Adventure Magazine Cover — page 131: what you’re looking at

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

Go-Fever in all directions—some jumped nimbly on the rocks and scrambled up above the cave-mouth. The women and children held together in a frightened mass, running across the sand for cover, mothers with their chil- dren tucked under their arms, while they clutched at their belongings. Three men came out—the bearded part- ners of Mart Sievers—kneeling to fire their repeating-rifles, picking off the Myalls who had gradually formed three quarters of a circle about them, the crags closing the gap. The blacks sprang, swerved, fell flat and leaped sidewise to confuse the white mens’ aim, hurling their spears and scaling their boomerangs, tossing even their nolla-nollas, slowly closing in on three sides to get in range with their primitive weapons while their women and children fled toward safety. Savage after savage fell, and the ring began to falter. One of the three whites started deliberately firing into the mass of women. At five hundred yards his fire was deadly. One after another figure pitched forward, writhed or lay still, while all her comrades set up a shrill screaming that came over. the sand faintly but still, charged with fright and agony. A fourth white came into the mouth of the cave—a rifle reaady—emerged, looking about him at the routed natives before he knelt and steadied his rifle with knee and elbow. It was Mart Sievers. But before he could squeeze trigger, could sight, he sprang up- right, his rifle falling, arms outstretched. A spear had gone deep into-him from be- hind, flung with the urge of a throwing- stick to speed it from the crags, piercing far into his back, quivering where the mus- cles and flesh socketed it. As if by magic, others seemed to grow beside it as Sievers fell with a shout for help, porcupined by the weapons hurled by the blacks on the rocks above the cave over which they now madly scrambled, as the man who had been firing at the women concentrated his attention on them. One fell, spread-eagled; the rest dropped to the level and raced away in leaping zigzags, bounding high, to right and left. The women and children merged with the spinifix scrub on the far side of the clearing, the men, giving up the fight, raced after them. One of the three whites had been struck by a boomerang but not badly in- jured and as if determined to exterminate the tribe, or to teach them a lasting lesson, ; 129 the three, stopping to deliberately refill their rifle-magazines, charged after the fugitives, disappearing among the clumps of grass whence came the pop-pop of thet guns, growing fainter. ‘“‘____ fool,” said Morbora. ‘“‘They no come back. Black fella too smart. Bimeby all vooly.”’ If he was right the Myalls had shown plenty of cunning in their depiction of sheer terror and headlong flight. But if they were not overwhelmed with fright it was quite on the cards that they could even matters by ambushing the pursuit, if the bushwhackers were fools enough to go far into the thick scrub. With Petrie seated between Cole and Reynolds, they looked for the reappearance of the men. The popping had ceased. The scrub had swallowed up all action. Half a dozen black bodies lay naked under the sun with that of Sievers, whose corpse was face- down, as if pinned to the sand by the spears that stuck out of him at all angles like an ill-assembled pin-cushion. Alec Brown was unaccounted for, though they guessed him as having been killed inside the cave unless, by some miracle, he had hidden himself in a crevice and escaped notice. The impulse gathered force to go out there, to risk everything for the sake of the water they would find, without which they could not last through another day. There was the prize of Siever’s rifle, probably of the one young Brown had carried. Now, while the bearded men were in the scrub was the time to make the rush. The crags stood fairly well in the center of the com- paratively open space. On even terms of distance, with their weakness, with the abso- lute incapacity of Petrie to travel—though he was undoubtedly in better shape, with the cramping convulsions conquered—they had little chance. But the cave with its water and food was the prize to risk all for. “They no come back,” said Morbora. “Bimeby maybe black fella come back some time, I dunno. White man vooly, N gallo—water—there.” He pointed to the cave. At the same time he started to pick up some of the weapons, but Cole stopped him. “Bimeby maybe you get,” he said. Mor- bora’s face twitched in a half-grin, more of impudence than shame. ‘“‘You give me shirshi, bimeby,”’ he reminded them. “Suppose you carry him,” said Reynolds, DOOK C© inn