Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 190: what you’re looking at

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

188 ceased to be just a squaw and became a landmark, a measure of miles. When she had been there twenty years the boys at the Fort began to speculate on the amount of gold she had accumulated in that time. That she had a big boxful, as Bull Morgan, the ‘“‘ne’er do anything if he could avoid it,’”’ asserted, was disputed vig- orously by Stringy Yolles. “A big boxful!’”’ Stringy snorted. ‘Did you ever try to pick white pepper out of black? A big boxful! Why, I'll bet every trap I spring this Winter coming that that little bean-tinful she gives me every Fall to buy her Winter’s grub is her whole Summer’s picking.” Bull Morgan got angry. “I’m a liar, eh!” he snarled. think I seen it?” “When?” Stringy Yolles ran his gnarled fingers through his long white beard and smiled unbelievingly. “Last Summer,” Bull Morgan replied, assuming an aggrieved expression. “I was coming down at night, and I seen a light in her window, so I sneaks over and peeks in, and I seen it. She was sitting on her heels in the corner beside a big box, and putting in what she had picked out that day, and she was a-talking to herself all the time. Then she looks up and spots me, and bangs down the lid. I didn’t waste no time get- ting away, but I seen it all right, and I'll bet she’s got two hundred pounds of gold in that box.” Stringy Yolles laughed. “Don’t it beat the devil what whisky will make a man see?” he said. Still, quite a few believed Bull Morgan. It seemed quite possible that she could have filled a good-sized box in twenty years. Twenty years is a long, long time to sit in the sand and pick “white pepper out of black,” and wait for Sundy. Twenty years is about the length of time a gray fox lives. Sum Crab waited. Twenty years Sum Crab sat in the sand and waited for Sandy. And Sandy came back. on dled up the Porcupine he was work- ing for the American Government; that was twenty years ago, and Sandy was twenty-one years an infant, full of wild-oat germs, and red-headed. There were five other men in the survey- ing party, all with a greater weight of years, “Vou don’t THE first time Sandy Dewar pad- Adventure experience, and knowledge of the country on their shoulders and in and under their long, dark hair. So when the night began to shut down on daylight at three in the afternoon, and the blue smoke from the camp-fires hung low, as if loath to leave the comfort of the flames, they made prep- aration to stay the Winter at an Indian en- campment. Sandy was green, a tenderfoot, antago- nistic. Sandy had danced through his first handful of years in Seattle. He protested vigorously. ‘“What’s fifty below when your under- wear’s an inch thick?” he demanded sar- castically. “‘What’s six feet of snow to snowshoes; and wolves—puh! You’ve got cold feet, that’s what’s the matter with you!” ‘““You’d sooner eat frozen beans and sleep in a bag?” Stringy Yolles asked. ‘“You’d sooner face five months without a bath than stick your nose in a hot pot of tinned beef and kick your boots off every night? For why?” “For why?” Sandy got up off his seat and banged his fist down on the table. “For why?” he repeated. ‘Do you s’pose I want to stay another year in this tail-end of God’s graveyard? What in blazes do you think I am? For why!” He picked up his tin plate and flung it through the window. ‘“‘What’s out there?” he roared. “Hills and rocks and rivers and trees, mud and sand and water and snow, day that’s half night, and a handful of bow-bow, yap-yap Indians! Indians? Half-starved, crawling, tail-between-your-legs race of nearly human dogs with one set of brains to a whole —— dozen! For why?’ He sneered the phrase again, as if he had been called upon to answer a fool’s ques- tion, then he jerked his coat off and threw it on the floor. “Come on outside where there’s room and J’ll show you for why! Come on, the whole five of you!” Stringy Yolles poured himself another cup of coffee. The other four men laid down their knives and looked at Stringy, but Stringy let him get away with it. Stringy had taught himself all he knew by the laborious process of two and two make four, and two make six; and one of the les- sons he had learned, had studied out as he made his lonely rounds of his circles of traps, CoOMmicbhoooks CO