Adventure Magazine Cover — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

THE PENNSYLVANIA LINE further risk the guard’s life by a repetition of the order.) “Then, by —— I'll do it myself!” As Wayne swung from his saddle, the rebel leaped, knocking the startled Macklin at full length upon the plain. Quick as a cat the sergeant-major gained his feet, and had twisted the rifle from Macklin’s hands before breath had returned to the latter’s body. Still gasping, the guard scrambled to his legs, saluted his approaching officer with all due respect, and retired into the shadows, to all appearance unutterably relieved by his summary defeat. | Wayne’s face flushed with angry blood, and he drew his saber as he strode toward the mutineer, who awaited further on- slaught with tense excitement, the captured rifle all but trembling in his hands. And after Wayne trotted Barstow, still be- seeching his superior to pause and hear reason, his words falling on ears that were resolutely deaf. “Sergeant Fallen,” said the general, as he came, “‘if I did my full duty by you, you would be court-martialed on this very ground, this very night, for tampering with the loyalty of the troops, and hanged for a traitorous hound tomorrow at reveille!’’ ‘“You’re mistaking us, sir!’ urged Bar- stow, as if trying by a strained earnestness to make the truth of his words penetrate Wayne’s angry obstinacy. “Don’t read us wrong in this. We ain’t going over to the enemy. On the contrary, if they was now to come out again’ us, we’d fight under your orders just as resolute as ever.” Wayne pointed across the plain with his saber’s tip, and addressed the rebel. “You are under arrest,” he announced. “Lay down that rifle, and march before me to the guard-house.”’ “And what if I refuse that hospitable invitation?’ asked the mutineer, speaking for the first time since his oration had been cut short. In answer Wayne sheathed his blade, and drawing a pistol from the belt under his cloak, cocked it with precision. Barstow dared to lay a hand on his general’s arm. “Be careful, sir!’ he begged. ‘“You’re going too far! Can’t ye see they won't hold much longer? They love ye, they respect ye, but you’re a dead man if ye fire that!” Wayne threw back the pistol, took an- other stride forward, and halted rigidly, ’ 2I painfully, a spasm he could not control creasing his face. For as the mutineer presented the bayonet at the general’s breast there had broken a cheer from the Pennsylvania Line, and the rifles that had been trained on Macklin were raised against the man who had recruited them. For a long instant, while the dying fire flamed up once, they were all held there motionless, in check; and then, with a clink and a scuffle, rose out of the dark and over a cannon, a centaur-like shadow. It fell lightly and burst apart, the man-half leaping to grapple with the mutineer al- most before the horse had recovered from the hazard. From the shadow of the gun-shed rode the four other officers, and as they did so the line broke ranks and swept forward with a hydra-howl. A shot cracked through the tumult, hitting the new arrival; and the mob clawed mindlessly back from what the bullet had done. In the rapidly clearing center, near the fire, Wayne was bending over a dark, prone form by which Stewart knelt. ‘Who is it? Who is it?” rustled and washed back through the crowd, and those in the front of it passed rearward the answer, “Bittings.”’ ‘Who would it have been but Bittings,”’ was Farquar’s muttered query, as he and Van Kuren pushed their horses carefully through the eddying masses of men, “with half the men of the Line nursing some ran- corous insult from him in their sore minds, and the rest as fearful of him as of the yellow fever?” ““Ay, twas too good an opportunity to be missed,”’ the major answered. “But if he’s killed, Lord alone knows what'll come of it!”’ “‘God, for all he’s such a skunk, I wouldn’t ’a’ seen him lying there for a general’s com- mand!’ whispered Riddle to Maine, the little, black-haired bull-dog faced sergeant of the battery. “Tf he’s dead there’ll be some who'll dance at a rope’s end for it!”’ “Ay, and it’ll count black against all of us in Philadelphia,” said Riddle. “ ’T'was the worst of politics!”’ “T’ll_ bet one man’s pleased with it, howsomever.”’ opined Maine. “It couldn’t ’a’ happed neater, to Fallen’s way of think- ing, if he’d prayed for it.” Riddle nodded, but all he said was:— “Look—it didn’t do for him, maybe.” For Bittings had struggled to an elbow, COMMICLOO© S CO