Adventure Magazine Cover — page 40: what you’re looking at

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

38 Captain, engineer or chief steward. Do ye think the loblolly office boy over me ever passed a board? No, I’m Old Man of this hooker, though he wears the gold lace. I want ye because ye’re a Judique. Ye can handle men. Ye can keep awatch. Yecan hold a course. “Papers! Our outfit prints its own—cer- tificates, bills of lading, manifests. We got brains behind us; and money, millions of grands. Ye ship on this as deck hand and come with me on my new berth. Ye won’t have to peddle no more razors. No more fiddling with yer hat out for pennies. ”*Tain’t like sailing in the north; no more ice, no more scraping yer sides on the tickles; warm open summer sailing with lots of sea room. ; “You come south with me and get in the trade. Ye won’t never want to see Judique in winter again. Come _ south, lad, south The mate had almost fallen asleep; the pipe dropped from his mouth; Donald picked it up, put it on the stool and went on deck to consider the mate’s proposition. Donald had seen whisky flowing free at Judique dances; but there it always meant Judique on the floor, the challenge, the men stepping outside to the clean battle in the frosted air; then all friends again and back once more to the dancing. But this sodden mate, drugged beyond fighting, this dead shell of a seaman and fisherman, was not the man Donald wanted to sail under. He stood by the cabin door, looking along the docks. In the distance hummed the night voices of New Orleans. Somewhere a band throbbed faintly, save for the bass drum, which beat like a tom-tom in the depths of a jungle. The river gurgled below in tune with the mate’s thick snore. The hulls beyond creaked the cables. A banjo twanged in a forecastle head to low laughter. Some one called angrily; the voices and the banjo were silent. Donald saw figures helped over the side; women passed giggling; in the dim light of the stars Donald could not tell whether they were white or colored. He had found it hard to do that by daylight in these parts. Donald smelled something burning; thick, strange-smelling smoke was pouring out from behind him. He entered the cabin, certain that the mate had set fire to the bedding; but the fire was below the bunk. He pulled out what appeared to be a roll Adventure of blankets smoldering at the edges from the ashes of the mate’s pipe. He beat out the burning with his bare hands, and the roll opened on the floor. He saw the out- line of a black schooner, riding on a green sea between the brown rocks of a tickle—all fantastically woven in colored rags. ‘Hooked rugs,’’ he shouted. He easily stamped out the fire now the rugs were spread. His trampling boots, his cry and the smoke had somewhat aroused the mate.. 3 ‘“‘How did you come by these rugs?” de- manded Donald. He was turning back more with quaint floral designs—wonderful bears on ice floes, flowers and fruits the weavers had never seen but had only dreamed of in the lone, lean winters of Cape Breton. ‘Got ’em home,” said the mate. ‘Try- ing to sell ’em for a girl I’m going to marry some day. She said there was money in "em. Somebody has started a fad in 7em——”’ Donald spread more of the rugs. Some were old and worn to a velvet surface from the tramping of generations of sea boots; others were new and fresh from the weaving; all were magic carpets carrying him back home, taking him north-to the life he had fled from. He opened one with a conventionalized border; in its center was a white, high- gabled house with a red flag; the house stood on long piles; rippling blue water flowed by the piles; a boat wason the water. “Why this is— Tell me where you got this, man.” Donald shook the mate, who tried to brush him away as if he were a fly. ‘That rug was made by Jessie McAlpin,” continued Donald. ‘I saw her start and finish it. I gave her a bit of father’s old plaid to work in the flag.”’ Donald turned the rug over to the rough side. He pulled at ends that had been hooked into the pattern. He hauled out a wee bit of the scarlet tartan of the Stew- arts. “T gave it to her for luck. Is she the lass ye’re thinking o’ marrying? Ye sha’n’t; by —, ye sha’n’t. Come outside and I'll fight yer for—for thinking of her.” The mate lifted himself'on his elbow and slowly took in Donald’s meaning. ‘‘So you’re the man she’s been dreaming about? The man that went off to make his MICLOOOK C©