Adventure Magazine Cover, October 1911 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

968 “‘Boarded, you bally fool, by Yick Foon and his cutthroat gang,”’ he answered, diving into his cabin under the bridge. He came out with a rifle and a belt of cartridges thrown over his neck. He shoved a big pistol into my hand, with a heavy sack of ammunition. ‘‘Keep ’em off this side,” he said quietly, and began firing steadily across the engine- room ventilator. The heat arising from below blew the smoke from the muzzle back in his face. Black, half-naked bodies were coming over the starboard rail from another boat which had sneaked out on us from an- other island while we watched the schooner. Mrs. Halsey, twenty feet behind us, screamed. Lieutenant Halsey told her to keep close to him, and his automatic re- volver sputtered lead, ten shots at a time, in a deadly blast across the skylight, between the calm, methodical shots from the Cap- tain’s rifle. ' I gave the sack of ammunition to Miss Foote. ‘‘Hand me the cartridges, one at a time, as quickly as you can, and, whatever you do, keep close to me!”’ I emptied the pistol into the nearest boat, which was almost below us and getting out boarding lines. Six big leaden slugs were a good deal of an annoyance to them and upset their plans. ‘Six, one at a time,’ I reminded Miss Foote, dropping the cylinder into the palm of my hand. She passed the cartridges, saying, “‘This is the sixth,” at the last one of that lot, evidently to warn me the cylin- der was full and I could resume firing. I gave them to the other boat. The Captain was loading from his belt. He swore freely because the rifle-barrel was getting hot, and then said “ Beg pardon” to the man he fired at; I assumed he was ask- ing Miss Foote’s pardon, rather than his black target. The chief engineer, Scotch, of course, was sitting on the coaming of the skylight on the starboard side, not ten feet from where the blacks were coming over the rail. He was using a shotgun, that said Boom-boom every five seconds or so with its double bar- rels loaded with duck-shot. Presho was firing some sort of pocket mfle with nickel plating at the breech which shone brightly in the moonlight. Denhard was using a pistol, close by. The boats on our side fell astern and didn’t attempt to chase us. The big war Adventure proa on the starboard side, which had en- gaged the attention of the Captain and the others, let go its grappling lines, leaving the ‘hooks on our rail, and a mess of black men tangled and squirming on our deck. We kept pot-shotting at the big proa as it paddled away out of range, now and then getting a squeal out of its crew to give us a hint at the quality of our marksmanship. The schooner that had hailed us was gone, probably hidden among some of the islands. POOR Jenkins! We couldn’t find fants him if we were to look for him. He = got his when he went over the side of that schooner—nice trick, that, too, after he palavered so much and worried his head about saving those dying white men! How was it? That was their game. Hail us with a cooked story about being helpless and & > « o | split our force, while the proa made for us on the other side. There must have been forty of ’em in that schooner. We went down on the foredeck and began knocking down Malay sailors, efficiently and artistically, with pieces of rail-chain, stopping at times to breathe and call them names in their native tongue, while they skulked and tried to get back to their hiding- places. Halsey and Denhard were heaving black bodies over the side, making pretty splashes illumined by the phosphorous in the Celebes Sea. ‘Perhaps you’d better come below and get a cup of tea or a little stimulant,” I sug- gested to Miss Foote. ‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘Those bullets were covered with grease and I’ve ruined this duck skirt. Wasn’t I right about this coun- try having lots of color? We don’t have any such evenings in New Hampshire!”’ I admitted she was right, especially the . New Hampshire part of it. ‘““Now I suppose you are gcing to use all this in a story, after my trouble and expense to come out here and get it! That would be just like a man.” ‘“‘T hadn’t been regarding it as copy, but I think I see a way to avoid trouble over the literary rights of the evening’s work.”’ ‘““What’s that?” she asked innocently. “What do you mean?” “Collaboration.” She said I had dirty old powder on my hands and her waist was ruined now as well as the skirt. That’s just like a woman. CO MICLOOOKS CO