Adventure Magazine Cover — page 76: what you’re looking at

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

> . . pela pr ul ’ Vat - > . oI ty, RRS A ses en A Fay a sea. Walker’s men began to fall. His high-pitched, nervous voice rang out. “Charge, men!” he shouted. The American-born had paused. They were panting from their long run and from the furious fighting. Lieutenant Crocker, a slender boy of less than twenty, raced to Walker’s side. A bullet had shattered his chin, and his right arm hung _ loosely ' on account of a smashed shoulder. “Colonel Walker—the men falter—I can not get them onward!” Walker glanced back down the street. _ The native troops had failed to bring up the rear. Even at that moment Ramirez with his one hundred and ten barefoot was scut- tling from the outskirts of the city toward the frontier of Costa Rica. The fifty-six had been doing the fighting unassisted. Walker’s sword flashed upward, and its blade flamed in the sunlight as he drew him- self up and looked upon his men with flam- ing eyes. “Forward, men!” ‘They charged. With a dash they forged into the main body of the Serviles and were battering a lane for themselves through a living wall of men who with the force of numbers and the pressure from behind were fighting with the fury of demons. Walker’s men were falling. A man would go down mortally wounded yet with strain- ing thews and grimacing face he would struggle erect and give battle as his body rocked with the throes of death. On up Santa Ursala Hill they fought with the gray- eyed man of destiny leading them. They were doing the impossible. With ten of their own number dead be- hind them they smashed their way to the doors of a large house. Gun-butts crashed on the hardwood doors and they fell inward, and the human flying wedge surged through and into the large room. As they entered the enemy was training a four-pounder on the door. Timothy Crocker looked back over his shoulder and saw it as he swept through the door. He shouted for volunteers. All the officers turned and sprang back to his side. As they dashed toward the gun Crocker threw -up his hands and sank down dead. An- other one, _Kewen, pitched forward on his face. Four others climbed upon the cannon and spiked it as the bullets rained upon them. One lone man sprang down. ‘The other to spike the cannon outside. Adventure 3 four had been riddled. This one man was Captain Doubleday. He sprinted to the open door and dashed within. The rest of the army had been watching with bated breaths. They now barricaded the door with tables and chairs. The mad mob milled in a wild sea outside. Colonel Bosque’s big form loomed outside, and his big voice was exhorting his men to charge the building. The dead American-born were being hacked to pieces and mutilated — to arouse the blood lust of the Servile forces. A stillness Heacd within the building. A sudden apathy had seized the American- born. - They flung themselves upon the floor and sprawled helpless with writhing stomachs. Fear had clutched their hearts when the hopelessness of their position had dawned upon them. Five mortally wound- ed men had crawled into a corner and lay moaning. Walker stood silent with bowed head. The mob bawled and roared outside with the fury of wild beasts lusting for the kill. Dr. Alex Jones, the intrepid surgeon who had once led a band of adventurers to Cocos Island in search of treasure, grew suddenly frightened. He sprang to a wall and clam- bered up it to the roof rafters and perched himself in the very apex of the roof.. Be it remembered that many of Walker’s best men had been killed. Walker himself was unafraid. The man never knew what fear was. Yet he was no veteran soldier. He was momentarily nonplused as to what to do. Doubleday sprang into the breach. It was he who had survived the intrepid dash This philoso- pher and author had burned powder in Mexican and Cuban wars. He looked sadly upon the sprawling men and laughed taunt- ingly. He walked among them and grasped them by shoulders and set them up like lay figures. His voice lashed like a whip. “Get up and die fighting! We are white men! Who fears those yellow and black devils? Each of us is equal to a score of them! Come on! Watch me!” He bounded on top of the barricade in the doorway and screamed defiance in blood- curdling Spanish oaths. He cursed the Serviles and their mothers and the breed of them. He thumbed his nose at them and dared them to charge. A hail of lead an- swered him. comichbook (E@)