Adventure Magazine Cover, August 18, 1921 — page 153: what you’re looking at

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

The Throwback looked away. “After guarding you all these many years I can not lose you— now,” he finished meaningly. The girl laughed. “Tt isn’t: I that has to be careful,” she said. Charlie, mutely listening, had noted that she had looked at him as if wanting him to go along, yet was afraid to ask. Mutely he fetched her saddleless horse and brought it to her, his wandering brain all the while wondering why he waited on a Kafir and why a Kafir had a horsee Listlessly he picked up his rifle. List- lessly he shoved a cartridge into the breech and filled a pocket. Aimlessly and without the faintest plan he ambled slowly off in the direction girl and horse had taken. In the glorious, clear, electric air the miles passed quickly. Almost before she thought of it the brown girl reached the hill which held her fig-trees. Nimbly she dropped to the ground, let the halter-rope hang, and hurried up the slope. Fig-trees galore. Not a fig. “Hang those wretched baboons,” she said in the only language she knew. “Here I’ve been getting my mouth ready for figs for weeks past and there isn’t a fig left. The greedy brutes don’t even wait for them to get ripe.” Pouting she went back down the hill and moodily mounted. Then started back through the long grass on the more level country. A mile ahead the grass seemed moving irregularly over a space of a hundred yards or so. “That’s queer,” the girl’s mind told her. “Lots of life over there. Not buck or their horns would be showing above the grass. That needs investigating.” Heedless of being unarmed she looked at the cruel hippotamus-hide sjambok in her hand and headed her horse for the dis- turbance. Whatever was in the grass had noticed her coming. The disturbance became greater and she could hear the rustling of it plainly as it was brushed aside. ‘Not guinea fowl,” she said contempla- tively. ““Vhey’d make less noise and be more massed. Something bigger than that.” Next moment she came to the edge of the moving life and in pleased surprize saw what it was. A muddled, scuttering line of baboons straggled away before her. Big e 147 baboons, little baboons, old gray grandpa baboons, baby-in-arms baboons. “Vou, eh?” she said, addressing them. “Now you're going to get it for taking my figs. You won’t touch me on my horse so Tl just tickle you up a bit.” Merrily she cantered up to the nearest big baboon, who swung sidewise to avoid her, and lashed playfully at him. The baboon turned and bared his teeth. “That'll freshen you up. Make you hurry. Won’t it, dearie?” she laughed as she passed on to the next offender. Then dodging to right and left she swerved, galloped and cantered clear along the crowd, lashing out in every direction at anything big enough to hit. At the end of the line she stopped and bringing her horse round facing a kopye in the near distance, started to walk him away. “Had enough?” she pleasantly asked. - “That ought to be enough of a lesson for this time. Don’t suppose you'll need a sec- ong helping, will you?” As a parting shot she gave one final, all embracing slash of the sjambok. The end of the lash nicked a baby baboon. It cried out like a little child. The brown girl came to the foot of the kopje close ahead, then turned to skirt it. As she turned a line of big man baboons sat motionless facing her a dozen feet away. “What are you doing there, mischief?” she asked teasingly. “Looking for more trouble?” and she drove her horse at them. The baboons didn’t move. The horse shivered and whined. ““Make way,” she said and lashed at them viciously. The baboons leaped aside, then instantly came back to their old positions and sat rigid. The long, gleaming teeth of each one were bare. “Oh, well,” the girl went on, still un- afraid, “if you feel that way about it I sup- pose I can go round the other way.” Disdainfully she turned her horse and started in the opposite direction. Thirty feet away a solid line of baboons sat facing her immovably. ‘You brutes are getting too neighborly,” she said annoyed. “I’m just going to leave vou, that’s all,” and she pulled her horse round the wav she had come. A compact line of angry man baboons faced her there, too, and her horse refused to charge them. COmiclbook C©