Adventure Magazine Cover, October 30, 1924 — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

South, West and North 13 He held the gnarled hand over his eyes for a moment, and then the thin lips were compressed. Then he relaxed, sat back, looked at hisson. ‘‘I’ve sold the east forty, Richard, and the money’s here in the desk. It’s been waiting for you. Take it and go, find Eli, and tell him that—that I’ve re- pented the bitter words I said.” This came hard enough, and fairly smote Dick in the face. He could not believe his own senses. None the less, he kept up the game he was playing, for now he found it leading him into astonishing ways. He had meant first to torment and taunt the man, yet now he meant quite otherwise, for it seemed that he had at last found a means to pierce that cold armer. “Not I,” he said. “I’ve money of my own, and enough. Take your own money and go, if ye want, for I’ll have none of it. Blood money, that’s what it is! Il not touch your thirty pieces of silver & ‘Ephraim Hampton leaned forward, his great fingers twisting together. “Richard, Tl not last long,’ he said quietly, earnestly. ‘I’m to die any day, they tell me. I want you to do this thing. Oh, my lad, 1s all your soul a hardened thing? Is there no love in you for your brother? Granted I’ve not been what I should—there’s yet your own duty. I'll not last long, Richard. Will ye go and take my blessing, or will ye have my curse on ou?” “Little enough your curse would worry me, and that’s flat,” said Dick. ‘Then, as he met his father’s eyes, he checked him- self. He felt himself staring into those eyes, felt all his world rocking to chaos around him—for in those bitter and intoler- ant eyes there was a glistening that he had never seen there, even when his mother died—the glisten of tears. Dick put his thumb on his pipe-bowl, pressed down the gray ash, shoved the pipe into his pocket. Then he thrust himself erect. He made his decision swiftly, on the instant, as it must be made when the wind shifts about if the ship is not to be stripped bare. ‘“‘YVour money,” he said slowly, deliber- ately, “I don’t want and sha’n’t touch. Lay a duty on me? I'll cheat you even in that—aye, cheat you even in that! It’s little you know of the man who’s awaiting me at Beverly, or the girl who’s - there, or the friend I have on the road— little you know or would care if you knew. But never mind all that. Father, I’m going to Panama, going a dozen errands in one—and one of the dozen is Eli’s. Tell me this. You love him?” The stooped figure stood before him, staring at him mistily. ‘“‘Aye, Richard. And if ye’d not give me hate for hate—I don’t know “ Dick Marsh took a step forward and caught the other man by the shoulders. Then all that was repressed leaped into his face, and he looked at his father as he had looked at Nelly Barnes that morning, with things in his eyes too deep and great for words. ‘‘Father,”’ he said in a low voice, “I’m going, and I’m going now. I don’t give a hang for your curse—but, father, I—I’d give you a kiss on the lips for your blessing . The -woodpecker tapped along the eaves, like the 1ap—iap—tap of frozen reef-points slapping a bellying sail, but Dick Hampton did not hear the sound. IV BEVERLY was like other seaport oS towns up and down the Atlantic sea- board; like seaport towns in Europe, from Vigo Bay to North Cape; like towns in Australia and China, Peru and Russia, in this marvelous winter and spring of 1849. All seaports were alike, those days, busily pouring men down to ships, and speeding ships forth for Eldorado; not for another year or more would the sickening realities be brought back to them by those few who struggled home. Here in Beverly as elsewhere, the ebb tide of ships and men was now well under way, shipyards ringing, vessels building in the bare woods, on the naked rocky shores, wherever men could swing adze and plane to cut softwood timbers. At night the harbor was still and cold, star-blink glit- tering over snowy streets, houses agleam with lights where men packed and made ready. Tales of gold were carried from hearth to hearth, gaining fresh accretions with every telling, and the cold winter’s night was all athrill with subtle vibrations from an excited populace, raw red gold lending a warm glow that softened the frosty air and brought a flame across the horizon as men looked westward over the bleak hills and visualized California. comicbooks.cO inn