Adventure Magazine Cover — page 94: what you’re looking at

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

92 way from stem to stern, leaving little place for shelter. Within ten minutes after the fight began McIlvaine dropped his gun, clutched his throat with both hands and pitched forward on the deck, dead. Several others had re- ceived slight flesh wounds, but fought on regardless of them. “IT can’t shoot wid this broken arm,”’ shouted Fossett in Crist’s ear. ‘Let me get that chain loose.” He pushed forward; he and Crepps threw down one of the kettles; and, working it along before him as a shield, Jack crawled to the very gunwale at the bow. He had brought with him a slender dog- wood pole which happened to be on board; and, lying flat behind his kettle, he tried with this pole to poke the hook out of the link. But the point of the hook was of course turned toward the shore, and in spite of all his efforts he seemed only to drive it farther into the link. Meanwhile Crepps and Crist knelt by him, carefully picking off as best they could the foemen who appeared to be aiming at Fossett. Meanwhile the guns of the red foe- men were getting in their deadly work. Chinoweth was the second man killed. Then poor Tom Humphreys, who had been wounded twice and was bleeding profusely, received a ball in the stomach and fell right at Susan’s feet, his blood splashing her dress. Murkett’s turn came next; and when the deadly missile struck him, he sank down quite slowly, his face unmoved, into a sitting position with his back against the kettles, his gun still clutched in his hand, stubborn to the last. He slowly lifted his glazing eyes to Susan and kept them upon her until his head fell forward in death; but she did not see him. The dreadful uproar and carnage of the battle, and especially the death of Hum- phreys, whose body fell right across her feet, had stricken her with such horror that she sat with her face buried in her hands, almost insensible to the turmoil about her. Sweating, cursing with a fervency that might almost be called prayerful, Fossett had for several minutes been able to do nothing with the log-chain hook that was holding the boat. But presently he dis- covered that near the butt of his pole a small limb had been cut off, leaving a stub about an inch long. He placed this stub — Adventure against the point of the hook and gently, carefully tried to pull it out of the link. Time and again it slipped off, but he suc- ceeded in moving the point gradually to- ward him, and at perhaps the twentieth trial the hook dropped out of the link and the chain was free. Crist then seized a sweep, and with two or three mighty strokes swung the boat around so that it lay broadside to the shore. But before this maneuver had been ac- complished Spears had fallen, grievously wounded in the chest, and a little man named Jenkins, who had been fighting be- side him with the fury of a Roland, received a bullet through the brain and yielded up his valiant spirit. Surely no braver men than that boat’s company ever fought to carry civilization into the wilderness; and that is a hardy statement to make, for the annals of the West are filled with such deeds of daring and sacrifice as make fiction seem weak and colorless. Crepps and Crist agreed that the boat must be worked across to the opposite shore, where the survivors might succeed in escaping through the forest. There were only five men left who were able to raise a hand. Of these, Moore and Boyce, working a sweep at each end of the boat, drove it in a sort of diagonal course toward the south bank. | Crepps, Crist and Floyd kept up a rather desultory fire, though the last named, who had been wounded in the thigh, could not stand but lay flat on the deck and fired over the gunwale. Boyce, too, had been wounded in five places and was losing much blood. The battle had now lasted more than an hour. . Spears’ wound was evidently serious. ‘Don’t bother with me, boys,” he gasped as Crist knelt beside him. ‘Save your- selves when the boat lands, for I’m not going to last long anyhow.” ‘“‘Never!”’ exclaimed Crist. “God helping us to be stanch, we’ll never leave a living soul behind. We'll either save you or stay here and die with you.” Spears remonstrated; but Crist, dismiss- ing the subject with a gesture, turned away to fire another shot at the Indians, who were now beginning to come boldly out of their coverts on the opposite shore. Just then Crepps seized his arm and pointed up the river. 3 MICLOOOK C©