Adventure Magazine Cover, October 10, 1921 — page 38: what you’re looking at

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

28 “All right. We will get a few extra men. Then shoot first and find out afterward!” Four more men were added to the pay-roll in the next few weeks and they happened to be Arizonans, carefully selected. It made the range a little more friendly to the outfit. Wilcox was uneasy over the pay-roll and the wanton loss of his cattle, but he kept somberly on his way and said nothing. There “were visitors to the ranch-house that month. Various ranchers arrived, curious because the town newspaper had given Wilcox such an amazing reputation. The boss saw himself lampooned and ridi- culed every week. His person appealed to the editor’s sardonic sense of humor, but the editor overreached himself. He made Wilcox so grotesque that folks were eager to look at him. When they met the quiet boss they became thoughtful. The whole episode gave Wilcox a wide acquaintance in the district. The old ranch-house also became well acquainted with cavalry officers whose blue uniforms became a familiar sight. Grant Wilcox was becoming resigned to his réle of ranch owner when a stranger arrived in a rented buggy. Wilcox was away at the time, but -due to return. The stranger was admitted after parley. He was a big, broad, sunburned fellow wearing a heavy blue suit and a peaked cap which belonged on no cattle ranch from Texas to Washington State. The men tried to draw him out, but he barked terse profanity and they let him alone. The boss strode across the porch after dark and opened the door. He saw the figure sitting at the lamplit table and halted. He stared. For a second he was unsteady, as if seeing a ghost. “Sellers!” he gasped. The stranger jumped up. “Ves, skipper; it’s me.’ Wilcox couldn’t seem to find words. At ~last he walked forward and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. The contact restored his poise. “T thought you were under twenty fathoms of water,” he grunted. “No, skipper. We rode it out in the long boat—me.and Blum and—and her!” Grant, Wilcox slammed the man into the chair. His voice fairly thundered. “Don’t lie to me, Sellers!’’ “T’m not lyin’. She’s alive. That’s why I came here!” Like I am. 4 Adventure a LHE boss looked like a man in a H@es| trance. His cigar was on the floor, ~ forgotten. “Tt can’t be,” he grunted. Then he spoke past history, coldly and logically. “The typhoon twisted the rudder out. The old Andrina piled on that coral reef. Her keel was ripped away and her sticks went over. I stood at the port rail and watched the boat go. There was no room for me. She—she went. I made her go. I saw the boat turn over and throw every soul out of it. Isawit. I saw it.” “Tt turned clear over,” interposed the sallor. “It came right side up with me and Blum and her still clingin’ on. Every one else was gone. A wooden boat, remember. Waterlogged but wooden. Under most 0’ the time. We saw you topple over when a breaker hit you. She screamed. We lashed her down—Gawd knows how we done it— but she kept screamin’. We stayed two days adrift after the storm went down. Suffered. A kag o’ water in the cubby-hole saved us. A Dutch trader picked us up.” The boss was looking into space. “Tt doesn’t seem possible.”’ ‘‘T’m here,” reminded the sailor, as proof. ‘How did you live through it?” “T was thrown on the reef,”’ said Wilcox, abe sently. “A native proacamealong later. I got to Manila and Hong Kong— Where is she?” “Australia. She’s—she’s married to Blum. Blum, the passenger.” The boss took it queerly. He picked his cigar from the floor and lit the wrong end without noticing. “That’s why I’m here,”’ continued the sailor. “‘He—she— Oh, it, you know Blum!” “Ves. I know Blum. Yes.”’ “He opened a shop in Sydnev. Ship- chandler. One room in the back to live and a bell to tinkle when a cust’mer comes in. She married him. You was dead, she thought, and she didn’t know nobody but Blum on that side of the world. I’d went my own way, cap’n, or I’d-a tried to stop it. He walks with his sea-boots on, does Blum. He says he’s a two-fisted man. That’s Blum. He makes her wait on him and wait on the store while he nags people and rows with the police. That’s Blum!” There was a long silence. , “How did you know I was alive?” asked Wilcox. “T was in a railroad office in ’Frisco. I cComicloooks C@