Adventure Magazine Cover — page 158: what you’re looking at

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

152 remains” it would be unnecessary to raise a cry about possible foul play, and it would be charitable not to attempt positive identif- cation. “The original tenant chose to leave this house for reasons amply sufficient—which, however, concern nobody else.”’ “Amply sufficient—’’ echoed Leders, while the new-blue of the automatic blinked in the sunlight. ‘‘Were they?—Are they ever? I wonder ‘ “Why don’t you be consistent?” whis- pered the alter ego in that dull, insistent monotone. “Do what you came to do. You’re a queer stick. You don’t under- stand yourself. Why didn’t you let a rat- tlesnake bite you? What was the idea of standing blistering there for an hour, fight- 9) —————— _ or lying down. a Santa Maria - ae , AA Tale fhe Prethren S the Main Pe eee Z 0 Gop Adventure ing for the life you came up here to take? Is life so darn sweet at that?”’ “No—not that. It isn’t,” muttered Led- ers, as if replying to some ‘actual opponent in argument. “It’s just that His eyes fell upon the dead rabbit; the poor, timid thing that had cowered, par- alyzed by fear into submission. “It’s just that I forgot—the difference— between men and rabbits—facing the music I’ve proved to myself that I can face the music—and I will.” Deliberately Leders tore the cynical mes- sage into small pieces, slung the snakes over his stick and over his shoulder, pocketed the pistol which had served a man and no cow- ard, and went down the open trail with a firm step and a clear eye. i, Uy a psx oy > = = _ y Ve Author of ‘The poste “Don Diego Valdez,” etc HE buccaneer fleet of five tall ships rode} snugly at anchor in a sequestered creek on the west- ern coast of the Gulf of Darien. A cable’s length way, beyond gently heaving pellucid waters, shot with opalescence by the morning sun, stretched a broad crescent of silver-gray sand; behind this rose the for- est, vividly green from the rains now over- past, abrupt and massive as a cliff. At its foot, among the flaming rhododen- drons thrusting forward like outposts of the jungle, stood the tents and rude log-huts, palmetto-thatched—the buccaneer encamp- ment during that season of careening, refit- ting, and victualling with the fat turtles abounding thereabouts. The buccaneer host, some eight hundred strong, surged there like a swarming hive, a heterogeneous mob, English and French in the main, but including odd Dutchmen and even a few West-Indian half-castes. There were boucan-hunters from Hispaniola, lum- bermen from Campeachy, vagrant seamen, runagate convicts from the plantations and proscribed outlaws from the old world and the new. Out of the jungle into their midst stepped on that glowing April morning three Darien Indians, the foremost of whom was of a tall, commanding presence, broad in the shoulder and long in the arm. He was clad in draw- ers of hairy, untanned hide, and a red blanket served him for a cloak. His naked COMiICLOOokKs (C@