Adventure Magazine Cover — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

52 grizzly out of the third and sent Mclillivray after him; and filled the factor’s cannikin with brandy. But McDonald’s lips held aloof from the cup. Perhaps his reeling brain gave him feeble warning that he alone had an atom of sobriety “eft. Lady-Face urged him; trolled again the chorus which always be- fore had been good for a cup. McDonald crooked not an elbow. Desperate, Lady- Face rose, clinked cannister against his partner’s, and started the drinking song whose echoes had died away in the Mermaid ‘Tavern two centuries before: “Oth let me the cannikin clink, clink; And let me the cannikin clink; A trader’s a man, A life’s but a span; Why, then, let a trader drink.” The doughty McDonald drained his cup. Atop the rough exercise he had taken and the potions he already had downed, this last cannikin toppled him. Leaving the others to snore where they had fallen, Lady-Face picked up the factor, carried him to his quarters—and there passed a hand in- to his jacket pocket. He brought out a detailed ‘map of the water systems to the west. It had a red circle at a point where, with a day’s por- tage in any direction, a canoe could reach waterheads leading to the McKenzie, to the Pacific rivers, to the Mississippi system, to the Great Lakes, and to the Athabasca flowing north and eastward*. He brought out the debt sheet of the English. He brought out the keys to the wareroom. *A position, near the Rockies, approximately midway between the end of the north Saskatchewan and the end of Peace River to the north. Adventure And lastly he brought out the English map of the Cree vedette. As he left the room, left the factory and stepped hastily across the dark bastion yard, Lady-Face with tongue in check hummed to himself: “Oh! Let me the cannikin clink, clink!” 1 THREE days later a full hundred and fifty miles up the river, Lady- Face and his four men stopped at noon to rest their tired pack horses and mounts. While two of the hunters went forward to cut out a cow buffalo from a herd, Lady-Face found paper and wrote briefly: To IRAN McDONALD: Concerning the horses, which I found necessary to transport the fur pieces back where they belong, full compensation will be made by the English company as shortly as you report the circumstances of my theft and explain how you came to have the packs in your keeping. Concerning the grand Mac’s offer to make me hivernant at his new vedette among the Belly-Fat Crees, I must refuse. When you lift this note from your sturgeon nets at the landing, I shall have almost a week’s start toward the valuable water- shed location, as shown by your map. I shall tarry at Fort X only long enough to deposit the fur pieces and advise the factor to use all diligence in establish- ing the Cree post. Concerning our recent pleasant feu-de-joie, a Scotty’s song started you to drinking; but it took an Englishman’s to put you under the table. Yours, etc., Harry HAVICE. This note he put in an empty, ten quart keg, sealed the latter and lashed to it a Cree arrow which bore a small flag with the mot- to, ‘“‘A skin for a skin.” | He placed the keg tenderly on the water and laughed softly as it danced away down the Saskatchewan, the Swift-Flowing. DOO) C©@ @) C@