Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 92: what you’re looking at

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

78 barely visible in the dim light of the early dawn. It was very clear to her, as she scanned the faces of the men about her, that she had been carried off from Culiacan and by strangers, for she knew none of the faces about her. The men wore no clothes of Spanish make; they spoke no word of Spanish. Who could they be and how had she fallen into their hands? She remembered absolutely nothing, for peyotl, that dread eraser of all mem- ory, had wiped clean the slate of her con- sciousness. The stamping of the tethered horse aroused her. Followed by the four men who carefully watched her every movement, she walked slowly over to the tree and looked at the horse. He was the favorite mount of the governor, the red Arab stallion that he had brought from Andalusia at a great cost. There would be a terrible reckoning for all this when the time should come for the ac- counting, Of that she was very certain. She realized now that she had been very skilfully carried away from her own room in the very middle of the gov- ernor’s guards. who had dared do this and what was their motive if no harm was intended? Above all, why could she remember nothing of the events of that night? Her very brain rocked with the overwhelm- ing mystery of it. It savored of art- magic. Instinctively she crossed herself as she reached for the rope that fastened the horse. Modoc touched her arm and shook his head in denial. She persisted in reach- ing for the rope and very gently, as one would correct an erring child for its in- sistence, he pulled her hamd away from the rope and motioned to the fire, where one of the Indians had already ‘heaped the serapes that had formed her cover- ing. Another was blowing the embers of the nearly dead fire. That fire was fated never to ice again, for even as the man stooped over the embers there came a sudden whir that was followed by a shrill yell, and the man pitched forward on his face in the embers. The startled gazers were sud- denly aware of a three-foot arrow that jutted from his throat and of a score of naked figures springing in and out among _ the brush. But who were the people | Adventure Instantly her captors scattered in head- long flight, a mistake that they soon paid for. In a second that camp was alive with leaping, yelling savages. SHEY had crawled up to the nearest ridge under cover of the darkness, attracted by the smell of the wood smoke, and, after the fashion of Indians, had rushed the camp in the dawning. What followed was organized murder, and when it was done, Mercedes, who early in the fight found herself held firmly by two men, saw, as one sees through a dense mist, the fire trampled out very carefully, three dead bodies in the short grass and the fourth man, Modoc, being dragged to a small cotton- wood tree where he_ shrieked and screamed as something utterly abomin- able was done to him. She did not see what it was, for she was most unceremoniously bundled to the back of the tired stallion, her feet were roped and tied beneath his belly, and ten minutes after the first alarm had been given she found herself riding at a walk up the hill, led by two savages, with ten others scattered along the trail in front of and in rear of her. The world seemed to have dropped from under her feet. She had hardly begun to realize one dream as a horrible reality when this second one came. She felt that there must come a moment of awaking and that she would see Maria come in her room with a platter. contain- ing her rolls and chocolatl. What had happened? She remembered very clearly that pain- ful scene in the banquet-hall and the an- nouncement that her guardian had made, her own indignant protest and the grin- ning face of de Fonseca as he tapped her familiarly upon the arm. All this stood out clearly in her memory. Very distinct, too, was the recollection of the tall, broad-shouldered stranger from the south, Andres de Avilez—was that his name? He had kindly eyes and ‘a mouth that showed every character line that one would expect to find in a leader of men, and Mercedes had heard Mendoza say that the mouth is the one true lineament that indexed character, because men make that for themselves. She could still see the quizzical glance CS GComichboo ee (F@)