Adventure Magazine Cover — page 133: what you’re looking at

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

The Dream’s End see yer like,” he growled self-consciously. “Like tryin’ it ag’in.”’ So it was with the rest. Ten men, dug up from the flotsam and jetsam of life, spat and pumped his hand as furiously as they had pumped the. doomed Jessica and nodded gravely or foolishly as the moment directed them and rolled sailorwise out of his ken; ten men who would have murdered a ma- licious ship’s master without compunction. Arnie watched them go, counted nine of them with the mate who had not opened his mouth, but whose grip and the look in his eyes signified a new faith in his existence, and turned about to face the tenth waiting beside him. “T reckon we had us an elegant time, what say?” remarked Japes. He thrust back his jacket-front, lovingly brushed his hand over his wondrous flow- ered vest and from his dwarf height-squinted up quizzically at Arnie. Two thousand dollars of his had gone down with the Jessica; his vision of home on the Maine coast with a trawler lifting and falling in the bay and more than a score of years of slaving ina hot, killing cook’s galley put forever behind him, had become in a twinkling a mirage. He aired his gaudy, hand-worked vest for the admiring world to gaze upon—and waited for the next turn of events. Yet Japes knew nothing of fatalism and next to his beloved vest revered his Bible, most of which he did not in the least understand. ““You’d best take the long boat and sell it,’ Arnie said. ‘He would not attempt condolence; eigh- teen hard years disposed of that thoroughly. Japes blinked. “Up Dirkenhills way a long boat Frec’lect made a tol’able ferry. Was yuh set on leg- gin’ it on yer own now, er doos I team up?”’ The bit of a Yankee, his faith in Arnie supremely blooming in spite of = looked so longingly, spoke so hungrily . Arnie floundered hopelessly. “What could we do?” he asked. share in ’er.”’ He began searching through his pockets for a piece of paper, thereon to note the transaction. It was then he came upon the dirty yellow envelop that the San Carlos official had stuffed into his hand as he weighed ship, a dirty yellow envelop con- taining the insurance company’s respects to “The boat won’t keep two of us. I give you my 123 his unconscious honesty, a dirty yellow en- velop . . . and as he read the cablegram inside, an eleventh hand-grasp went out to him that made the included mention of money of secondary importance. Big stuff in you want see you give full coverage return trip thanks you are white Several readings were required; then Arnie passed the slip to Japes and stared round at the world with a smile of pure discovery. Japes fell to jabbering—inanely, Arnie thought—of a fortune in money. But Japes was Yankee, and Arnie was not. There were Just three words that stood out; they were, ‘‘you are white.” BOTH forgot the long boat. The water-front disappeared behind them. In the offices of the signers of the cable- — gram Arnie put down the yellow paper upon a shiny counter. gray-haired, spectacled man issued from out a glass door, pushed straight through the gate and put out his hand. “Honored, Captain Sondheim! Come The clerk vanished. A — right in, sir. And you,” he said to Japes, — whereupon the little cook placed a very large face upon the moment indeed and pursed his lips and nodded his head as if it were a sprightly pendulum. They entered the private office. Arnie wedged in a word when he could. Hedid not yet believe this friendliness; he remembered Zeesman; it was not sincere; the truth would come out presently; it was a game. He said— “Beg your pardon, but I guess you don’t know the Jessica foundered three hundred miles out of port.” “Don’t know it? What’s that?” The spectacled eyes grew benign where they had been penetrating. ‘Our business, sir, is to know everything. We even profess to know men; you’ve rather shaken us lately, I may Well, sir——”’ se on he went, from one thing to an- other. To his earnest congratulations upon gaining free from a sinking vessel, Arnie re- plied that he might have brought her in if he had not been afraid to risk it on the men’s account; that they were doing fairly well with her at the time that he ordered her abandoned. ‘The other stared roundly. “Here!” he ejaculated. “Put this check into your pocket before you say another <S) cComicboo ico