Adventure Magazine Cover — page 152: what you’re looking at

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

146 The ragged spurt of flame which followed seared the heart-strings of the gallant old soldier. A tear dimmed his eye, and with a “God be merciful to him, the pair o’ thim!”’ the aged veteran turned to the Hotchkiss ready to sweep the Laguna clean of Isuan’s crew. He had not seen the two Moreys drop to cover behind the remaining ammunition- boxes at the flash of Isuan’s guns, but he did see the commotion the volley raised in the canoes, and he did see the Moreys rise quickly to their feet and drive their banca for all if was worth straight through the sides of Pappa Isuan’s pet war-vessel, leaving a stream of bobbing heads in their wake. “Look at ’°em now, Franklin, look at ’em now!” The old boy was fairly dancing in his excitement. ‘‘They want all the fun to thimsilves! Divila chance can I git with your old scatter-gun! Look at ’em circle! And who is thot trailin’ astern? Good boy, thot’s right, bring the old divil into court!” Morey, Second, had picked old Isuan neat- ly from the water,'and was now heading for the second banca. “Why in the don’t thim fool gu-gus fire on the pair of young divils. Are they all tongue-tied in their arms and eyes? There goes the sicond banca! See the heads bobbing like coconuts.”’ The major was shouting advice to the Moreys now a good quarter of a mile away in pursuit of the third of Isuan’s flotilla. ‘Rip em up yedivils. Idon’t know how ye did it, but ye’re an honor to Company The Moreys could not hear him, but his “Make a big circle now and cut off the ither wan” was carried out to the letter, for they completed the big sweep which put them between the fleeing insurrectos and ‘the shore and herded them toward the Napin- dan—within reach of the-major’s tongue. “Phwat the are yez doin’ out here carryin’ on a privit war of yer own, whin you knew I wanted yez to show me the way to that old divil’s stronghold, so I could carry out a proper military evolution for his cap- ture?”’ ‘Pappa Isuan was in a hurry for those cartridges, sir, and it took time to load them.” Peter was standing at attention, the motor dead and the banca rocking slightly in the gentle swell, as snappy a looking Adventure soldier as one could wish to see as he an- swered the major’s question. Ray was keep- ing clese guard of the huddled prisoners. ‘And phwat did yez want to load ’em for? Isn’t Uncle Sam able to furnish ammunition good enough for your gu-gu frinds to slay your comrades with, bad cess to yez?”’ “Too good, major, so we loaded one case with guncotton that Pete got yesterday from our uncle, the captain of the Charles- ton, and the rest were dummy boxes filled with sand. Shall we put the prisoners aboard, sir? Most of them have wound which need dressing.”’ 7 ma=em LHAT night as Pappa Isuan and myo his motley crew were nursing their wounds in the old church—tempo- rarily converted into a guard-house—the major was deep in his recital of the day’s epic for the delectation of the colonel of the Second Washingtons, who had offered his aid in rounding up the “deserters.” “Aid be , beggin’ yer pardon sir. [ niver had a diserter in me company. Of coorse a few of the byes has lift at odd times whin they received word thot their old mithers were sick—and forgot to come back, but there niver was a real diserter in old John Morphy’s outfit. “And ye think they took some ammuni- tion with them, do ye?” The major’s voice took on a truculent tone. ‘Ye have heard of the ‘Forty Thieves,’ have yee Will, any time my byes steal it is not thim, it is the min of old Matile’s outfit wearin’ the cross-guns they stole from E while on guard-duty at Manila. My byes don’t steal. “Ves, Privit Morey, the pair o’ thim, did lift a box of your ammunition, and if ye would be interested to know, they gave it to old Pappa Isuan today with the compli- ments of E company, —teenth U. S. In- fantry. Old Isuan could not fire it fast enough, and after the first volley, forty- sivin shots and forty-sivin casualties, the rest wint into the lake along with twinty boxes loaded with sand.” “Vis, forty-sivin I said, and only forty- sivin shots fired. And that was not the only ‘wilful waste and destruction of govern- ment property,’ for there’s forty-sivin Krags to be added to the list of damages. How’s thot, ye say? Will if ye must know, they loaded that case of cartridges with guncotton they begged of Captain Morey COMMICLOOOKS (CO