Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 174: what you’re looking at

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

172 his cap. The doctor, huddling down behind the wind-shield, sought protection from the blast and drew his muffler tighter around his face. The pace of the car slackened. “‘Ay tank I have to open heem,” yelled Ole above the storm’s roar. ‘‘Sheall cover with ice, so Ay can’t see!” He tilted the wind-shield, and the wind beat and howled through the aperture upon the huddled doctor. THEY reached the crest of the hill where the road turns |sharply and drops downward in a sweeping curve around the cemetery. The wind had swept the road almost free of snow above the curve, and Ole, releasing his clutch, allowed the car to coast down the steep roadway. It slid and skidded, but after sliding almost to the snow-filled ditch, it righted and raced downward at a dizzy speed. The wind was shrieking up the defile, straight into their faces, and the doctor shivered and clung to the seat. Half-way down the hill a barrier stretched across the roadway. They were upon it be- fore the doctor’s shout of warning died away. There was a shock, a lurch, and the car reeled and staggered. Steam hissed from the engine as the snow, driven through the radiator, struck the hot steel. A cloud of steam, ice and snow enveloped the car and its occupants. An instant later the car freed itself from the snow-drift and plunged on down the Kill, running over the icy roadway. At the foot of the hill a small rivulet crosses the road; and at one side is a water- ing-trough, where the horses quench their thirst in Summer. The headlights showed no trace of watering-trough, but instead, a series of huge, rounded drifts, laid in windrows across the roadway. Into these, with the full power of the en- gine, added to its impetus, Ole drove the machine. It half mounted the first ridge, the wheels failing to break the packed snow, and from that it leaped into the next drift, half-burying itself in the smother of snow churned up by its plunge and by the whirl- ing wheels. Lurching and staggering like a boat, it fought through that drift, half-stalled in the next, and almost stopped. The wheels, wrapped in chains as they were, tore at the packed snow, sent it flying in clouds until, Adventure gripping with its chains the frozen pack be- low, it lunged forward, freed itself from the mass, and, shaking itself like a dog emerg- ing from water, sped hissing and steaming up the next hill. At the crest of the hill Ole stopped the car in the shelter of a high clay cutting. “She boiling,’”’ he said calmly. The doctor leaped out and held his watch to the headlights. ‘Twelve minutes!” he cried. “Ole, you’re a wonder!’’ “She good little car,” said Ole. “Ay hate to smash heem.” They regained breath under the shelter of the bank at the hilltop, and Ole, while waiting for the water to cease boiling, calmly inspected the machine. One fender was torn loose and was rubbing the tire, and Ole, bracing his foot, ripped it from the body of the car. The wind-shield was smashed, one bar was bent, and Ole, using his knee as a lever, straightened it, then with his hands felt over the tires. ‘“‘Thees von she bust soon,” he an- nounced, and, climbing back into the car, started it down the next hill, gaining speed. “Hold on when she boomp!”’ he screamed. They were speeding downward at a terrific pace. The wind seemed suddenly to cease blowing as they dropped behind the heavily wooded hills of the camp- meeting ground. At the foot of the hill the road dives down a steep declivity into an arched tun- nel, where the trees meet and interlock their branches; and after a hundred yards it emerges into a valley that forms a “draw” between the high hills and extends from Lake Michigan to Crystal. Through that ‘‘draw”’ the winds blow as through a crevasse, and, all Winter, the eddying cur- rents of the ‘‘draw’’ had swept the snows inland to heap them in the valley. Wagons had beaten a track through the drifts, pounded the snow hard, and, as each storm heaped the snow higher, passing wheels pounded it down again until a narrow causeway of hard, packed snow-ice, six feet thick, underlaid the fresher drifts. The rains and thaw had left the rounded causeway bare in spots, and the softer snow had retreated down the slopes, leaving a rounded surface, now covered with a glaze of fresh ice from the sleet and rain. At this barrier of snow and ice Ole sent the machine. The wheels skidded and slid CoOMmicboooks (CO