Adventure, January 20, 1922 — page 136: what you’re looking at

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

134 was about fourteen feet high and ten in circumference at the bottom and five at the top. - In the ant-hill there lived tens of millions of these ants. First the top of -the ant-hill was broken off in a manner so it fell near where the ants would find the trail of mbusi and mafuta. ‘Then the second por- tion lower down was broken. The ants were enraged, and in searching about for their tormentors, they discovered the trail. There were the first half-dozen who in- formed a dozen more, and then more came until there were three hundred, then a Kohler "y Lio Gisere (eo ae - ee Ee—p = a ae SOE -_ a Se ue ra = Se ES D pas ans OCR ta = we mit ees! AS Ree Snappy’s Promotion Adventure thousand, then ten thousand. They ate up the trail of honey and fat, even as fire runs along a trail of gunpowder. They came to the foot of the tree and discovered: the smearing of the delicious stuff with even meat. There were millions and mil- lions of them now they swarmed all over Malanga’s body into her ears, nose, and mouth, drowning and smothering her screams, When the sun set in the evening all that had once been a living mortal was a heap of bleaching bones and a grinning skull— that and nothing more. C Se Author of “Snarky’s Alki Party.” , ; aNAPPY” HASKELL, coxswain in iS the seaman guard division of the ‘armored cruiser Wichita and cor- ———# poral of the guard on watch, carefully closed each steel, electrically con- trolled, water-tight door behind him as he slowly made his way forward through the starboard ammunition passageway. He had already closed three of the six water-tight doors behind him; there were three more be- tween him and his next sentry whose post was at the bottom of the ladder which led from the chief petty officer’s quarters to the ammunition passageways. Here in the mid- ships compartment of the starboard passage- way he paused and meditated. Snappy was inno hurry. In reality there was no need to hurry. He had just relievéd the corporal of the guard of the last dog watch a few minutes before; there were four long and wearisome hours before him and his men until the sleepy-eyed midnight watch relief would be “broken out” to re- lieve them. Then, too, thefe was almost the whole of a long, monotonous and sultry thirty minutes in which to make the re- mainder of his round and his first half- hourly report to the officer of the deck. So why hurry? - Snappy leaned heavily against the white bulkhead and smiled musingly. “The devil must have the controlling interest in these ammunition passageways tonight,” he meditated thoughtfully. ‘‘Not one out of every five blowers below decks on this battle-wagon is workin’—Death Valley ain’t got nothin’ on this tunnel for heat. It’s so blasted hot that every man in the ship’s company is sprawled out on the top decks tonight. I ought to get on top side myself, but if I did I’d have to keep movin’, and the only way a man ¢can move on top side tonight is to walk on some poor bird’s face or kick out his ribs.”’ CORMICLOO© (C@