Adventure Magazine Cover — page 123: what you’re looking at

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

Go-Fever paroxysm passed. “You know well you couldn’t make him leave you, just as you know we ain’t none of us got a chance to last through. Might as well play it out here as further on. We stick it out to- gether to the end and it sure looks like we’re heading west. What about it, Jim?” Cole nodded. His face was grim and gaunt. “You said it. Petrie knows that. Looks as if we’re up against it, but I sure hate to see those skunks get away with it. There may be a chance yet.”’ “Fat chance we got. What?” ‘‘We’re alive yet, Tom. For one thing. And—”’ he suddenly sunk his voice to a whisper! “‘grab the dog and don’t let him bark, Petrie. He’s winded those two black They’re looking for us.” Petrie caught the Airedale by the muzzle and forced him down beside him, the dog squirming with rage, but obedient. By the lava crags he had growled deep in his throat when the blacks appeared, but had seemed to realize the odds against an attack, even as he now realized the peril of his master and friends to be more acute. The minutes passed as they crouched there. They had not spoken loudly at any time in the stress of the situation and it seemed probable that the natives had not heard them. The dawn wind had not gone down and came through the grass in hot gusts that bore the scent that had made Perro furious. The crisp, needle-pointed blades rustled stiffly. The interminable ants crawled over the sand. Death was stalking in the spinifex. A little cloud of grasshoppers came hur- tling over their heads. The breeze brought with it, unmistakable, even to the white’s decadent sense of smell, the strong stink of black men, the odor from their sweat- glands mingling with the dirt of a body that never knew water or cared for decent cleanliness. Perro struggled—suddenly be- came still and tense. The wind still favored them. They shrank back in the grass, heedless of the myriad pricks. A long shadow projected itseli—another—one on either side of the ten foot clump. Cole nudged Reynolds and a glance passed between them. Suddenly Dangoran and Morbora ap- peared, bent at the hips, spears in their left hands, clubs in the right, their lips back I2]I showing their teeth, their wide nostrils dilated and their eyes bloodshot with greed and the lust to kill. Out of the grass Cole and Reynolds launched themselves in a supreme effort as if they had been catapulted. Cole caught Dangoran about the knees and bore him to the ground with the sudden shock, pouncing on the astounded black, whose grasp of his weapons encumbered him for a fatal mo- ment that gave Cole his chance to fling himself upon him and pin him down though Dangoran writhed and fought like a wild cat. Hestrove to shorten a spear, to use his nolla-nolla, but Cole had him by the wrists, striving to set a knee upon one arm and give him one fist free. For an instant he suc- ceeded and sent his right smashing against the native’s jaw in a blow that should have paralyzed his nerves, the hardest blow that Cole had ever delivered, fair to the mark, all his strength and the knowledge that he was fighting for his life behind it. He might as well have struck a block of cement. Dangoran’s head went back, darted forward like a snake’s and the big teeth sank into Cole’s shoulder. They rolled over and over, into the stabbing grass-blades and out again into the sand, in a wild fury, black against white, life against life. Once more those apelike tusks bit to the bone, mangling the flesh through the clothing that gave the black all the grip advantage. His own sweaty, stinking skin held no more chance for clutch than that of an eel. Cole grasped a chance handful of sand when he could, to help to a hold on that slimy epidermis. They broke at last in a flurry of elbows and knees and both were up like a flash. The black’s agility was tremendous; the strength of his almost invisible muscles was that of steel wire. He had lost his spears but he still gripped a xolla-nolla by its hatchet handle and he sprang back for thrust or blow, the sharp end as dangerous as the swell of the club. Cole went after him, his best chance to get in under the swing of the weapon— or to draw a stab and dodge it. He had closed one of Dangoran’s eyes. If he could blind him, if he could gouge his other blood- set optic? He had no thought of fair play. It was strength against strength, fists against a hardwood bludgeon that was also a stabbing spear, wielded by a master of its use. : DOOLK C@