Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 192: what you’re looking at

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

190 “Tt’s part of her ed-e-cation,”’ as Sandy said it, but Noatuk thought — Noatuk smiled up into Sandy’s face when he heaped her plate with steaming salmon. “Thunk you!’ she said, and her little brown face smiled all afternoon because he patted her hand. ary Noatuk came and sat with Sandy by the fire, repeating after him and memorizing English words and phrases. When he patted her on the shoul- der for approval she would clap her hands and laugh. When he raved and swore at her for mistakes she would hang her head and wait till he became calm again. Sandy gave up trying to make her pro- nounce her A’s and forgot about it till she started to call him Sunday—her pronuncia- tion of Sandy— instead of ‘‘U,” as she had done since she first began coming in; then he got furious. It gave the others an op- portunity to joke at his expense. _ “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, they come but once a week,” Stringy Yolles sang, ‘and Thursday, Friday, Saturday, but once; yet every day that passes the whole long Winter through, oh—every day it’s Sunday with the dunce.” “Sing, fool!’ Sandy roared. “Go on, show your backwoods ignorance! That’s a of a way to show the white man’s superior intelligence! Go on, sing, she un- derstands that you are trying to make a fool of her!” Stringy Yolles grinned. “Maybe she does, Sandy,” he replied. ‘‘She’s learning so fast that I wouldn’t be surprised if she knew more cuss words than prayers; and, as I remarked to Bill here this morning, she’s sure the model student of the Sunday-school class.” Sandy jumped to his feet. “You—you—you long slab of tan-bark!’’ he fumed. ‘You frizzled-out strip of lean bacon; you'll sit there and poke fun at me; you |]——_” Stringy interrupted. ‘‘When she looks up at you, Sandy,” he went on as if he had not heard Sandy’s rag- ing, ‘any one would think by the expres- sion of her face that it was the sunlight that dazzled her eyes. And when we are gone— don’t forget that, Sandy—when we leave here for good, she’s going to get cross-eyed from stopping on Wednesday to look both Adventure ways for Sunday.” A surprised look crept into Sandy’s flush- ed face and he turned slowly to look at the Indian girl. Noatuk was crying. Sandy forgot his rage in what, to him, was the aim- less rambling of a fool’s imagination. “What!” he ejaculated, amused. ‘“That in love with me? Well I’ll be ——!” Stringy Yolles frowned. “It’s a fact, Sandy,” he said, but Sandy would not believe it. Every day Stringy managed somehow to remind him of it, and at the same time to impress upon him the fact that soon he would be leaving her for good. Sandy only smiled and shook his head. But as the days began to lengthen out and the snow grew heavy under foot, Noa- tuk’s mistake became more pronounced; Sandy realized at last that Stringy was right. Noatuk came earlier in the day and stayed longer, and if Sandy allowed her to go out at night without accompanying her he noticed that she laughed but little the next day, and took no interest in her studies. Also he often caught her trying to write his name on the fly-leaves of the Bible Stringy had given her. All of which amused Sandy. She was such a little thing, such a dirty-faced little thing, he likened her to a puppy that rubs up against the leg of the one that feeds it. But he took no pains to disillusion her; he even allowed her to carry his rifle when he went out hunting. Stringy’s eyes narrowed to slits at that. “We'll pack up now,” he told the other four, “‘and just as soon as that river begins to look like a river again we'll get away. We don’t want to have to tote a squaw back to Nome, and we don’t want to leave any grass widows behind.” Sandy overheard. He had come back for his pipe. “Say!” heroared. ‘Do you think I’m fool enough to marry one of those mongrels? Do you think— Bah! WhenI double up I’ll marry a woman that’s human!” Stringy straightened up from his packing and laid his hand fatherly-like on his shoul- der. “Stick to that, lad,’”’ he said. When Stringy Yolles slid the canoes into the water a fortnight later, Noatuk stood on the bank and waved her hand to Sandy; she had gained a knowledge of the white man’s language and religion. Sandy lifted out a paddle and waved it; he had gained CoOMmichoooks CO