Adventure Magazine Cover, August 18, 1921 — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

94 put on their best clothes. I had no Sunday wear. After the midday meal they all went to the inn. I could hear the dance music. My feet would not keep still. I wanted to dance, to sing, I wanted to dance with Ileana. I had to stay around the camp. I could not show myself in my ragged clothes ona Sunday at the inn. I was hatless, bare- footed, in rags. I raged myself to sleep. A few hours later Murdo returned to the camp. He was not drunk. He never was. He was happy, gay, full of mischief. “Why did yotr fight Costa?” he asked as he roused me from a half-stupor. *“‘Because of Ileana,” I answered quickly. “That’s good, my son,” he laughed. “Come, I have clothes for vou and boots of Russian leather, and a fine shirt of borangick and a red sash—none better to be found on this or the other shore of the Danube.” I was at the inn before. Murdo. They were dancing the Hora. Locked arm in arm in a wide circle they danced round and round. The musicians were seated upon chairs on a table in the middle of the circle. Ileana’s right arm was locked in Costa’s left and her left arm was in her father’s. I broke the hold between her and Costa and inserted my left arm in hers and the right one in the Gipsy’s. Then they all began to yell— “Look at the scribbler!”’ “Hey, why did you fight Costa?” yelled Murdo, laughing, and gulping the contents of a huge pitcher he held to his mouth. “Yes—why did you?” they all laughed and yelled as the dance went on. “Why did you?” the fiddlers joined the chorus as they leaned their heads on their violins and scraped vigorously on the strings. Ileana blushed crimson when I looked at her flushed and embarrassed by the sudden ‘ attention of all. She squeezed my arm and I responded. ig SUDDENLY I felt as if a heavy HA +, weight had fallen on the back of my === neck. The world was blurred, my knees sagged and the earth slipped from under mv feet. When I opened my eyes I was in Murdo’s tent, the old chief was standing over me and near him was Ileana. I closed my eyes again and dreamt I danced with a girl whose face was half Ileana’s and half the other ones and I begged her to be all one or the other. ‘Adventure I must have slept many hours, for when I woke again I felt a sharp pain in my neck. “Don’t move your head,” Murdo called tome. “You will be well soon, son. I was afraid you would never come to. But you will be well. We must leave now. For I don’t want the gendarmes to hear of what has happened. You will settle that your- self when you are weil. Tleana will stay near you now. Keep still. Don’t move your head too much. It will heal.” No matter how many blankets I was bedded on the hobbling over the cobble- stone road gave me terrible pains. When we had struck a soft dirt road and the going was easy I called to Ileana: “What has happened? Tell me.” “You were foolish to do what you did. When you turned to speak to me Costa stalbbed you in the neck. I don’t know that I ought to love you, you are so careless!” “He is a coward. Only a coward strikes from behind.” ‘He loves me,” the Gipsy girl defended her tribesman. “But I also love you, Ileana,” I stam- mered. ‘Why did not you tell me so when I asked why you fought Costa? You said you fought him only because he had insulted you,” the Gipsy girl retorted angrily. “J—J—I—I did not know—then, Tleana.”’ “Now you shall have to fight it out all over again and Costa is quick as lightning. They are all afraid of him; all the other boys. They never come near me; he is so quick, so quick, like lightning, they are all afraid of him.” : “T will slow him up when I get well, Tleana.” She put her hand in mine. For a full week we traveled to put distance between our caravan and rumors that might set the gendarmes, eager for justice and bribes, on our trail. I was as anxious that we should get away from such trouble as they were. It was, after all, my own affair. And most of the dav Ileana was near me. Instead of going to Constanza we drove inland toward the Tatars living in small hamlets between the arteries through which the Danube flows into the Black Sea. On Sunday we were safe among the Tatars. Gendarmes would never dare to come for any man in those marshes. Mur- do looked at my rapidly healing wound and COMmicloo S C©