Adventure Magazine Cover — page 158: what you’re looking at

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

722 “Two weeks ago yesterday,’ returned the Sergeant. “After it was time for you to blow back, I hiked down the trail every day, tryin’ to spot you. The seventh day 1 stumbled across you, stickin’ out of a drift. I reckoned for a while that you’d sure pass ’emin. A feller came past yester- day an’ brought word about Red. I guess the reward’s yours, all right.”’ A smile hovered faintly on Graves’ lips, but left them suddenly when the Sergeant went on: ‘‘You’ve got to get well quick now. Old Valesque’s girl is waitin’ fer you.” The Sergeant paused, not noting the other’s change of expression. After a moment he resumed: “An’ I want to take back the things I said about her. It was pretty low-down of me. I made some wild guesses when I said ’em, an’ I hadn’t ought to done it, but I hated to lose ye. I learned different later on. She’s the gamest there is. But wait till I tell you. “While you was hikin’ down to Fetzger’s shack on a hunt fer Red, who should turn up in these parts but his side-kicker, Bob Bond. He stopped for a snack back there at the road-house. Old man Valesque had run up to Dawson, an’ the girl was there alone. She knew him in a second. The young devil tried to love her up, and the girl springs a game that wins me over in a second. She jerked out a gun, an’ with the powder-devil starin’ straight at Bond, she asks him to turn his back to her or get bit. Bond was wise an’ done as he was told. In a second she has her snow-shoes on. ‘“““ Now,’ she says, ‘you mush! An’ never mind rubberin’ around. I’m here, all right, comin’ right along. If you try to turn your noodle this way, the shootin’-iron talks. Forward, hike!’ “Late that night they landed here, her an’ Bond. The next day the runner from the Fort blowed in, an’ took Brother Bond along. There’s a thousand bones in it for your girl.” During McFergus’s_ recital, Charlie Graves lay silent, with stoic cast of counte- nance. McFergus had calculated that his story would set the young man on fire. He had been treasuring it impatiently until this day. “Well,” the Sergeant demanded, puzzled and disappointed, “‘ain’t you satisfied? Adventure Eh? What do you want, anyhow? I tell you she’s the gamest there is—you can take that for a tip. If you marry her, you won’t have to quit the Service, man.”’ And still the young man was silent. The picture he had destroyed confronted him. Also, he could hear the delirious love- phrases as they fell weakly from the lips of Red Curtis. Then: “ Did she say anything —the girl?” “Say anything!” returned the Scotch- man. ‘‘What could she say? I jollied her right, about a sartain young officer in the Queen’s Service, an’ she blushed real pretty. She was mighty tickled about the way she got Bond—said you'd be awful glad. Don’t you tumble? She did it for you—for you! Saber” “Did she say so?’’ questioned the man on the bunk. “Say so!” roared the Sergeant. “Do I have to have an iceberg fall my way? With the exception of a little personal grudge she owed the Bond-Curtis combination, it was for you—to show you she was a game one, like the married wife of a Queen’s Service man ought to be.” “Did she know Curtis?” Graves. “The infernal red-head stopped at the old man’s road-house a year ago an’ claim- jumped a picture of hers that was settin’ on a shelf. It got her hot. It was the only one she had.” demanded eeS)6 THE clock in the cabin had ticked outaday, three days,aweek. Graves had recovered rapidly, hearing ail day, in fancy, the ripple of a girl’s laughter, and the quiet crooning of a voice. At night he saw the lines and curves and colors of her face. And all the while his heart beat loudly. And now the clock, ticking impatiently, had measured the lapse of a fortnight. As Charlie Graves stood knotting the thongs of his snow-shoes, McFergus stood silently by. ‘‘You’ve made the luckiest strike in all Alasky,”’ said the old man, “an’ you won’t have to quit the Service either,’ he added. Graves strode out into the snows. He was keeping his double troth. And his path lay toward the light that hung shimmer- ing in the south. Pans Lae wie COnnicloookxs CO)