood staring across the moonlit waters. Fools 43 JEM McCLONE came out to the <x on early the next morning. “You, Michael, come on deck,”’ he — down the companionway. “Look,” said Jem, as Michael’s head came above the hatch. He pointed seaward. The Hawk was gone; and far out to sea a streamer of black smoke lay on the horizon. ‘“‘Now who’s goin’ to take my coffee?” demanded Jem. Black Michael scratched his head and tugged at his beard in perplexity. “Well,” he said at length, ‘“‘the Gannet’s near empty. Now——” ‘To be sure,” said Jem, nodding slowly. “Tf ye will. And maybe, now, we—we could kind o’ fix things up between youandme——”’ ‘And why not?” asked Michael. The wonderful diamond had been stolen, by a mysterious stranger who came aboard in the night and took it from where Black Michael had put it. So said Jem and Michael McClone to the men of Jacmel. And six of the Gannet’s crew, eye-witnesses, backed them up. The incident was closed. The men of Jacmel were satisfied that the joke had been played out. They wondered, to be sure, but they kept their wonderings to themselves, and no longer did they laugh out loud when diamonds were mentioned. Breen, the consular agent, wondered great- ly, and he said to himself, with a laugh— “Some one must have put sand in their Cars, Go NOOK (C©@ 5}