Adventure Magazine Cover, November 10, 1924 — page 61: what you’re looking at

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

The Casual’s Return extended his hand with glee, for Shorty was one of his best friends. ‘You ——!” said Shorty sourly. At the sound of the fighting words, one of the recumbent figures on the shelf shot suddenly to his feet and smote Shorty a terrific blow on the jaw. Shorty’s eyelids fluttered shut, he swayed and fell very easily over on to the other shelf, where his assailant fell on top of him and they both rolled inertly to the floor. “Nice amiable outfit,’’ remarked Jake, in a tone of deepest interest. ‘No one slugs no one else here.” At the far end of the barrack was a con- tinuous turmoil, a constant shifting and whirling of men. Eadie went down to it as a man walks in a dream. He noted here and there a face that he knew, but there was no light of recognition in any eye. Suddenly he halted. The cause of the young riot was visible now. | The sleeping shelves were built against the wall like counters in a fruit store, slop- ing gently to a height of about three feet from the floor and running the whole length of the building. On the left-hand shelf a machine gun had been set up and men clamored about it. A great long-armed man, yclept the “Big Ham,” and well known to Eadie, sat on the saddle of the gun. With one hand he swept the muzzle back and forth, knocking it against the shins of the milling men, and with the other he smote every one that came within reach, crying at the same time. ‘‘We gotta have discipline in this outfit!” On the other side of the gun, vainly en- deavoring to thrust a clip into it, was an- other man. A hand shot forth from the crowd, and seizing the loader’s collar, tore it away bodily. Again the hand reached out, this time gripping the Icader by the hair and dragged him away. Another man, per- haps he who had dragged away the former incumbent, took the loader’s place and with earnest countenance and tight lips, tried to insert the clip. Eadie turned and battled his way to the open air again. It was highly improbable that the clip would ever be inserted, as it was a difficult feat for a man possessed with all his faculties, but yet it might slip in and if the raging Ham should haul back the Jever—the gun would not function unless he did—but should he—in that case Eadie wished to be away. He had no desire 99 to be a casualty on the Vin Rouge front. Before the barracks was a wagon park, the wheeled transportation pertaining to each battery, being drawn up before its quarters. There was a huge blue wagon with the words in white upon its side, “Chariot de Parc,”’ directly before the door, and upon the tongue of this wagon Eadie sat down. The merciless Jake sat down beside him. } “Yuh sure yuh ain’t in the wrong out- fit?” asked Jake. “I might think so,” said Eadie sadly, “only I know all that gang in there.”’ | SEVERAL men dashed around the @) corner of the barrack, leaping and prancing, and after them others, who howled and shrieked. One asserted that they were the spirits of defunct whif- fempoofs, returned to earth to give ances- tral dances. They rushed, shrieking, to a rolling kitchen that glittered in all its new- ness cf black paint, and, dragging it from the line, started it thundering down the slope toward the next barrack, against the wall of which it stopped with a resounding crash. The clamor in that barrack ceased for a second and then began anew, a hungry hum like an aroused hive. Soldiers poured from it, buzzing with wrath. They streamed from door and window, not in the direction from which the rolling kitchen had come, but downhill and into the next barrack, with the innocent inmates of which they shortly joined in conflict. Two soldiers on the main roadway stop- ped suddenly and looked at the disconso- late form of the sergeant, where he sat on the wagon tongue, his head in his hands. They turned and came down toward him. “Eadie!” cried one, ““where the —— did you come from? You're as welcome as the flowers in May! I thought we’d never see you again. Meet Joe Lee, friend of mine from headquarters company.” “___.. Frog!” said Eadie, rising and shak- ing hands. ‘This lad here is Jake Brown, a new member of the outfit. He and I have been wandering all over France trying to get to this outfit. Well, now we foundit we feel like the kid that tried to catch the hornet—and finally did.”’ “It’s kind of a wild night, after all,” agreed the Frog. ‘But this is France, you know, and we alJ may be dead this time next month. Had any supper?” Comicbook © =