Adventure Magazine Cover — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

26 WILKESON “‘Hasn’t come in yet,’ said Barstow, “from posting guard.”’ “If ye were to come right along, now,” said Macklin, ‘‘ye could get back, maybe, afore he did come in.”’ “What’s the trouble with ye, Mack?” asked Bannock curiously. “Ye act like you're scared of Fallen.” “IT ain’t nothing of the sort!’’ denied Macklin. “But I do be scared that if he once gets wind of Wayne’s being here, he’ll keep ye from meeting him.”’ “He couldn’t, if the board voted to do so,”’ pointed out Dockstader. ‘““Maybe not,” said Macklin, “but he sure could keep ye from voting ’cept as he wanted. He could talk a bird offen a bush, or a fish out of the creek, that lad could!” ‘And why are ye so anxious,” pursued Bannock, “‘to have us talk to the general?” ‘Cause I reckon the things he’s got to say to ye will put an end to this ed mutiny,” said Macklin frankly. “TI tell ye true, I haven’t had an easy thought since we wheeled off on New Year’s night. It’s rotten bad, this thing we’re doing. It’s worse than we know, and that’s bad enough. ’Cause Congress treats us unjust is no good reason we should turn on our officers, most of whom are as bad off as ourselves. I tell ye you could ’a’ knocked me over with a goose’s plume, when he let that out ’bout Tolbert. And right this instant it gives me qualms to think of it.” “But we done it,’”’ said Maine, his voice sinking weakly. ‘We killed Bittings there on the grand parade, and now—Tolbert and White! Oh, Lord!’ ‘“‘We got to go on, now,” said Dockstader. “We'll hang else.” “Dot’s true,” said Holtzburg gloomily. “*Tweren’t good politics to have used ball again’ ’em,”’ muttered Riddle uneasily. ‘“‘We should ’a’ stuck to clubbing with the rifle stocks.”’ “Yes,” said Barstow, ‘‘but it’s too late to think of now. What we goé to do is what Fallen says: make our terms with Congress with our arms in our hands. They’ll have to hear us so.” “Go to meet Wayne,” urged Macklin. “Go to meet Wayne, and he’ll find a way out for ye. He ain’t a-hankering to hang the Line, nor yet nobody in it. [’m main positive that he’s rid after us just for to show us some way to get safely out of the O’CONNELL whole bloody mess. And ye better hustle about it, too, or he’ll get tired of waiting!”’ ‘““We-ell,”’ said Barstow, getting inde- cisively on to his feet. VII _ IDETTES, double posts, and the shortest route,’’ meditated Colonel \ Butler, pulling an ear to see if it were indeed frozen, ‘‘while he keeps a disci- pline as tight as a tuned _fiddle-string! Tis the wedding of prudence with boldness. I did not act correctly when I made him but a sergeant-major; I should have recom- mended him to Congress for a general’s command. The man’s a born soldier!”’ “So was Arnold,” Stewart reminded him, and Butler sobered with the words. There was a long, numb pause, while each of the three suffered silently. It was as light now as it was going to be, for the sun was hidden by a high hung vault of gray that was as hard and stern as granite. And the air that filled it was as hard, and cold, and very clear, not moved by a single sigh of wind. The three officers were blue with long waiting, and Swan trudged across the background with the dogged resolution of endurance. “Frankly, gentlemen, I make neither head nor tail of it all,” admitted Wayne. ‘Why Floyd Allen, a notorious and avowed Tory as we know, should take such extraordinary and excellent precautions against capture by his own side is past my guessing!” “It may be that he prefers to sell the Line to his friends,” suggested Stewart, “thus turning a penny on the side for himself.” “Van Kuren’s view oi the Allen thrift would support that opinion,” reflected Butler. “In which case, I assume that now he is persuading the Line to listen to the enchant- ing cheep-cheep of the British goldfinches, while they are still beyond Von Erkheim’s reach.” ‘“‘They’d never listen!” said their general positively. ‘Why not?” asked Stewart, with bitter logic. ‘‘What have we to bid against a pocketful of cheeping, chinking, British yellowbirds? A broken boot? A thread- bare coat? Half a blanket, a biscuit the very rats would turn from, glory and a soldier’s grave! The last makes cold lying these winter nights!” COmiclbool CO