Adventure Magazine Cover — page 185: what you’re looking at

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

The Camp-Fire the Lama points out it was not in vain, and ex- plains why, he feels like a new boy in a new school —rather afraid, self-conscious and self-critical. The Lama must speak for himself. It will be seen he is an individualist, who does not believe that much can be gained by politics. According to his theory, the only real problem in any man’s life, in any circumstances, is: what do I intend to do about it? Without pretending to say whether he is right or wrong, I have tried to give his viewpoint. I have tried to show how he believes in evolution —of the soul quite as much as the body, and both simultaneously; how reincarnation forms a part, as it were the mechanism, of that solution of the problem of life; and how he is convinced that what- ever we do in this life, whether good, bad or in- different, will set up chains of consequences with which we shall have to deal in lives to come—so that even the assassin and the traitor punishes him- self, and the hero in secret rewards himself—until we all come, in the infinitely distant future, to a state of perfect spiritual wisdom and earned happi- ness, which, having earned, we shall enjoy. All which is beautiful, if true; encouraging and better, for example, than the creaky-rusty doctrine of eternal punishment and birth in sin. However, each man to his own opinion; it seems likely we shall all know something of the real truth later on—unless one of these ‘‘anti-Mahatma”’ scientists should discover a new tortoise-gland that shall enable those of us who choose to live in a state of nervous ignorance in this very illogical world forever! (Maybe he will get a law passed to com- pel us all to submit to the operation; and then where will the Mahatmas be?)—TaLBot Munpy. QO UR Camp-Fire pennants are now ready. The accompanying cut shows the de- sign. ‘Two feet long by nine inches at the base. The design itself reproduces the col- ors of our Camp-Fire button, the body of the pennant being dark blue. They are of rather better grade than the average pennant, the cost to us being 271% cents each. Since a quarter is a convenient coin, we're making 25 cents the price to you. Though we’re not specially good at mathe- matics here in the office, we’ve figured out that at this rate the financial profits to the magazine are what you might call sort of slight, but then we didn’t start these pen- nants with any idea of making money on them. The main purpose is merely to add a bit more to the feeling of fellowship among all of us of Camp-Fire. As to profits, we of course profit more or less in publicity by having Camp-Fire’s pennant flying from boats and autos and on expeditions, but if publicity were our main aim we’d certainly have had “Adventure” or “Camp-Fire”’ printed out on the pennants. Instead, there is only what you might call Camp- Fire’s “‘secret’’ emblem. You’ll remember that when we chose the 183 design for our button we very carefully avoided making it anything like an adver- tisement. What we wanted was something that would make known a Camp-Fire com- rade to any others he might meet on the trail or in the cities and yet not compel him to go around as a living advertisement for anything. So we took the word ‘‘Camp- Fire,” assigned numbers to the alphabet— 3 for c, 1 for a, 13 for m, etc.—and added up the numerical sum of the letters of the word “Camp-Fire,” getting 71 as our working brand. That did the work. Those whom we wanted to know the meaning of the em- blem would doso. It didn’t matter whether the outsiders knew or not. In fact, maybe a bit better if they didn’t, for their igno- rance would at once label them as not be- longing. I think this pennart of ours is going to find its way into many far corners of the earth. If you carry it ito one of them, or upon any interesting expedition, drop us a line. Camp-Fire will want to know about its pennant’s tale of adventure and accom- plishment. : A year from now, five years from now, what will be its story? Who will carry it farthest? Who through most dangers and hardships? Who to the strangest or most inaccessible places? How much of the world’s map will be criss-crossed with its trail? Good luck go with it! SERVICES TO OUR READERS Lost Trails, for finding missing relatives and friends, runs in alter- nate issues from “Old Songs That Men Have Sung.” Old Songs That Men Have Sung, a section of “Ask Adventure,” runs in alternate issues from ‘‘Lost Trails.” Camp-Fire Stations: explanation in the second and third issues of each month. Full list in second issue of each month. Various Practical Services to Any Reader: Free Identification Card in eleven languages (metal, 25 cents); Mail Address and Forwarding Service; Back Issues Exchanged; Camp-Fire Buttons, etc., runs in the last issue of each month. OO C@