Adventure Magazine Cover — page 110: what you’re looking at

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

674 sun and Captain Moses paid only formal attention to the passengers when Captain Hawser brought them alongside in a tug about dusk. Their appearance justified Mr. Bowsun’s gloomiest prognostications. They were only few in number: but they filled the Flying Squid with shrill sounds and obtrusive personality, and within five minutes they had succeeded in sitting or standing on every cable and rope that Mr. Bowsun’s men were trying to haul. He wiped his brow with his sleeve and rushed frantically at a lady in smoked glasses who was reposing in the middle of a loop of the main-sheet. “Scat, miss!” he yelled. ‘Sheer off the sheet, quick, or you'll be aloft!” “Think of it!” he growled to Captain Hawser, who helped him pick her up and disentangle her barely in time to save her from a skyward trip, feet first. “I told her as plain as could be, and she just stood there, and never tried to move! And that there Nutt! Cap’n Hawser, Ill run aboard him if he don’t go below! Listen to him, givin’ orders as if he was the skipper!” Captain Hawser beheld the signs of gath- ering epic grief in Mr. William Bowsun. With a skill that only chicken-breeders or pig-drovers could have appreciated justly, he gathered his flock and half drove, half led it, below. “T’ve got ’em busy settling their belong- ings, Bill,’”’ he reported when he emerged. “Now you get all ready to sail. I got one more run to make ashore for some others that couldn’t get ready before this, and I didn’t have time to tell ’em the name of the ship or where she was, so I’ll have to go and get “em. We'll be aboard before turn of tide to-night, and the minute we come back you can start.” He reached his broad arm forth fondly and shook Bill from bow to maintop with an affectionate blow on the back. “Tl eat on deck,” said Bill to Captain Moses when the dinner call sounded. “And you’d better do the same.”’ Adventure “It wouldn’t be polite to them down there,” replied Captain Moses longingly. ““Tt’d be less polite to go down—leastways so far as I be concerned,” announced Mr. Bowsun briefly. ‘‘That there Nutt Z “All right, Bill, all right,” answered Cap- tain Moses. “I’ll send your dinner up, and T’ll eat with ’em—unless, unless, Bill,’’ and he laid his hand in friendly pressure on the Mate’s arm, “unless you should need me. You could send me word about five minutes after dinner’s served, you know, Bill. I don’t want you to have everything to attend to all alone.” ‘Oh, I won’t need you,” replied Bill, with a generosity that struck Captain Moses as hypocritical if not heartless. He sighed and pulled his little beard as he went below. Left to himself, Mr. Bowsun exhorted his crew feverishly and had the Flying Squid ready for sea long before the lights of the returning tug came in sight. “Ship ahoy!” bellowed the voice of A. B. Hawser, Master, retired. ‘‘Lend a hand here!” He tumbled on deck and rolled to Bill’s side. “‘I want you to meet the passengers, Bill,”’ said he. His arm swung fondly at Mr. Bowsun, but found only empty air, for his friend had side-stepped with unexpected agility. Mr. Hawser clutched him and dragged him to the side. ‘Here they are, Bill,” he whispered, with a strange quiver in his voice. “Here they are!” The light fell on a form that came over the side from the tug’s deck. It was the form of a tall, flattish lady. Behind her, urged by strong arms, came a smaller form that showed signs of a sudden coyness and reluctance. ‘Don’t faint, Biull, don’t faint!’? shouted Captain Hawser bursting into a glad roar. ‘“‘Sudden joy sometimes acts that way!”’ He turned to the side and snatched the small form. ‘‘Welcome aboard the Flying Squid!”’ he said breath- lessly. ‘Miss Grool, Mr. Bowsun. Mr. Bowsun, Mr. Henry Moses!”’ But Mr. Bowsun was busy already with Mr. Henry Moses. GCOMIGDOOKSEEO