Adventure Magazine Cover — page 116: what you’re looking at

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

‘I14 outfit, having bought safeties carried in waterproofing, with a flint and steel for emergency. “Might have been a native,” said Rey- nolds doubtfully. “But they ain’t apt to have madhsi, as they call ’em, way out here. When they get any from a white man they usually burn ’em up like a kid does fireworks, right off.”’ ‘Think some one’s on our trail? about the gold?” _ ‘Whoever it is, they’ve got blacks with ’em,’’ said Reynolds. ‘““They’d never make it on their own. It may be all a false alarm but we'll find out as soon as we get in the sand. The blacks ’ll keep ’em out of sight but, if we leave camp and circle round back to it, we’re liable to find better trail: I don’t like it.” They were down to bush-fare now, finding the ration fairly well balanced and supplying sufficient energy. They had corned beef and some canned mutton that was almost tasteless as meat and came close to the epithet of “boiled rag’’ that Reynolds bestowed upon it. Slices cf this with damper, fresh made of flour, salt and water, baked in flat cakes in red-hot ashes, ex- cellent when fresh, washed down with tea brewed in a pannikin, made the staple meal topped off with tobacco. They had a few cans of tomatoes and of peaches and greengages which they hung on to for emergencies and when their crav- ing for sweets became overstrong. They made no bower huts but slept on a water- proof under woolen blankets with one or two boughs stuck up at their heads—when they could get them—a trick insisted upon by Reynolds who said it would prevent them from inhaling the dew which was apt to be malarial. It was a bushman’s trick. Then the desert opened before them. Comparatively level sand set with clumps of spinifex, or porcupine grass, needle-pointed, the spikes often crossing blades and forcing them to detours. Scratches were inevitable and sores formed at every laceration, stub- born to heal despite medication. hard going for all of them, it was hardest on Perro. They pushed on under a broiling sun, conserving their water. They could get a supply in the caves by digging, Rey- nolds promised them, but if there was none when they reached the nearest hills of lava, they were going to be in desper- ate case. Heard It was Adventure fa THERE was no elevation on the | grassy wilderngss from which they could sight the lava until they were close on it. Each realized the dangers of their trip as they plunged farther into the maze with the spiky grass all around them or lurched over patches of soft, shifting sand. They burned blacker and blacker and night- fall found them dog-tired, too tired to sug- gest carrying out the idea of circling back .to see if they were trailed. To find a previous camp would be almost impossible. There was no fuel for fire and they ate stale damper sipped at their tepid water and chewed the salt beef with the determination of hardihood. The only life they saw was in battalions, armies of great ants that lived in the spini- fex clumps, inexhaustible myriads of them; and vast droves of grasshoppers. that leaped ahead of them as they beat through the grass. They had tried to keep a straight course from where they had sighted the lava hills from the mountains that now began to lift behind them, gray green with deep blue shadows above the rocky flanks, vivid at sunset, purple in the early mornings. They spoke little as they pushed on, taking turns to lead with frequent rests, irritated by the pricking spinifex, the sores where it had penetrated the skin, the shuffly sand, the salt sweat that ran ever- lastingly out of them, the air that seemed to scorch their lungs and never fill them, chary of an extra step under a sky like glazed pottery with a sun of red-hot brass beating down. The nights were chilly and a relief, but it all tested their manhood to the core. No one grumbled. Petrie once epito- mized the thoughts of all of them. “T don’t care how much gold there is, Tom Reynolds. Iam here to tell you we’re earning every ounce of it. When I think of packing it out I get more moderate in my desires each time. pounds as my limit right now.” Reynclds grunted. His pipe was only half a bowl now and he dared not clean the charcoal out of it for fear of the crack. Their tobacco was dusty and stinging, gone in a whiff. “Tf we take out enough to fit up a proper expedition,” said Cole. ‘We can come back and get all we want, once we’ve staked our claims and registered them.” MICLOOOLK I’m down to ten | C@ in