Adventure Magazine Cover, March 20, 1925 — page 197: what you’re looking at

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

The Camp-Fire in. He immediately went to town about twenty- five miles away (McKinney) and went to a medical doctor who said he had blood-poison and wanted to cut his arm off. I forgot to mention that his arm was swollen to the shoulder and was turning green- ish black. Then he went to a horse doctor and told him his trouble and the doctor took a knife and slit his wrist this way and let a lot of blood run out and then took a bottle of chloroform and poured on it and bandaged it up. Dad said when the spider bit him he thought a hornet had stung him until he saw the spider. In about two months the cut had healed up, but still left the scar of the tarantula’s bite. I hope this letter will not cause an argument on my part, for I do not wish to bring anything of that sort my way. The spider was sent to a guy who edited a farm paper in Toronto, Canada, in the same year. Also I have seen only one or two centipedes in my time. So adios.—WAaAYNE LUPTON. HOLLAWING Camp-Fire custom, Leslie McFarlane rises to introduce himself on the occasion of his first story in our magazine. I have sat in at the Camp-Fire for a few years past and have found it a warm and cheerful place, redolent of honest friendliness and genuine com- anionship. In conforming to custom by advanc- ing into the glare of the Fire for a few moments, I do so with some hesitancy, even though I know my listeners are kind of heart and informal enough to put the veriest tenderfoot at his ease. And my feet are not yet hardened to the trails of the world, save a small part of it covered in a reporter’s scurryings hither and yon, my experience has been slight and my adventures have been few—to some, ‘no doubt, they would hardly seem adventures at all. "M 22 years of age. “The River Trail,’ in fact, was accepted on my 22nd birthday, and as my years are few, this sketch will necessarily be brief. I am a Canadian and, despite the Scottish flavor to my name, am of North of Ireland stock. Since 1910 I have lived in Northern Ontario, for the most part in Haileybury, which many at the Camp-Fire may remember as being just five miles north of the Cobalt silver camp, and others may remember as having been razed to the ground by bush fire two years ago. The rough and ready days of Cobalt were practically over when my people came North, but the gold camps were just hitting their stride and this part of Northern Ontario was just be- ginning to find itself. For the past five years I’ve been in newspaper work in the North, as a preliminary to writing The Great Canadian Novel. We cherish that beautiful myth on this side of the line, too. How- ever, reportorial and desk work, covering every- thing from hockey matches to bush fires, crowded the five years and I found newspaper work to be a snare and a delusion in that when the day’s end came I was too sick of writing to dig into the afore- said G. C. N. So I stepped out of it, found that there had been a field of romance and rugged beauty right under my nose all the time, and settled down to trying to put my own North on paper. I have found, among other things, that I do not know this big country as well as I had thought, I doubt if any one could ever really know it, and as for putting it 179 on paper—it seems an impertinence. But it is worth the attempt and if, in so doing, I can spin a yarn that may bring an approving nod or so from those about the Fire, I’ll be more than satisfied. So let me slip back into the shadow again, where one’s tender years are not so painfully evident.— LESLIE MCFARLANE. HAT this comrade enclosed was some photographs of the four American aeroplanes leaving Prince Rupert, B. C., for Sitka, Alaska, and in other positions on their around-the world-flight. Too bad our paper won’t give good half-tone results in reproduction. Skeena River, British Columbia. I enclose something that will no doubt be of in- terest to you. These are of interest to all lovers of adventure. I HAVE been a reader of your publication for many years. I am a semi-Diesel engineer and work on the small tow-boat that takes the fishing- boats out to the fishing-grounds in Chatham Sound at night and tows them in in the mornirg. These men are a mixture of Japs, Indians and whites. I have been to sea nearly all my life, in fact since as a foolish kid in London I decided that going to sea was infinitely preferable to learning how to manufacture scientific instruments. I have had a few adventures but they were very tame to what some men have gone through. : Had a job this last Winter. Engineer of a Gov- ernment boat packing 800 cases of gelegnite around the Gulf of Georgia. Any weather, must keep the mines going. It’s great to be tearing through a November storm on a dark, howling night with a load of that die-in-a-minute beneath you, in a 60- foot converted yacht. Was light-keeper and en- gineer on a lighthouse near here. Excuse this somewhat disjointed and rambling epistle as I am out of practise in writing.—Jim E. GIBSON. P. S.—I am writing this in the engine-room; must catch the night mail-boat. Excuse finger marks. Hr CELewING our custom of announcing the appearance in book form of stories published in our magazine, or of other stor- les in similar vein by our authors, we are glad to let you know that the following books have appeared or will appear on the market: “Wide Waters,” by Captain Din- gle, Brentano, New York; “Seibert of the Islands,” by Gordon Young, T. Fisher Un- win, London; ‘‘Ordeal,’”’ by Dale Collins, Knopf, New York; ‘‘Many Dogs There Be,” by Walter A. Dyer, Century, New York; “Tales of the Oldtimers,” by F. R. Bech- dolt, Century, New York. We will publish annually a notice similar to this covering as completely as possible the whole year. A correction is due. I stated that none of F. St. Mars’ stories had appeared in COMiicloOo (©