Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 166: what you’re looking at

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

152 subsided, I heard her voice wailing in a low-pitched key as she once more was impelled to make the rounds of the village. We could trace her progress: by watching the people on the roofs. Then the moaning undertone leaped high like heat-lightning as she flayed Le Borgne, using terms that would bring death to any other in the five villages. She denounced him as a stealer of women, as a killer of women. ‘These accusations, especially the first, might be easily over- looked, even accepted as something com- plimentary. But when she added he was a coward, that the sight of a man’s blood made him sick, that he dared not leave his hut unless surrounded by many braves, the effect was quickly registered inside the hut. “He began bellowing in terrible rage, and the warriors on the roofs began shifting their positions so they might not be so prominent when he showed Himself. Those remaining on the ground scurried to climb up on the huts, or ran for the outskirts of the village. Flat Mouth breathed with a hissing sound, as he read these signs of fear, and whispered— “They are afraid to meet their chief when he comes out!” For fully ten minutes the woman kept up her vilification, her tongue never ceas- ing, her bitterness never losing its acid edge; then, as she had done before, she turned and ran swiftly away. Some women darted from a hut, seized her and induced her to go with them. Chief of the Wolves dropped from a roof and ran to his uncle’s hut announcing her departure. The door flew open with a smash, and the chief jumped out. Chief of the Wolves dis- appeared between two huts after one glance at the man’s face. Le Borgne was frightful to behold. To me he seemed to be as insane as the woman. He-had thrown aside his cloak and wore only his breech-clout, his long coarse .hair enveloping him like a shaggy cloak. sHis gigantic body trembled and shook. Standing before his porch, he crouched low and began jerking his ax up and down by the wrist-thong, all the time twisting his head back and forth to rake the village with his baleful glance. Then, straightening and lifting his arms above his head, he emitted a bull-like roar and smashed his ax against the long plat- Adventure form filled with driftwood. He was pray- ing for an enemy to appear—some one he could vent his blood-lust upon. “He goes mad like the woman,” mur- mured the Pillager, his hands twitching as he crouched on the edge of the hut and glared down at the chief. He reminded me of a Red River lynx on a bough about to leap on its prey. “He asks his manito to send him some- thing he can fight and kill. It would be a good coup to take his scalp!” “It would mean death for the white woman and for us,” I sternly rebuked, fear- ing lest he seek to test his strength against Le Borgne’s. “Not if it is her medicine working through him as it is working through the woman,’ he muttered, licking his lips wolfishly and craning his neck to watch the movements of the chief. Le Borgne roared even more loudly and without cessation. It was just a bestial cry with no words in it. As he howled his horrible yearning for battle his arms kept up a violent gesticulation, and the men on the huts crept to the opposite sides so as to remain unseen. The Pillager and I remained where we were. “Ho!” grunted the Pillager, smiling savagely. “‘Very soon I must fight that man, because he will have it so. They say he can fight good. I will wear a painted hand on my arm after we get back to the Red River to show I dodged under his ax and struck him with my empty hand on the arm before killing him.” — “Are you going mad? Are you a foolish man?’ I cried. ‘You say it is the woman’s medicine working; then let it work. It has not asked you to do anything.” ‘“‘Watch!”’ hissed the Pillager, balancing on the edge of the roof. What I saw gave me hope that the grim pantomime was ended, for Le Borgne sud- » denly darted back into his hut. “He will stay hidden until the woman comes and makes him a madman again,” T said. ~ But the Pillager seemed abnormally contented as he kept his eyes fastened on the closed door; his hands no longer twitched. Before I had time to wonder at this marked change in his demeanor, the door of the hut flew open again and now Le Borgne was wearing his robe. The Pillager gathered his heels under him and 0\(0)(0) COME <S => i “~~ a, a ae Seo, ae (E(0) a? ae,