Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 128: what you’re looking at

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

SIN ROEM Toe manager. 114 1? “You'd better stop it, Perry!’ warned Clendenning, half-rising from the counter, “Sit down, Clendenning! You're host, I know, but sit down,” growled Perry as he turned his back on the North West “T haven’t time to quarrel with you now. Weston and I must de- cide on our route into the Slave country.” Clendenning’s well-bred face flushed and his blue eyes gleamed at Perry’s con- temptuous attitude. He vaulted over his counter as if to charge across the floor toward the independent trader, then, deeply disgusted with the intolerance of the man who persistently took up his altercation with Weston, he flung his pen back upon his day-book and strode out of the doorway. ; IKE a cool hand the velvet night air of Spring caressed his flushed face. Like a soothing wash to his gleaming eyes the waters of Athabasca shimmered under a faint aurora. Rimming the shores, the forest poised austerely, inky black against the silver sky, a forest lone and somber—the gateway to the wilder- ness, still more lone and somber, into which Perry proposed to drag Weston against the latter’s will. The immensity, the wonderful magic of that waking wilderness was healing balm to Clendenning’s irritation. He for- got the insulting Perry quarreling with the stubborn Weston. Unconsciously his face took on a smiling expression and his eyes glowed softly in the silver dusk as they rested on the long lines of yellow canoes drawn up on Athabasca’s margin. Round the yellow birch-barks the bronzed canoemen sprawled before their cooking fires, bivouacking there ready for the southward paddle in the morning. They awaited only the coming of the Slave Lake brigades, due at dawn ac- cording to the courier who foreran them in his swift canoe. A great journey stretched before these Northmen of the pays den haut and before Clendenning in charge of them, for the advent of the Slave brigades would mark his departure for Montreal to carry down the North West furs. It should mark, too, the departure of the independent traders on the same mission, and this circumstance had brought the argument between the partners to a Adventure climax. Weston was determined to go south: with his share of the Hudson Bay furs, making the annual trip and maintaining headquarters as usual at Athabasca, and Clendenning could not help admitting that Perry had voiced the real reason for Weston’s trip. Undoubt- edly it was David Garland’s girl Frances, the maid of the Little Company. Just beyond the long line of the North Westers’ bivouac, he could see another row of canoes, the fleet of. the Little Company, whose log post hugged the fringe of spruce behind.. More red fires winked there, and more bronze canoemen ° foregathered, shuttling between the fires as they carried bale after bale from the Little Company post to the canoe land- ing. David Garland and Frances were likewise bound for Montreal. The bri- gades would travel together, and Clen- denning’s smiling expression deepened and his eyes glowed more softly as he thought of the journey with Frances down the waterways of the Northern world. Where she went the men ofall the companies yearned to follow. It was | little wonder, Clendenning told himself, that Weston yearned to travel south in- stead of north. He could see the girl herself in the firelight, her face the color of the forest rose, her hair like forest-filtered moon- light, as she went about with her father checking off the bales. Clendenning picked his way through his own canoe- men to see how they were getting on. “Ts the Little Company post nearly finished, Frances?” he greeted. “Very nearly now,” she answered with a low laugh of satisfaction. “You North Westers. beat us in arranging the load- ing, didn’t you? I had to turn in and help my father. us started.” “Yes, the morning,” breathed Clenden- ning, glorying in her wide blue eyes, beautiful as fathomless opals in the fire= light, “a morning that will bring us many things—the wilderness pathway, Ile a la Crosse, Grande Portage, Montreal, and who knows what after that?” “Who knows what?” she_ echoed naively, diverting her glance under Clen- denning’s eager eyes. “‘One never knows what there is to dare.” “And win,” added Clendenning mean- “comicbooks But morning will see ‘ ~ a a ed com ~~ “ea. => —s “ae