Adventure Magazine Cover — page 128: what you’re looking at

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

118 and to the south fat green lands where game was abundant. Why had they been transplanted? Why? Because of one man, a small evil man, who had come to live upon the fat green lands and brought with him many cows. Good eating! This man had caused them to be decimated and driven away so that he alone might have the land. But it did not belong to him; it was the sole property of the mighty hunters gathered together in the Towanda village. If they went back no one would stop them for the small evil white man no longer had a friend among his own kind. And if this thief were to die —no one would come to claim his corpse. Wait, though—it was just possible that this man had one friend. Who? .The missionary! He might try to hold them back. He would certainly lie to them—was he not their jailer? Did he not report insubordinates and have them taken away by the men in blue to the great gray house to the south where the sun never penetrated? It took ten days and three cases of gin to work the people into a state bordering upon mass hysteria. They went about their labors because Mitcham told them to do so, but their frenzy became all the more terrible from being contained. They worshiped Mitcham, who had brought them the word. Because they were superstitious folk with many deities and spirits in the streams, the trees, the clouds, they endowed their liberator with divine attributes. Unbeknown to himself he be- came a living god endowed with magical properties. They placed him on a footing of equality with the witchetee grub and, in secret, worshipped him. One old woman, excited beyond measure by the growing tension, and seeking to overcome the neg- lect her years enforced upon her, had a vision and heard voices in her sleep. Her message from the outer world of ghosts and spirits caused a fresh sensation. She de- clared that Mitcham was beyond doubt immortal, and that all the wounds he had received in battle since the beginning of time healed instantly, leaving no scars. Moreover, stammered the old woman, she had seen Mitcham bring a dead warrior to life again by the simple expedient of placing between the corpse’s teeth a tiny sliver of his own flesh. Thereafter Mitcham became . more popular than ever. Adventure The pent-up longing for the old life at last burst all bonds, snapped without warn- ing, without any definite final cause and sent the whole people streaming up the val- ley headed for the open, for the uncharted places where life was not all free rations and well-aligned hutments. Jukes was at breakfast with Mitcham when the vanguard came roaring up the trail. He said: “Dear me! What does this mean?” And went out-of-doors at a trot to stay the uprising with his two empty hands. The mob frenzy caught hold of the house servants and sent them flying to join the marchers. Mitcham stood on the veranda steps and wondered whether he ought to wait for the end or bolt before things got too hot. He decided to wait because his orders were emphatic: If any slip-up occurred he would lose four hundred pounds, not to mention his life, which might well come to a close at the end of a tight-drawn rope. So he stayed. . Jukes died quite gamely. He faced the mob standing firmly in the middle of the path as a child standing on a sand castle might face an incoming tide. For a second he stood there, arms outstretched, bare head thrown back, shouting at the tossing sea of black twisted faces and upraised arms. A loud, angry bellow answered him. The mob closed in. Out of its midst came one agonized, freezing scream. The mob passed on. Mitcham went quickly through the house toward the stables. His horse, ready-saddled, awaited him. As he slipped the bit into place he heard running feet coming up behind him and loud, imploring cries. He fumbled with the bit. The blackfellows poured through the house. They were calling to him. He cursed and as he did so his whole body suddenly ran with sweat. Without bothering to fasten the curb chain he backed the horse out of the stable and flung himself upon its back— seconds too late. The crowd was upon him, cheering him, fawning upon him. Though he struggled they did not harm him, for he was their living god, the giver of life, come to them out of the unknown to protect them. He now belonged to them. When he choked and ceased to resist he was dragged along and hurried out of the valley on the road to the Stony Rises. EO DOOLK 1O)