Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 175: what you’re looking at

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

Gentlemen a the North and to wonder if the old rascal had suc- ceeded in bullying and coaxing all the rum from Probos. /I repeatedly framed my report to the gentlemen of the North, trying to excuse my absence from my post and explain why the Spring hunt nae re- sulted in a failure. Then it came over me and chases me— homesickness. To remain there through the Summer, Fall and Winter and to sée no white man’s smoke until the next Sum- mer seemed to be more than I could endure. All the way up the river I fought it over with myself. Then I realized how silly it was to try to keep the girl from my thoughts. I loved her. I would tell her so. At least she should know that much of the truth, even though she laughed at me. I believed I would feel better if I humiliated myself to her. . So, when I reached the stretch below the X. Y. post on the Scratching, where poles must be used instead of paddles, I stayed in camp and killed time until she and the Pillager came up. I thought she wanted him to go on, but, seeing me, he was eager to land. I greeted her and she eyed me blankly. I fidgeted and waited. Then I could not endure it longer. The Indian was some rods away; roasting some meat. I made sure of my position in my canoe, then turned to her and said: “That time—back there—I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t loved you.” “Don’t mention it,” she politely replied, turning and walking to the fire. “T won’t again,” I called after her, curs- ing myself for an addle-headed lout. I sent my canoe into the stream and pitted my strength and sleepless mood against the river and the hours. More of a ghost than a man, I at last crawled ashore at the Pembina post at the edge of evening. The old familiar drunken howls saluted | me from the fort. I picked up two oak ax-helves, where some of the drunken beg- gars had thrown them, and tucked them under my arm. Whend reached the stock- ade gate I heard old Tabashaw making a drunken speech and exhorting his tribes- men to enter the fort, find Probos and drag him from “his hiding-place and cut his throat. I glanced up at the fort windows and saw Probos’ fat, greasy face flabby with terror. Leaning my gun against the stockade, I took an oak helve in each hand and quietly.stole upon the gathering, 11 Then did I put the fear of the manito into theit souls. I waded back and forth cracking heads and upbraiding them for worthless dogs and concluded by getting old Tabashaw by the neck and kicking him outside the stockade. Probos, with tears running down his flaccid face, told®me the Indians had grown to be very insolent; that his life was threatened every day. No trade had been brought in, as none of the hunters had gone out. It was believed the Sioux had killed me and the girl and 161 the Pillager. On the morrow Tabashaw had ~ . proposed to raid the X. Y. post down the river and secure the supply of liquor. Then he proposed to burn all posts on the river. Next morging I sent Probos back to the Red River and had the Indian women clean up the fort. I assessed every hunter in the camp with a debt of fifty skins to pay - for the rum he had consumed, and told them they would not get any more until they squared their debts. For two weeks I worked with the devil riding me. I hated the thought of night and invented excuses to stay up and keep busy. The gardens had been sadly neglected and the women were kept at work tending these. ‘he hunters were gradually cleared from the fort and the grounds until I had nothing to do but sit down and Bate myself and the country. The Pillager had been but a poor companion after he joined me. He spent most of his time hunting buffaloes, and-when we met he made no reference to Miss Dearness. I wouldn’t ask him about her or affairs at the X. Y. post for anything, and he had to talk except concerning how fat the cows were and the like. One day I walked down to the river, thinking to take my canoe and paddle up-stream and kill time. As I stood, trying to decide whether I really would go or not, a canoe rounded the bend down-stream and I could scarcely believe my eyes as I beheld the flaming torch of hair. I would not go up-stream as she was going in the same direction. She continued in the mid- dle of the river, fighting the full force of the current. I stared straight ahead... She came abreast of me but did not appear to see me. Then, with a vicious cut-of the paddle, she turned inshore and before I knew it was pulling her canoe up on the beach. “You're not very neighborly,” she quietly remarked, looking up into my face. CORNICLOOLK< (E@)