Adventure Magazine Cover, March 20, 1925 — page 192: what you’re looking at

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

174 hut. Thecabin wasemptyandcheerless. Joe Moon cursed the luck that had sent Michael - Angelo out on his trapline at this time. The Indian had another shack, far out in the woods, at the end of the line, where he was doubtless now waiting for the blizzard to pass over. ) ey his body was of a horrible numbness GED now, and he bent and fumbled frantically at the snowshoes and the moc- casins, a shapeless, frozen mass upon his feet. From waist down, it was as‘if he had been carved from ice. His soaked trousers had frozen stiffly, his heavy socks were rigid. He knew too well the danger of leav- ing on those wet clothes, and he stripped them off him at once. The cabin was deathly cold, but there was no time to lose. He could light a fire later. Dry clothing was the immediate need. He found a pair of ragged trousers be- longing to Michael Angelo, hanging on the wall and, after hastily rubbing his lower limbs dry with a blanket from the bunk, he put them on and then found a pair of thick socks. He was shivering more violently than ever when he had donned them, for the relief was only temporary and he knew he must havea fire. The shock of the wetting, and the cruel toil of that desperate journey to the cabin had weakened him. There was birch bark and some wood in a corner, and he quickly piled some in the battered stove, then felt in his pockets for amatch. There were none in the mackinaw and then he stepped suddenly over to the trousers he had discarded and there, in a pocket, he found a sodden box of matches, wet, useless. Terror seized him. He went over to a crude shelf on the wall, where Michael Angelo had an untidy collection of odds and ends, and poked through them. There were no matches there. Not even flint and steel, for the Indian had doubtless taken those materials with him when he went out on the trapline. He was cold, desperately cold. He must have fire. Joe Moon looked at thestove, with the wood and birch bark merely awaiting a flame, and he scratched the sodden matches against the iron front, hoping that by some miracle they would light. But there was no miracte. HE BEGAN to feel frightened, for Adventure There were matches in his packs, he re- membered, but he couldn’t go back to the sled. As if to emphasize this conviction, the wind shrieked about the corners of the cabin and the snow threshed against the door. He stumbled over to the little window and looked out. The blizzard was raging with greater fury than before. He could see the tall trees, looming like shadows through the storm, as they rocked and swayed be- fore the sweeping wind. He turned and began to search the cabin again with frantic abandon in the faint hope of finding a match. He tore the blankets from the bunk and cast them aside, he groveled in corners, again he searched through the pockets of his mackinaw, again he struck wet matches against the stove, and all the while the cold swept over him as remorselessly as a shadow. The little stove appeared to mock him as he looked at it, in blind, unreasoning panic, and saw the wood and birchbark, cold and dead, but with all the potentiali- ties of warmth and life. The January night would be desperately cold, he knew. He would freeze to death. Even now he was freezing. “Up against it,’ he muttered, as he de- sisted at length from his vain search and flung himself upon the bunk. Joe Moon had gambled with the wilder- ness before, but never had the wilderness held the winning hand as now. Death lurked in the blizzard, death hovered within the chill cabin. Every shriek of the wind had a malicious note of triumph. All the forces of that storm-swept land were con- spired in a unity of terrific strength against him. He tried to stamp up and down the cabin, swinging his great arms across his chest to restore circulation, but he was exhausted and the cold had so penetrated his body that he could not maintain the effort. His breath drifted in a white cloud before his haggard face. It was suicidal to go out to the sled, but it was certain doom to remain. The storm was worse, and every moment he delayed made even the slim chances of securing matches from thesled more remote than ever. His searching fingers came across a coin in one of the pockets of his coat and .the gambling instinct in him again rose to the surface. “Heads I stay; tails I don’t,” he said, and tossed the coin into the air. It fell GOMIGIOO (©