Adventure Magazine Cover, November 10, 1924 — page 133: what you’re looking at

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

N 'AQY ¥- 2 ot ee . e .' \ ¥ Wh Ww oN Wi Nw oA eS SAVVY I mee ® SECM * OS p ‘ yr ‘ "4 | 1 TRE TAREE PASSAT G Binet } he m Alan LeMay Author of “Ghost Lanterns,” “Hullabaloo,” etc. shanty near Maranhao, on the coast of Brazil, three men missing from the ports of the world where they were wanted most. They were known to each other as Bill, Jim, and Sam; their last names, and the ports whence they came were unknown even to each other. With the curious tact of the tropics, each had refrained from asking. Today an unusual and unheard of good fortune was theirs. Half a keg of rum had been brought in by the sea to the stretch of beach that they unofficially patrolled, and the occasion was one of celebration. The three missing men sat about a squat hogshead that served as a table, quaffing from time to time from the odd vessels that fortune had made theirs, and wasting the hot day in the comparative cool of the shade. Bill was very broad and fat, with the jovial but earthy face of a billikin joss. Jim was a hawk-nosed fellow, loose-lipped, but of wild and piratical aspect; he was stripped to the waist, exposing hard muscles with “corners on ’em,”’ and a chest covered with matted hair. Sam was a drooping, melancholy person, with a long nose that was bulbous at the end, and the air of one who, having long feared the worst, has not been disappointed. Far out on the glinting blue waters of ))}HEY sat in a beachcomber’s - the Atlantic rode the tall white sails of a square-rigger. They could see her sails through the doorless opening that was the shanty’s entrance. “Looks like the Mable Jones,” suggested Bill, pointing a pudgy finger, ‘‘don’t she, Sam?” Sam, whose back was to the sea, very slowly pivoted on his soap box seat, and viewed the distant vessel with profound deliberation. Then he slowly turned back. “To that,” he said weightily, “I answers yes, and ag’in, no.” “Mebbe she is,” said Jim, rubbing a bristly chin, ‘‘and mebbe she ain’t.”’ There was a brief silence, at the end of which the three missing men all took an- other drink, as if by common consent. “Speaking of mysteries of the sea—” began the tubby one. “Which we ain’t,” chanted Sam nasally. “Speaking of mysteries of the sea,” began Bill again, with slightly increased emphasis, ‘I never see the like of the goings on aboard the Mable Jones, when I was afore the mast.”’ The two others looked at each other, and slowly winked. “But this is true!’ protested Bill, sitting up straight to look at them with a pained expression. “Aye, o’course,” said Jim. “Go on with the yarn.” 131 CoOMmiclhoo C© 5}