Adventure Magazine Cover — page 143: what you’re looking at

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

Still it lived in the inferno of waters. Sky- high it tossed on the manes of the galloping ‘surges. Sheer over them worked the famed Iroquois crew like fantom paddlers dipping ream blades in the fountain of the aurora that poured from on high. Steene watched their progress in a strange fascination, his hand - mechanically dipping the bailer while the - Water crept up his buckskin leggings to his _ knees. Nine times while he never expected ___them to rise he saw them soar to the clouds _ inhis wake. Then the tenth time they failed - ____ to appear. _— A broken paddle with the steersman’s ____ Streamer of wool tied to its shaft floated down on him. ~ “By Jove, they’re gone!” Steene cried. _ “Henderson’s blade,” breathed Clara, for- ‘getting her own danger in that strange fasci- nation that gripped both her and Steene. ‘‘It ___ failed him in the end.” For an instant the cavernous trough se __ to hold the secret of their going, but the next _-—~—~—s wave crest flung Henderson’s canoe bottom --—s«&p against the stars. = “Aye, it failed him,” nodded Steene. craft was flipped clean over. __-we’re all but swamped ourselves!”’ Truly their own six-fathom canoe was down __ almost to the gunwales. _ “Another stroke,” Steene shrilled. “Another stroke, and hold hard when we strike rock.” ae With a shout his Ojibways snatched the sinking craft from the grip of the waves with ~~ the strength of their blades. With a heave they drove its nose on the slant of the rock shore of the Spider Islands. Grimly they ___ held it there with their straining paddles while __ ’ ~$teene seized Clara and sprang ashore with fae. = “fier. : Then the Ojibways leaped themselves with a flying leap and, victors over Governor Burn- ham’s matchless Iroquois, victors over Lake Winnipeg itself, drew the big birch-bark to safety. + Panting with their efforts, braced against the terrific gale on the shore, the Ojibways stood, ae > - - “The Look out— wd ns The Long Traverse staring from the long rent in the canoe bottom to the waste of tumbling waters that rolled in at their feet. Not a survivor of the govern- or’s crew rose to their view, not even the rem- nants of the birch-bark craft that had dared the crossing from Old Norway House Point with them. They glimpsed only the monstrous surges, _ irresistible as the ocean itself, rearing and plung- ing in dizzying succession, booming thunder- - ously on the rocks, shaking the islands under their feet as if Lake Winnipeg in its baffled. anger would tear away their haven. They stared and searched each other’s countenance with their dark eyes. “So,” the bowsman spoke at last, ‘‘they are all at the bottom of the lake. takes the Long Traverse.” ‘““Aye,” nodded Steene, ‘‘Governor Burn- ham instead of me. And at dawn there will be another traverse for the factor’s daughter and me—the long traverse to the south. Light a fire for her and another to melt pitch to mend the canoe. It must be ready at dawn, for the gale will die out with the sun.” Swiftly the Ojibways carried their battered canoe up the rocks and gathered wood for a fire. Close to the leaping flames in a nook sheltered from the lusty draft leaned Steene and Clara Travis, drying their soaked clothes in the heat. Over a smaller blaze the Ojibways melted their resin, fitting over the long rent in the canoe bottom a carefully cut piece of birch- bark and pouring on the blazing pitch. When it was securely sealed in place they put the craft aside, away from the fire, so that the gum might harden and present an im- penetrable surface to the water. “Tt is done,” the bowsman reported to the two by the fire. “It will be ready by the dawn.” “That is good,’ commended Steen, dismiss- ing him with a gift of tobacco. ‘‘And we shall be ready, too—shall we not, Clara?”’ “Ves,” sighed the girl, spreading grateful hands to the fire; “‘ready for the long traverse.” y a WZ —__. ML, pect X a. = : Ee COC OOO It is the governor | CO me ae ie —= ey. 2 ag my =