Adventure Magazine Cover — page 76: what you’re looking at

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

66 bits - against the wall just above the fore- man’s head. Almost at the same instant the bottle crashed Jules was on his feet and swung around toward McKendrick. “Mais, oui! M’siew lak to have hees leetle joke?” “Look out, Mac! He’s got a knife!” yelled some one in the crowd. But the warning hardly was necessary. With an underhand. sweep of his arm Jules sent the steel flying through the air. Mc- Kendrick felt the wind of it as it passed just above his head. There was a resounding twang as the knife bit its way through a crack in a big beam and buried itself s the hilt. “Jules can play thees game too? What m sieu tink?” : Again McKendrick had come off second est. He stood for a moment eying the grin- ning foreman. ‘Then with a snarl of rage he sprang at Jules. Cleverly the foreman ducked; McKendrick went headlong into the wall. | That sobered him. When he turned around again the snarl was gone. He was crouched over and went after Jules with all the pent-up cunning of a hundred battles. Hastily tables and chairs were thrown back and a ring of eager faces held in the combatants. .The Algoma sensed that this was to be a fight worth witnessing. Jules met McKendrick’s rushes as a skilled boxer meets brute force. He show- ered the big river-rnan with rights and lefts, dodged out of close quarters and went dancing away on his toes. Always he avoided clinching. — This was a manner of fighting strange to McKendrick. His was. the rough-and- tumble, catch-as-catch-can method when everything goes from finger-nails to spikes. Blood trickled from an ugly cut over his left eye as he backed Jules around the room. Twice he doubled up the foreman and sent him hurtling into the crowd. But each time Jules was on his feet before McKend- rick could profit by the advantage gained. The Algoma was strangely silent, save for the heavy breathing of these two; the shuffle of heavy river-boots; the dull thud of blows. It was stand up and fight and God help the man who went down. The Marquis of Queensbury is as far from the Algoma as the North Pole is from her sister in the south. _his blows having little effect. The crowd gasped in one long breath. ° _ Flanders. Adventure McKendrick grunted with pain as Jules sent a full-arm swing boring into his midriff. Then, as the river-man‘bent over under the hurt of the blow, Jules sent a stinging smash that caught McKendrick just below the right eye. The thing puffed out like a pur- ple toy balloon. Half-blinded, McKendrick swung wildly, But the pace was telling on Jules. He was less quick in getting back. Once he tripped. He was saved that time only by McKendrick’s in- ability to see him clearly. To the close-mouthed onlookers there was no sign of the finish. It looked as if these two would go on mauling each other for- ever. McKendrick appeared to be the principal sufferer. Yet Jules was getting slower and slower. No longer did he spring away on his toes. ‘The river-man’s ponder- ous blows brushed him where before they had gone wide. _- It was one of these, a haymaker swing coming from the side, that caught Jules just below the armpit. The foreman was slow in getting back and a second sledge-hammer swing sent him sprawling. As ‘he got up McKendrick bore down on him. Jules tried to dodge. Instead, he walked into a clinch. McKendrick’s great arms closed about him like a vise. In one last effort Jules tried to tear himself loose and only half-suc- ceeded. Most of his shirt came away in one of McKendrick’s great paws. A ter- rific blow from the other sent him spinning through the crowd and back against the wall. He seemed to hang there, half- naked and unable to move. “You got him, Mac! Finish him.” A roar went up from the crowd. With his heavy fists held wide; McKend- rick crouched forward. The crowd closed in behind him. Nearly on top of the limp figure against the wall, McKendrick stopped. He stood there irresolute. With one hand he tried to clear the smeared blood from be- fore his one good eye. Then the other hand unclenched and groped at the empty air. In that moment McKendrick was back in A boche stood over him with up- raised rifle. The rifle seemed an age in coming down The figure against the wall swayed. With a wild cry McKendrick sprang forward. “For the love o’,——!”” he cried. ‘“Was you at Wipers?” Comicbooks-co