Adventure Magazine Cover, June 20, 1925 — page 156: what you’re looking at

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

138 I’ve got about fifty diff’rent kinds 0’ evi- dence that Cap’n Ira tried to run the Pelamon down. Your plan to have me ship with Cap’n Ira to git that evidence worked too well!” Captain Ira advanced toward Mel with fists doubled up, murder in his evil eyes. “So that was your scheme in havin’ Luke sign on with me, eh?” he snarled. “Well, Mel, that’s a game that two can play at. Boys,” he shouted at his crew, “take over this ship! We'll man her, an’ settle with this bunch o’ bullies later.” The men huddled amidships let out a concerted whoop and started to carry out Captain Ira’s orders. But suddenly the yell was cut off, and in its place rose a howl of mortal agony. For a yellow shaft shot through the air, striking Sid Barnett’s left thigh, and Sid crumpled up on deck. With lightning speed Mel pulled back the pole by its bib line, and clapped another lily iron on its tip from the supply of metal harpoons lying on the deck house. The crew of the Pelamon flew about in lively fashion, grabbing gaffs, harpoon poles, and knives. Led by Mel, they advanced on the twenty-seven fishermen rescued from the Comber. “My leg! My leg! he ironed me!”’ wailed Sid, groveling on deck, abandoned by his erstwhile shipmates as they retreated. For Mel’s exhibition of accuracy with the harpoon, which was still embedded in Sid’s thigh, had convinced them conclusively of what damage the star striker of the en- tire fleet could inflict on them, despite his lameness. And Luke Carey held an auto- matic pistol, its muzzle menacing his late shipmates of the Comber. “T’m here to shoot—an’ shoot to kill!” calmly declared Luke. “Into the fo’csle with ye!’ shouted Mel, hobbling in the lead of his shipmates. Headlong the irresolute men of the Comber plunged, one after the other, into the forecastle. Mel slammed the slide shut after them. “All right, skipper!’ Mel shouted at Dan, who stood with the others of the Pelamon’s complement, a short-handled gaff gripped in his hand, his eyes full of fight. ‘“Take the wheel. Steer back to the wreckage o’ the derelic’.”’ Captain Dan, taking the wheel, steered for a large section of the derelict which floated in the midst of a sea of drifting Adventure lumber and bits of wreckage. And as they approached it, the large floating section resolved itself into the square stern of the derelict, which had been left practically intact after the Comber demolished the rest of the wreck. A siren whistle wailed to starboard. “The cutter!” shouted Luke, pointing in that direction. The fog was clearing away, the sun bursting through it in reddish radi- ance. Two miles or more away a rakish gray craft steamed toward the Pelamon. ‘‘She’s answerin’ the radio call for help that Cap’n Ira sent out when the Comber struck,”’ explained Luke. Captain Dan recognized the cutter—the coastguard greyhound Massasoit which fol- lows the fishing fleet to administer to in- jured and sick fishermen. And in the distance twinkled the sails of half a dozen schooners. The main body of the Georges swordfishing fleet was ranging southward. V Yry 10: THE transfer of Captain Ira and 4 his men to the Massasoit had been e—— effected only after lengthy expla- == nations by Captain Dan, Luke and Mel. Probably Luke’s displaying of papers which, preserved in a waterproof pocket, proved that he was to be commis- sioned a water policeman on a Boston police boat at the close of the fishing season had some weight toward influencing Commander Wilkes of the cutter. But Commander Wilkes was a friend of Dan and Mel, and, like many other seafaring men, he was well aware that the court award after the col- lision the previous year had been eminently unjust. A hard but kindly seaman, Wilkes sym- pathized with swordfishermen because he knew what risks they run to make an honest living. So he summed up the arguments pro and con, and decided that it was not only his duty to take the Comber’s crew ashore, but to arrest her commander as a vio- lator of international law on the high seas. After the cutter had steamed away with its prisoners, Luke gleefully observed: “You’ve got all the cards in your hands, Cap’n Oldham. ‘That crew o’ Cap’n Ira’s didn’t fight us because they’ll turn ag’in’ Ira in a minute—ain’t loyal to him no more than they was to you. They told me them- selves on the Comber they’d turn State’s COMIGDIOOKSEEO