Adventure Magazine Cover — page 34: what you’re looking at

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

32 dropped to its soft surface, his head resting between his hands, as it had in that moment on New Year’s night, when his spirit flagged. But now his attitude was of fatigue, utter, heart-slowing weariness of body, rather than of dejection. “Tt’s the harder task you’ve set them, Anthony,” said gray Stewart, coming up to rest a boot on the end of the log. “Eh, and don’t I know it?” asked the general of a brigade. “But it’s not impossible.”’ Butler, all his bulk a-shake with cold, joined them. ‘‘The only thing to be said for it is that nothing is -impossible in this war.” “For it’s no proper war,”’ grumbled Stew- art philosophically, “but more like a dream of kelpies‘and brownies and witch-work and the boggle that lives in the glen, than it is like a proper war such as has been waged, according to the rules and art of the same, since the days of Julius Cesar. In short, ’tis a war that’s plain unbelievable to a ra- tional mind, and, losh, but it’s all of a piece! Whether ye contemplate the commander- in-chief, or Ethan Allen, Arnold or Jemmy the Commodore, with his addled brains that think so much clearer than most sane men’s, Mad Anthony or his desperate, loyal, dis- ciplined mutineers yon, who’re wiling a notorious Tory to introduce ’em to Con- gress there to demand their really just rights. Ill laugh outright at it all in a min- ute, and maybe that will wake me up, and I’ll hear the kirk-bells ringing beyond in Aberdeen. Will I be gray-headed, I won- der, when I’m roused? Dreams like this one are enough to turn any laddie snow-white!”’ ‘““We’d best hunt for fire,’’ said Wayne to Butler. “The cold has got into his brain- pan, and he’s mad as Jemmy.”’ Vill person stood outside an inn near Princeton, and peered inquisitively through a small-paned window. On the ragged back the sun shone warmly from a sky as blue and dense as lapis. Breath hung white in the bright chill of the morning air, and the dazzle from the snow-smooth mead- OWS was a pain above the eyes. Through the gnarled glass a Continental soldier could be seen, sitting and writing in the inn’s “best room” alone. A fire burned on the hearth, and a candle for melting the Pe: days later that tatterdemalion WILKESON O’CONNELL sealing-wax was alight on a long table that had been improvised from trestles and broad new boards. Rush-bottomed chairs were tilted against the table’s sides, and at the end where the soldier sat, were quills, sand, foolscap, a heavy pewter inkstand, wax, and all the paraphernalia of a scribe of the day. The Continental seemed busily enough engaged with his ink and quill; yet, with every sound that a wooden house will give forth in the winter, his pen was down and his head was up, as he watched the door in a very agony of impatience. When Jemmy at last tapped upon a pane, he jumped as if he had trod upon a water-moccasin. “Oh, it’s only you!” he exclaimed in dis- appointment, and then called through the glass: ‘Go ’round to the door, Jémmy—this window’s stuffed against the cold.’”’ And once more turned his eyes toward the en- trance, but no longer with anxiety, hardly with interest, although his greeting, when Jemmy was fairly within, was cordial and familiar. The Commodore swiftly closed the door, and stood leaning his back against the pan- els, while he regarded the soldier with a look conspicuously lacking in any sort of respect. But then, Jemmy was never known to show such to any authority, legal or otherwise, nor to any man save one, with whom he came in-contact. His Excellency, the com- mander-in-chief of the Continental Armies, that sphinx-faced immortal, could wring an unwilling reverence from him, but no other man had been able to do likewise, not even his friend and protector, Wayne. Now he leered and chuckled, according to his custom, while he spoke in his richest brogue. “Well, well, well!”’ he crooned mockingly. ‘“‘Here zs promotion and a rise in life!”’ The soldier wriggled like a hooked cat- fish, and his leather neck turned a shade ruddier, but Jemmy went mercilessly on. “Me little friend, Floyd, sitting with his little pink toes in the boots of me friend, Anthony! Eh, but it’s strange things, in- deed, that the wheel of Time does be turn- ing uppermost! Where is Anthony?” “God knows!” replied Floyd Allen, with vivacity. ‘‘God alone knows where any one is! Unless you do, Jemmy?” He fin- ished with an inflexion of inquiry. “IT? Far from it! I make it me business never to know where anybody is—’tis safest. COMMICLOO© S CO