Adventure Magazine Cover, October 10, 1921 — page 135: what you’re looking at

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

The Doom Trail and commenced to butcher the Senecas outright with knife and tomahawk. Marjory shrank back and covered her eyes with her hands as a feather-tufted war- rior ran up to Ta-wan-ne-ars and dangled a freshly severed scalp in his face. “°Twill be difficult for me toe control them at all in a few moments,” observed Murray. “Oh, you vile coward!” exclaimed Mar- jory, her own courage now regained. “I am steeped in shame whenever I remember that I have in my veins blood that is akin to yours.” “You are unreasonable, my es ” he remonstrated. “I am giving the young man a chance for his life.” He addressed me directly. “You will bear me out, Master Ormerod, that I warned you life on the frontier was not pretty. We who deal with the savages ‘must employ measures designed to strike ‘their imaginations. We can not be over- dainty. We—” He looked up in amazement, as a mantle of silence enveloped the Council-Place for the second time. “= | O MY people,” boomed a harsh oy voice in the Cahnuaga dialect, mae ‘verily Ha-ne-go-ate-geh has claim- ed al You aremad! You toy with your enemies here when the warriors of. the Long House are as thick along the Doom Trail as the falling leaves of Autumn. The Keepers who were on watch are dead or in flight. At any minute the Iroquois will be here. They have burned Ga-o-no-geh. The snow of the Trail is trampled flat by their multitudes. Aye, the Doom Trail is bringing doom upon its Keepers.” The tall, severe figure of Black Rohe pushed through the surrounding masses of renegades until he had reached Marjory’s side. ‘“‘What have they done to you, my daugh- ter?” he asked kindly, his tone changing as if by magic. “I was led away by a false story.” | She pointed down at the corpses of Ga-ha-no and de Veulle. Pére Hyacinthe made the sign of the cross and muttered a brief prayer. “Providence works mysteriously,’ he sighed. ‘Once I trusted this man—’’ and he swung around with stern hostility upon Murray—‘‘and this one here. Now I ness of your race. 125 think I know them for what they were, servants of evil who employed the force of God’s holy Word in the furtherance of their own wicked plans. “France is great, my daughter. France has a destiny before her. But her great- ness and her destiny may not be reached through by-paths of sin and evil-doing.”’ - He wouid have said more, but Murray intervened. “T will answer your personal comme ts_ at a future time, sir,’”’ he said; “but do I understand you to say that the Doom Trail has been penetrated by the Troquois?”” “They are almost at your door,” replied ~ Black Robe sternly. ‘* ’Sdeath!”’ swore Murray. ‘This is too much!” He raised his voice in a shout. “To your arms, O Keepers of the Trail! The Iroquois are upon us!” But his words were drowned in a racket of firing from the heart of the Evil Wood. A number of the False Faces emerged from the sheltet of the firs, their awful masks wabbling unsteadily. ‘“‘The People of the Long House!’’ they wailed. ‘“The People of the Long House are come!” “We are attacked back and front,” snarled Murray. ‘Well, Master Ormerod, you and your friend the chief are excellent hostages.” He bellowed a series of commands which brought some degree of order out of the confusion, and dispatched one party of Keepers into the Wood to resist the attack from that quarter. Another body he sent through the village to hold the approaches of the Doom Trail. Under his directions the remainder of the warriors unbound the surviving prisoners from the stakes and escorted us to the stockaded house in which he dwelt. As we passed the chapel we saw Black Robe standing in the doorway. His eyes were fixed upon the heavens. “You were a chosen people!’ he cried. “You were the few selected from the many! The Word of God was brought to _you, and you saw the light—or said you did. Your feet were set upon the narrow way. great work was given you to do. “But you wandered far afield, back into unexplored realms of the ancient wicked- You became devil- worshipers in secret; aye, eaters of human cComicloooks C@