Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 28, 1928 — page 71: what you’re looking at

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

SCISSORED. Hogback, fifteen miles to the west- ward. He could expect no help. The thought lent wings to his desperation, and again he attacked his prison, the while he swore strange garbled oaths and called on the gods of fate to loose him that he might track down the fool who unwittingly had been instrumental in bringing upon him this living hell. His supper of deer meat had long since burned to cinders, and the heat had melted off the spout of his teapot, and he remembered that he was hun- ery. Unconsciously he fumbled for his pipe to smoke, as he often did when hungry—but the pipe reposed in the pocket of his buckskin that lay at the foot of a hackmatack. Oh, well! Already the shadows of night shrouded the wood, and the crisp No- vember air bit at the exposed portions of his body. He threw a handful of boughs on the fire, only to be deluged by the thick fog of smoke that caused him to strangle and choke. [SRE Dully he watched through red- rimmed lids the licking flames consume the limbs. A balsam bulb exploded with a little pop, and in the ensuing flare of flaming pitch he thought he saw the luminous eyes of Idona. : Idona! Vividly she rose from the flames, sinuous, lithe, alluring. And she had promised to wait for him; while his bones lay here to bleach, toll to the wild. By Heaven! No! His efforts to free himself in the next twenty muin- utes bordered on frenzy. And as he worried at his clariking prison, he snarled, whined and spat at it, for all the world like one of the many beasts he himself had trapped. At last, bathed in sweat and covered with blood, his struggles became weaker and, all at once, he began to laugh. Funny! Caught in a bear trap! What a joke to relate around the pot-bellied stoves of trading posts! He, Nap Toon, who had been bring- ing in the best catch of fur, winter 501 after winter, caught in a bear trap! Again he laughed, then checked him- self; this wouldn’t do. He must keep his head, must remain cool. Keep cool, that’s the ticket. His temples pounded; his body ached, and his neck felt as if it was broken from the weight of the blanket and trap. Oh, hum! Let’s see, was it yester- day or the day before that he made camp here? Damn those flecks that floated before his eyes anyway. He fought off the dizziness with an effort. Got to keep cool. Was that the roar of the falls that sounded in his ears? Gee, for a drink. A snuffling hedgehog nosed his pack and nibbled at a cold flapjack. ‘Toon shied a stick at the bold marauder, and as it shuffled off he wished that it hadn’t gone and would come back. Br-r; gétting cold, wasn’t it? He threw another handful of boughs on the fire and again he coughed and wheezed as the smoke clogged his lungs. ‘The throbbing at his temples had developed into a steady ache; the steel jaws seemed to be eating their way into his brain; while the gnawing void at the pit of his stomach grew into a ball of pain. | Drowsily he tried to fight off the lethargy that assailed him, but gradu- ally his resistance grew weaker and he sank into a semicoma. All night he lay, groaning, mutter- ing incoherently like a man in the throes of nightmare. With the dawn came consciousness. Frost covered the ground and he lapped the frozen dew and chewed leaves to assuage his thirst. His flan- nel shirt was inadequate, and he shiv- ered as with ague, and he reached for a match to kindle a fire, to remember that his match box was with his pipe. Again he tried to fish for them with a pole, only to push them away farther. Great Jehovah, was he to die like this? To starve? A raving maniac? “Ten thousand demons! No! No!” he shrieked aloud. . COPMICLOOOKS (E@)