Adventure Magazine Cover — page 92: what you’re looking at

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

82 supplies that would take us across the mountains and back to the Fort. He agreed without question of price. The only sign of life I got from him was a flicker of delight when he lighted up my present of stemmo. All the while I ate and talked, the back part of my brain was turning over the prob- lem of this chief’s eyes. Twice I got hold of myself, dubbed it the effect of tired nerves, and put the problem out of mind. And twice it crept back, persistent. This isn’t a mystery story, so I will lay down my cards now and let you help play the hand. Maybe you can win where I couldn’t. It came to me forcefully that his eyes fascinated me because I had looked into them before. His features were hidden by paint, and his hair was long to the point of shagginess. I had only his eyes to judge by, and they were ordinary warm, brown eyes. Instead of trying to force my memory, I let it run back over the years where it listed; and it took me to the deck of a whaler, twenty-odd years ago, at the mouth of Kunayuk River south of Victoria Land. I was slipping a revolver and carton of car- tridges into a man’s pocket, and wishing him Godspeed—in a whisper—as he went over the side. “‘Jim—”’ I leaned toward the fire and spoke in English—“Jim Stevenson, don’t sit there and look at me that way —— you!” The chief across the fire started slightly, but no more than any one would have done at the unexpected sound of another lan- guage. I couldn’t believe that any man could play a part like that without betraying himself. I had hit straight at him without sign or warning. “Your words are strange,” he said at length. ‘Will you speak them in my tongue?” Right then I believed I had made a mis- take. Stevenson was dead—I knew that; dead twenty years and more. Even if he were alive, it was impossible to imagine him looking like this painted and feathered head-man of a primitive Hare tribe. Yet, what put the idea into my head? Tired nerves? Maybe. ““My words meant nothing,” I said coldly. “But they were spoken for my ear,’’ the chief objected, and waited for an answer. “I thought you were a man that you are not,” I explained lamely. “How is that? Were not your words the Adventure words that one white man other?”’ “They were. man.” “How is that? How can a white man so resemble me? I have seen them, many of them, many years since, when the great canoes followed the whales in the coast waters. Yet never have I seen one that wore my clothes or spoke my language.”’ “If you have seen the ships that chased the whales, you will follow my words with understanding. When that warrior—’” I pointed through the tent-flap to a young buck of twenty-three—“when he was a papoose I was chasing whales on one of those great canoes. There was a head-man who gave commands to all of us. His name was Jodrell. There were three smaller chiefs, and I was one of them. There were five and thirty men. One of them was the man who—who made me address you with white words.” The chief nodded interestedly. He re- filled his pipe and puffed expectantly. The way he took to that stemmo—— “This man Stevenson was tall, as you are tall; and slender, as you are slender. Before he came with us on the ship he had been a wanderer among the many tribes of white men. He followed no single work, as other men do. He was like a leaf drifting with the current. Wherefore he was called the Drifter. 3 = “He was brought on the ship, out of a white man’s city, when he did not know his right hand from his left. Head-man Jodrell had need of another man to work. He had speaks to an- This other was a white a temper like a surly Spring silver-tip; so that his men deserted him just when the ship was ready to come up into these waters. So few were his men that his daughter went with us to see that we were fed as men who work hard should be. “But man Stevenson would not work. He would not lend a hand to the ropes and white wings that carried the ship along. He would not wash the floor of the ship with water and a stone. When the smaller canoes were lifted down upon the waves and dashed away after a whale, he would not lean against his paddle. When a whale carcass was tied to the ship, he would not help cut out the bone with which you foot your komaitiks. . “He said he had been brought on the ship against his will because a man had put cConiclool 1O)