Adventure Magazine Cover — page 178: what you’re looking at

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

172 ee ye Adventure Now, a good steam engine is human; it’s got what you might call guts To tackle a job that’s twice its size without any “‘ifs’”’ or “‘buts.” Like a man that’s gone to his limit but still makes good on his nerve, It’s the same with your old steam engine—there’s always power in reserve. Throw all your drafts wide open, fasten your pop-valve tight, Give her the steam an’ watch her pull you over the peak all right. At Rangoon, with a floatin’ derrick, I was loadin’ teak on to ships An’ I made good friends with an elephant that worked in the timber slips. We used to chin in the evenin’s, when he came down f’r his bath, An’ I’d toot good night with my whistle, an’ he’d toot back up the path. One day we shifted our moorin’s, an’ when this big boy come along He started to wade up toward us, when I seen there was somethin’ wrong. He stopped short off in his splashin’ an’ hollered to me f’r help, An’ I never heard nothin’ more pitiful-like than to hear that elephant yelp. He’d stepped right into a quicksand, a dozen feet from the scow, An’ ’twas up to me to save him, an’ the only question was how. I grabbed the end of alog-chain an’ went right over the side An’ yelled to my Burmah fireman to open his dampers wide An’ throw some pitch in the firebox, to get all the head we could, While I got a hitch round the elephant, a-sinkin’ there where he stood. I dived right under his belly an’ I hauled that log-chain tight Right back o’ the big boy’s shoulders, before he sank out o’ sight; Only his trunk was showin’, a-tootin’ a farewell blast, | Before I could swing the derrick round an’ make the h’ist-gear fast. Then I pulled my throttle over, an’ I reckon I prayed a bit That my old steam engine ’d tackle the load—an’ she stood right up to it! I don’t suppose no engine has never took no such strain Since steam was first discovered, an’ none won’t never again. It stretched that wire cable, it buckled the derrick mast, It sprung the boom like a fish-pole—but all the tackle held fast. F’r mebbe a couple o’ minutes I didn’t know what to think, F’r instead o’ the elephant risin’ the scow was beginnin’ to sink; But just as the strain got tightest an’ the engine almost stopped The sand let go in a hurry, an’ up the elephant popped Like a mud-cat caught on a fish-hook an’ squealin’ to beat the band. He looked more scared than happy as I swung him over to land. He pretty near wrecked the derrick before I could save my chain; Then he ran down the road a-tootin’ an’ I never seen him again. ooXo) S.Gom “com (@)