Adventure Magazine Cover, March 20, 1925 — page 60: what you’re looking at

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

42 lungs. Instead of penetrating, the missile hung loosely from his stout leather jerkin. Peter, being suspicious of the Easterlings, had prudently donned a steel corselet under his jerkin and mantle. Pulling out the arrow, he tossed it away, and was sighting anew with the pistol when Thorne cried to him to hold hard. The Easterling champion had stood up, in round- eyed amazement, and was drawing near them, fascinated by the sight of men who were invulnerable to his shafts. As a sign of submission he unstrung his bow, and laid it at Thorne’s feet, with a curious glance at the cumbersome crossbow. Unlike the other Easterlings he wore tunic and trousers of gray squirrel skins, neatly sewed together with gut and orna- mented at knees and neck with squirrel tails. Joan Andrews, coming up, called him Kyrger, and said that he was a Samoyed tribesman, a young hunter who brought very good pelts to her father at times. The sight of the girl seemed to reassure Kyrger, who made no effort to escape; instead he took to following Thorne around. Peter rolled off to inspect the lugger, and returned with mingled hope and disgust written upon his broad countenance, to re- port that she smelled like a Portugal’s bilge, and was open from tiller to prow, some buff being stretched across the gunwales at either end. She seemed stout enough, he added. But Joan, who had been questioning the hunter, cried out that Kyrger had sighted two ships several days before the lugger put off from the coast. The Samoyed had fol- lowed the vessels for a while, never having seen ships of such size in his life. “That would be the Esperanza and the Confidentia, Sir Hugh’s vessels,’”’ observed Thorne. “Ask him where they were sighted.” Kyrger pointed to the eastward. “How were they headed?”’ The Samoyed indicated the same direc- tion, and Thorne was puzzled. Sir Hugh had not put in to the Wardhouse but had gone on, apparently three or four days after Chancellor. The three vessels might be expected to join company again. At all events, Sir Hugh would not come to the Wardhouse now. But why had he not ap- peared at the rendezvous? “Ask him if he has ever been far along the coast to the east,” he said at length. Adventure Kyrger held up all the fingers of both hands, and nodded his head emphatically. “He means either ten days travel or ten kills of game,” Joan explained. “It might be a hundred leagues.”’ “In ten days?” broke in Peter, who scent- ed deceit. “’Tis not to be believed.” “They ride behind reindeer when the snow is on the ground,” Joan assured him. “They go very swiftly. And Kyrger says what I have told you, my masters. The ice hath closed the sea a hundred leagues from here.” Thorne considered this, and saw that there was no reason why they should remain on the island. He could be of more assist- ance to Chancellor by seeking him out; be- sides, he now had the maid on his hands, and had found in Kyrger a guide who might be invaluable to the voyagers. “Then will we follow the ships,” he said slowly, “and, in God’s mercy, may come up with them. And you, Mistress Joan, will come with me to the fellowship of Christians again.” pe HE WATCHED the Samoyed and minum believed that the Easterling had no ill feeling toward them. What went on in the mind of the little hunter was a mystery; but it was certain that the man had attached himself to them. Kyrger assented to their plan without comment. He seemed more interested in Thorne’s crossbow which he was allowed to examine while Peter returned to the Ward- house for a sack of biscuits and cheese and their few personal belongings, the girl ac- companying him, to bid the grave inside the palisade a last farewell. Seeing that Kyrger had not been slain, the other Samoyeds put in appearance and squatted down a bowshot away, and were induced to go to the lugger when the others returned, Peter lamenting the fact that Andrews’ trade goods must be left behind. There was no room in the boat for the bales, and the seven of them. The wind was favorable, and in a few hours the island group was lost to sight, Peter guiding the lugger toward the shore that soon loomed over their heads. They coasted for a while until Kyrger called out that his camp lay inland from where they were. By nightfall they were sitting around a fire, in a clump of firs, thawing out their CORnNICLO© (©