Adventure Magazine Cover — page 183: what you’re looking at

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

The Cams Fire Injuns. They went up in the dark and in the racket trying to arrest him in the morning. Bull’s brother killed one of the police, Lt. Bull Head—about a dozen were killed six or sO on each side and after it was all over the brave troops (held back in case of trouble) came up and plugged the camp with Hotchkiss guns. This was in 1890 Will you refer me to thé account in the Govern- ment records where this great Hans shows action?— HERBERT Copy BLAKE. That comrade Blake himself* fully real- izes Camp-Fire’s methods of bringing out the real facts by general discussion is evi- denced from a later letter—in which he has a shot at too expert gun men: Brooklyn, New York. By this forum, this free-for-all, the real true his- tory of much which has long since happened is for - the first time being printed in Adventure. Take for example the controversy Hough vs. Henry. Now when it’s all thrashed out and we’ve all put up our bluff ve Custer, I’m gambling that out of what is told in Adventure may be read the first and only complete irwe account of the affair. Personally I’ve much interest in anything referring to.Custer as my mother lost a brother in the scrap. I hardly think anything I wrote you is worth printing. I’m an old cow-punch who, although house broke enough to know not to put hoss-radish on ice-cream, can’t write good composition enough for magazines. If you think different and consider what I wrote calculated to start some sport to giv- ing us some information, go ahead. T MAY or may not interest you to know I wrote (and have long reply from) the best and highest authorities in United States on gun fanning with a Colt (back in those days) and absolutely it is only by accident; only by such that absolute centers or marks are hit at any such distance as we read of. Of course, none of us old blokes read or pay any. at- tention to these cusses who get their beans by writ- ing stories of two-gun sports who file the sights off and pull out the trigger holding up the hammer with their thumb. They might hit a man across a table or a hoss five feet away and that’s all. What’s more: This chucking a tomato-can or two into the air and keeping it up there by hitting it six or twelve times with a Colt or throwing up six poker chips and hiv- ing one after the other “and each fell in fragments” (usually in about the third chapter) is all rot as is this getting “‘creased in the shoulder’’ so often. To go back to Custer—for I am going to let the “sun men” fight out the first mentioned wonderful thing this old sport is said to have done. I had sev- eral talks with two Sioux bucks (old ones, of course) and with a blanket squaw who went through a Mis- sion School, last Summer. The Injuns were with Gall (who was the top boss in the fight), the squaw did the “interpreting” for us when necessary and little by little I am getting the real dope concerning the Massacre and if the outcome of all this contro- versy over Custer results in Adventure putting before the public the whole story, I say it will alone be more than worth all we pay for it.— HERBERT Copy BLAKE. 181 THIS 1921 letter from our cache ought to have been printed long ago. But you know how it is— to handle all our Camp-Fire let- ters with system would demand far more time than the eleven of us in the office could possibly get hold of. Probably few of you realize the immense amount of office work necessary to handle all the details of our various departntents. Ii Adventure printed fiction only we could probably cut our staff in half and carry the work easily. “Camp-Fire,” for example, is my own personal job: I like ““Camp-Fire” as much as any of you, but I certainly don’t like the work it involves. It looks easy to fill a few pages mostly with what some one else writes, but I think I never in my life did anything else that took so much time im proportion to results shown. An iron-elad, fully detailed system would save some Of that time, but none of us has time to oper- ate the system. So we must just be content with our eache into which all Camp-Fire letters go and from which we draw pretty much at ran- dom. Pardeeville, Wisconsin. Will some one tell me who wrote “In the Days of the Meeting’? It relates to the Sepoy uprising. Rujub the juggler with his daughter are saved from a tiger by Bathurst who drives it off with a whip. I read this a long time ago and would like to get it again.—Dr. A. L. Woop. DON’T forget that we still have on hand a number of indexes by volume for Adventure which we shall be glad to send to you in return for the necessary postage. Postage costs about one cent per index. SERVICES TO OUR READERS — : Lost Trails, for finding missing ’ relatives and friends, runs in alter- nate issues from “Old Songs That Men Have Sung.” Old Songs That Men Have Sung, a section of “Ask Adventure,” runs in alternate issues from “Lest Trails.” Camp-Fire Stations: explanation in the sec- ond and third issues of each menth. Full list in second issue of each month. Various Practical Services to Any Reader: Free Identification Card in eleven languages Scene 25 cents); Mail Address and Forwarding Service; Back Issues Exchanged; Camp-Fire Buttons, etc., runs in the last issue of each month. Gomichbooks.com