Adventure Magazine Cover, November 10, 1924 — page 137: what you’re looking at

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

The Three Missing Men scared is all that zs the matter with him, an’ he keeps burblin’ an’ hollerin’ till you don’t know what’s goin’ on there anyway. “Finally we makes out that he was standin’ there holdin’ the Mable Jones to her course, not thinkin’ about nothin’ in partic’lar, when he happens to step a pace back’ards. An’ he steps on somethin’ soft, like a man’s hand. Afore he can even jump, there’s this awful screechin’ breakin’ out, right behind him an’ under his feet, an’ somethin’ grabbed him, like to pull him down. An’ he don’t remember no more. “Then, when we gets him to his feet, what do we find?” Bill paused for effect. “The seat o’ his pants has been tore plumb out!” The fat sailor gulped another mouthful of rum, and looked solemnly from one to the other. “Well,” said Jim, “how did it all come out?” “Mates,” said Bill, “I don’t know. Next day, while I was ashore at Bahia, I found out somethin’ that kept me from goin’ back on to the Mable Jones. Nobody was sorrier than I was. Hardly anything could ’a’ kept me from stayin’ with her, just to see what happened. But somethin’ turned up.” With the curious tact of the tropics, the two other missing men refrained from ask- ing him what turned up. “Them goin’s-on,” concluded Bill, “is the curiousest I ever heard tell of, on land or sea. They remains as one o’ the un- solved mysteries o’ the sea.” ime 2 @ LHERE wasalong silence. At last |g @ it was broken by Sam. aes “There may be unsolved myste- ries,’ said the mournful one, “but this here ain’t one of ’em. I happens to know the answer, because right then I shipped from Bahia on the Mable Jones.” Bill looked resentful. “Not in my place, you didn’t. *Twas 1395 Simon Dever, able seaman, was took on in my place afore she left; and another, a red- headed man, what took the place o’ the missin’ seaman.” — “I was in a dory, outside the harbor,” explained he of .the bottle-nose, “and they flung me a line at my hail. -It was under peculiar circumstances, it was, that I shipped out o’ Bahia.” With the curious tact of the tropics, they refrained from asking him what the cir- cumstances were. ‘Two days out o’ Bahia, we found a full- grown ocelot—that’s a wild cat, like a jaguar, only smaller—livin’ in one o’ the boats, under a tarp. “Twas the big cat what stole the pig, an’ showed green eyes in the dark, an’ sat on your chest, an’ walked soft at night , an’ lifted a shirt on his back, an’ tore up the pants o’ men. An’ I heard that same screech when ’twas I that picked him up with a hook.”’ Bill was loathe to have his mystery exploded. | “But,” he protested, “how about the missin’ seamen? An’ how come a wild cat aboard a ship?” | “T don’t know,” admitted Sam. Jim stirred, stretched his knotty muscles, and spoke— .‘I’m the missin’ seaman,” he declared, with a loose and evil grin. “VouP”’ ‘“‘Aye. I dived over the side at the mouth o’ the harbor, leavin’ my dunnage behind. It was my ocelot, you found. Tame she was, an’ my pal. I hid her in the boat when I went on. But after we heaved anchor, I found out that I had to get off, for very special reasons.” ‘ With the curious tact of the tropics, they refrained from asking him how it was that he happened to get off the Mable Jones. A rat stirred in the palmetto leaves of the roof. For a long time, Bill stared sadly up at the rat. ‘Now, I ask you,” said Bill to the rat in the roof, ‘‘what’s the use o’ spinnin’ yarns for fellers like that?” . mE — pet bd CO MICLOOOKS C© =