Adventure Magazine Cover, August 18, 1921 — page 154: what you’re looking at

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

148 A half-circle of vicious animals around her, the steep, rocky hill behind. Then, and only then, did fear enter her mind. Fear. Abject, hopeless, numbing fear. The semi-circle of baboons narrowed. As it narrowed the horse backed closer to the kopje. The eyes of each baboon were fixed intently on the girl. A hundred, two hundred, three hundred sets of powerful teeth shone round her. The slightest move and the lips above and below the teeth yammered in sickly threat. One more lash of the whip and she would be torn to pieces. The girl knew, knew in a dull yet positive eH Knew it absolutely. This was the end. Closer and closer the ever-tightening line pressed round. Closer and closer the horse backed to the rocks. But for the footfalls silence. Utter silence. Once or twice a baboon coughed hoarsely. That was all. The rocks were reached. The onpressing line, at first one deep, was two deep, now three deep. Impassible. The horse tried to climb backward, climbed a few feet and sat on its haunches. Mechanically the girl -turned it half sidewise. Never once did her eyes leave the eyes of her beseigers. The horse did better. Thirty, forty, fifty feet he climbed. And just out of striking distance the baboons still followed round. “Now it will be,” the girl said to herself. “Once well in the rocks and they’ll sur- round us. The horse will go down and they’ll tear me to shreds.”’ She shut her eyes. For a full moment she kept them shut. When she opened them again the horse was still climbing. They were half-way to the top and the baboons were still creep- ing along but, strangely, no nearer. Anxiously she looked up the hill. were above her. She shut her eyes again. Her brain grew cold. Her heart almost ceased beating. Numbly, insensibly, hopelessly she clung tightly to her horse and waited. ai Charlie had come to the top of a rocky hill. On the very summit was a single leafy tree. Lazily Charlie lay be- neath it and did what most men do so well— nothing. In a bewildered sort of way he looked None IT WAS hot as all days were. and Adventure around and took in the scene. Below him the rock-strewn slope of the hill, a few yards of rocky valley; then another hill almost identical to the one on which he was, only far more precipitous and with a flatter top. A klipspringer popped round a reck on the farther hill, leisurely looked at him then, springing lightly to the top of the rock, bounded to another rock twenty feet away and stood again to further inspect him. Lying on his stomach Charlie put the rifle to his shoulder and took careful aim. “Two hundred yards,” the dull brain sig- naled to him. Quietly he put the rifle down. “Too pretty to kill,” his brain had told him. And Charlie drowsed—drowsed happily. The cough of a baboon came gruffly to him across the valley. “Old man baboon calling,’ the animal brain noted. The cough came gruffly once more, this time more of a bark. Several barks and snarls followed. “Quarreling,” his brain registered. Still drowsing the half-dazed eyes looked uninterestedly at the top of the far hill. No baboons in sight. The coughs came faster, then several loud, sharp barks. “Vicious,” his dull brain surmised. The sound of the scraping of rocks hit the air, the hindquarters of a horse strug- gling half-backward rose above the flat summit of the hill; the remainder of the horse came into view. The brown girl was on its back. As if shot from a trap Charlie sprang to his feet. And as he got to his full height a deep half-ring of baboons came in sight steadily, remorselessly driving horse and rider to the sheer edge of the hill and the sharp rocks below. Charlie dropped to his stomach. “Two hundred yards,” his dead brain had told him. And the rifle answered. A baboon dropped instantly and the others turned and eyed him curiously. Then the half-ring moved relentlessly on. Again the rifle sounded. As fast as hand could load and draw trigger it sounded. And at each shot a baboon fell dead. Myriads remained. Still they pressed on. His pocket was getting empty, but fran- tically he continued firing. And yet the mass, intently bent on hideous revenge, COmiclbook (©