Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 175: what you’re looking at

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

Ole Lekker’s Ride sideways. The car turned half upon its side, until the soft snow prevented it from over- turning. The giant Swede clung to the wheel and swerved the car by main strength. It climbed the ridge, slid off the other side, plunged forward again, righted itself and crashed into packed snow as if against a stone wall. The doctor, carrying the ruins of the wind-shield with him, catapulted out into the snow. Ole’s body was driven against the steering-wheel with such force that the’ breath was driven from his lungs in a great grunt. One lamp was smashed and bent backward. The engine, sizzling as the snow ~ was pressed in upon it, ceased to throb. The doctor arose from the drift. Ole, re- gaining breath, sat upright. “Ay gar!” he said as if in surprise. tank she stop.” Slowly Ole clambered from the car, reached the front of the machine, placed his huge shoulder against the radiator, braced his feet, and by a terrific effort shoved it backward out of the soft snow, and part of the way back upon the icy causeway. Then he cranked-up, listened to the engine race, clambered back into his seat, and, re- versing, backed ten feet along the ice. Then, with his foot pressing the acceler- ator to full extent, he sent the car hurtling into the snow-drift again. It struck with terrific force, climbed upon the harder snow, lurched out of the beaten trail, and sank to its body in the softer drift. Three times, while the doctor stood watching, Ole re- peated the effort to batter a way through that drift; and finally on the fifth charge the car went over and through, and, lurching wildly, skidded, righted itself and raced up the hill. Under the shelter of the dining-hall where the campers congregate in Summer for meals, Ole stopped the car and waited for Doc. A hundred yards further is the beach of Crystal Lake, and the road turns at right angles, following the base of the hills for three miles through an arcade of trees that fringe the wide beach. Under the shelter of the dining-hall, and the high hill, the fury of the storm was abated. There Ole over- hauled his car while Doc went forward to reconnoiter and find the condition of the road around the end of the lake. | A few rods beyond where the road turns, the Inn stands, facing out upon the beach. That far the doctor fought his way into the “Ay 173 teeth of the gale, over drifts in the dark- ness. Then he retreated. “No use trying the road, Ole,” he re- ported. ‘The drifts are eight feet high in places—and it probably is worse farther along. We'll have to try it on foot.”’ ‘“‘Ay tank we try the ice. Maybe she hold,’ said Ole calmly. It is three miles across the lake from the assembly pier to the dock at Martin’s where the Point Betsie trail leaves the road to cross that inferno of sand-dune and buried forest to the Point. ‘The ice!”’ exclaimed the doctor. been breaking up.” ‘“‘Ay tank she hold, maybe,” said Ole. ‘‘Ay ban listen—she not grinding. Wind she pack her tight.” “T hear something—— The doctor admits he hesitated. “Crystal she mak no noise,” said Ole. ‘‘Ay ban hear old Lak Mich. Yoomp up.” The doctor ‘‘yoomped.” Ole cranked the machine again, clambered to his seat, and they moved slowly out from the road across the wide beach and straight for the lake. A mountain-like barrier of ice, piled up in the early season’s gales, lined the shore, but straight ahead there was a break where the harvesters had chopped a path to haul ice from the lake. Through this gap Ole sent the machine on to the open lake. It lurched and swerved over rough ice and turned north- westward to follow the shore-line. The hur- ricane, sweeping through the gap and across the open lake, beat upon them, driv- ing the stinging ice in fierce, gusty showers into their faces. Two hundred yards from the shore, al- most all around Crystal, the shallow water ends in a sheer drop to great depths. Along that ledge that divides the deeps from the shallows, another windrow of ice was heaped, and, between the inner and outer ice-barriers the floe lay unbroken and com- paratively smooth. Evidently the ice on the lake had started to break up, but some shift of the wind had stopped its progress. The car moved forward steadily, boun- cing and jumping, held back by sheer force of the wind. An explosion, followed by a lurch and a sickening skid, caused Ole to jam on the brakes hard. : “One tire she blow off,” he reported, howling the news above the roar of the hurricane. “Tt has 99 CoOMmMichoooks CO