Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 150: what you’re looking at

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

ye el Gentlemen of the North - A four-part story-conclusion yy Hugh Pendexter Author of ‘Red Belts,’ “When Kentucky Starved,” etc CHAPTER X | LE BORGNE PLANS A FEAST HAVE met many savage chiefs, but none who ranked with Le Borgne for brutality, implacable will-power and wisdom. Not only among his own people did he rule with autocratic decisive- ness and exhibit the power of an absolute monarch, but among the Mandans also his word was law. His great courage, his imper- turbable calmness in the stress of danger, made him an ideal leader against the Sioux and other hostile tribes. In any disputes be- tween the Minnetarees and their Mandan neighbors his promptness in acting the arbiter with a big war-ax made him supreme. Despite his high ae of courage and imminent capacity for leadership, he was, from the white man’s point of view, bestial with his women. They were his chattels and of no more account than his dogs. If he were so inclined he would murder Wit 136 them, and no one dared question the act. He had slain more than one of his wives. He went even further and appropriated any matron or maid that took his fancy, and this without protest from husband or parent, an acquiescence I never found in any other Indian community. I knew much of his character by reputa- tion and from the Pillager’s gossip. What details of his grim history I lacked I soon learned during my stay in the village. Choke-Cherry brought the word in the morning that Flat Mouth and I were wanted by the chief. The Pillager, to make himself fit for the audience, strung his Sioux scalps round his neck. and went naked except for his breech-clout. We left our weapons in the hut with Miss Dearness, except that Flat Mouth con- cealed a small knife in his clout. I counted the scalps on his chest and was relieved to find he carried only the Sioux’s hair. I asked him in Chippewa, as we stood at one side, what he had done with the Assiniboin scalps, but he smiled and said nothing. (EC) ,00K (E(0)