Adventure Magazine Cover — page 147: what you’re looking at

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

The Eleventh Hour dreaded hawk. A vulture was circling slow- ly above him, its wings outstretched motion- less, its ugly head stretched downward. McCall shook his fist in a burst of irrational anger, for he was badly shaken. ““Come on then—flock around!”’ he yelled. “You hunters of dead things. [ll show you!”’ He fitted another cartridge into the car- bine and fired at the bird above him; but the distance was deceptive and he missed alto- gether. Startled, the vulture sloped sharply upward and planed away across the brazen sky. “That'll teach ’em,’’ McCall muttered, and screwed the stick back into the muzzle of his gun. He was surprized to find how little water he had left, and shook his head dubiously. Handicapped as he was, he knew he could never make those ten miles between his present position and the next certainty of water. Still, he could try, and perhaps there might be a stream, not entirely dried out, on the way. With a groan of pain at the ne- cessity for effor the stood up again, slipped his crutch into place and strove to press on. His head was throbbing most strangely, and he found it curiously difficult to keep his balance. There was movement again in the grass, all round him, beating against the thin trunks of the camel-thorn trees. If he hadn’t seen the hyena he would have thought it was just the wind, but now, of course, he knew better. Hyenas—hundreds of them—gathering round till he fell, and they could pluck up courage to make a rush. But he wasn’t going to fall for a long time. He was feeling much better, and he didn’t notice the pain of his leg any more. But he had to press on, and he couldn’t afford the time to stop and shoot. Still, the human voice was quite enough for beasts of that sort. Abruptly he began to sing, in a loud, husky bass, the parodied words of a song that had been popular when first he came to Africa: Comrades, comrades, every since we were kids, Sharing each other’s tickies, sharing each other’s quids.: It was years since he had sung, but now he couldn’t understand why. The song sounded fine. It echoed in the wide spaces, and the sides of a near-by kopje threw it peek He imagined the hyenas sneaking 145 away one after another. Of course the — grass still moved, but any one could see it was merely the wind. Comrades, comrades, ever since we were brats, Sharing each other’s trousers, sharing each other’s hats. They-were jolly good words too—funny words. You didn’t come across songs like that nowadays. It cheered a fellow up to sing, too. If he had thought of it before he would have come along much faster. He paused at that, half inclined to re- trace his steps. Realization of what he was doing came to him with a shock, and he resumed his pitiful progress fearfully. He knew well enough what it meant when a man began to get those queer fancies. But very soon he was singing again, mercifully unconscious of his pain and of the msig- nificant distance he was traveling. Yet, true to his instincts—the instincts of a man trained to the wild—he did not go round in circles, but preserved a more or less con- stant westerly direction despite his delirium. It was perhaps three o’clock when he finally halted. He had come to an ideal spot. Here was a donga down which the waters roared after every big storm, and some particularly heavy deluge in the past had brought down a maze of uprooted trees and bush, to spew them on to a flat, open stretch of bordering grassland. Here was firewood and to spare. He’d be safe enough from the things that prowled by night so long as he had a decent fire. He wasn’t going through his experience of the previous night again. . Heedless of the torrid heat, he gathered quantities of dried wood round two prone trees that had been cast up by the flood. With astonishing strength he piled more and more close by, chuckling to himself at his own forethought and cunning. Then he carefully set a match to some small stuff, and laughed gleefully as it caught, and the bigger branches began to burst into flame. He drew back a little from the heat and seated himself on the sandy earth. His water was finished but he did not notice it. Here was such a fire as a man might dream about, and the night must be drawing on. Two native hunters from the border, on a visit to friends in a distant kraal, drew near at the unaccustomed sight of this big fire in the glare of afternoon. They stood still on the far side of the donga, but McCall Gomicbooks.com