Adventure Magazine Cover — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

5/4 to pass the night. The scant growth upon the waterless mesa betrayed the labor necessary in such gleaning. The bed, at about the position occupied by the sleeper’s breast, was heavily stained with blood. Per- haps it was on account of his wounds that he gave such effort to provide a comfortable couch. Cady looked steadily at the pitiful bed, carefully examined the blood-stains, then turned to mount his horse, muttering: “*My God! Iknewit! And yet it seems impossible!’ “The hunt went remorselessly to the end. Through beds of cactus that stabbed and stung, up slopes of broken lava that tore the horses’ feet, through greasewood wastes ris- ing to the sterile buttresses of the Obsidian Hills we followed on until I began to won- der if human feet had made this trail. ‘At last, as the sun was low in the west, we entered a canyon leading up into the heart of the mountain range. A slender rill issued from it, and a dense clump of brush filled the bottom from wall to wall. We were following the foot of the basaltic bluff upon our left and were about to enter the thicket, when Cady suddenly halted and threw up his hand with a gesture so full of meaning that all pulled up and every rifle was thrown forward for instant use. ‘* After a long pause, in which no word was spoken, Cady signaled for all to dismount. As we stood in silence, I plainly heard the heavy breathing of some laboring thing, and the slight rustling of the brush. The sounds slowly approached, the branches parted, and Tigre Palladis stepped into the open. A dozen rifles covered him in a sec- ond, and a volley would have instantly fol- lowed had not Cady’s voice, sharp and im- perious, rung out: “Hold, men! There is no need now!’ “The outlaw stood motionless, looking straight into the muzzles of the leveled guns. His aspect was terribly pathetic. The butt of his heavy rifle rested upon the ground, his right hand upon its muzzle. The torn and disheveled clothing spoke pitifully of the dreadful journey. His head was bare, the waves of black hair tumbling about his neck. His face was shrunken and pallid, and the nostrils were updrawn, as we often see them in the article of death. The lips were apart, like those of a runner at the end of a desperate race, but the jaws were locked and grim. His eyes were glorious. “T once joined in a lion hunt in upper Adventure Nubia. A great male lion, many times wounded, was surrounded in a copse of mi- mosa brush. With twenty guns leveled, we stood waiting while the beaters hurled frag- ments of stone into the cover. Instantly the branches parted and, with bristling mane and grand uplifted head, the desert king came forth. For a moment he stood in his defiant attitude, gazing at the threat- ening guns, then the royal mane fell, the great eyes blenched, the huge head sank, and the fierce beast turned and slunk into the copse. “T recalled this Nubian episode as I now stood looking upon this hunted thing. But this was not a lion—it did not blench! ‘There was a fearful silence. No one seemed to know what to do or say. At last Cady’s voice broke the silence, the low, measured tones vibrating w:th feeling. ““Tigre, God knows I should like to save you. If the Lady Isola——’ ‘His words were abruptly broken off by Kenneth. The big Scotchman roughly pushed him aside, fiercely crying: ‘“*Save that bloody brute? Hold up your hands, you cowardly murderer!’ ‘“What we then saw was a most wonder- ful thing. The outlaw’s face glowed with such radiancy as comes to men only in mo- ments of ineffable joy. With electrical swiftness the heavy rifle was whisked back- ward, whirled with a swish over his right shoulder, and hurled forward with the rest- sistless force of a cannon-shot. I heard the flutter as the weapon spun in the air like a revolving wheel, the crunch of the splin- tered ribs, and the sickening smash as the body of Kenneth was slammed back against the canyon wall, as a wind-gust slams a door. Then came a spurt of smoke from a dozen rifles, and the jar of the volley. “The combined blow of the bullets shook the outlaw’s breast as though he had been struck with a heavy club, and a great red splotch flared out upon his bosom. The light slowly faded from his dauntless eyes, and, feebly turning, like one who walks in his sleep, he passed within the copse. An instant later we heard the fall of a heavy body, and then out rang a cry, a shriek of frenzied agony, a woman’s wail, carrying in its tones such horror and despair as to chill the blood within my heart. I turned to Cady, and the expression upon his white and drawn face appalled me. His hands shook as they slowly relaxed, dropping his GCOMmIGDOOKSEEO