Adventure Magazine Cover, October 30, 1924 — page 181: what you’re looking at

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

Tub Tobin Repeats battered about—the shelling of the past week was accountable—but somewhere back of its tangle of tin he caught sounds of running water. He made for it. There he met up with the ghost. “Beat it,”’ said the ghost. “Tub Tobin!” exclaimed Stokes, spinning the ghost about that he might glimpse his countenance, ‘‘What in the world are you doing here? I thought you’d been knocked off. You’re among the ‘missing, believed dead.’ Where did you come from?” “Mum’s the word, Mr. Stokes,’ said Tobin. Out on the road the ration carts creaked. ‘‘Who’s your friends?” added Tub. ‘“Transport,’’ declared Stokes with an air that let the cat out of the bag. “What you doin’ with transport?” Tobin came back. ‘‘What’s wrong?” Stokes quickly told his story: How he’d found the telltale page—his one scrap of : substantiation—missing from his message book. “Dirty work, I'll tell the world,” said Tobin. “But leave it to muh,” he said boastingly, “T’ll straighten things up, Mr. Stokes. I'll clear you. An’ I’ll clear this dirty business up. See if I don’t.”’ As an afterthought: “‘S’pose money’d help any?” “No! I’m afraid not.” “Don’t guess now,”’ reminded Tub. The transport bunch was moving again. Stokes turned to go. Tub threw out an arresting hand. ‘Just a minute, Mr. Stokes,” he said solemnly, “I wanna thank you from the bottom of my dirty mean heart for tryin’ to lug me in from that heinie town the other night. If that heinie bomb hadn’t saved me the trouble I’d have asked you to drop me off your back. I was only playin’ *possum—believe it or not. You see, Mr. Stokes—” Tobin’s tone suggested sheepish- ness—“‘T went over there that night to dig for money. I wasn’t askin’ for any scrap. An’ next mornin’ when I found the boche pulled his posts away back to his main de- fence line an’ left me all alone there, I—why, I dug up that money—easy as pie.”’ “Spoofing, Tobin?” “Cross my heart—no!” Tub patted a metallic something under his arm. “I’ve just got this far with the ‘kale.’ I figgered on sneakin’ it back to some French bank for safe keepin’. What do you think, Mr. Stokes?” “T think, Tobin, you’d better rejoin your 171 unit at once. A lot of the old crowd’s gone west this trip and they’re way below strength now. They can use you nicely. I think that’s the better plan—just now.” “Yes, sir,” said Tobin and he watched Stokes’ going till the night had swallowed him up. 3 : Back from the road floated a cheery— “By-by, Tub. Good luck!” “Sulver linin’, Sammy,’ replied Tub. “Watch for it. I’m goin’ to put it over.” ALL things come out in the wash. At Wailly, back of the Neuville Vitasse sector, a kind-hearted town major, displaying unlooked for ingenuity, had dammed up a small creek, thereby creating a swimming pool in whose cool, if muddy waters mud larks were wont to disport at fashionable moments. These mud larks were poor infantry, and their fashionable moments were intervals between heinie’s eight-inch potting at the town major’s handiwork. “Some day,” Tub Tobin had once. re- ferred to the bath, ‘‘one of these wowers will put the butcher-shop sign on that soda fountain.” 3 “And I hope the C. O. is there at the time,’’ snarled another poker player. “By the way, Tubby, how’re you making it with his nibs?” ‘Jus’ fine,” grinned Tobin. ‘Although I don’t think he trusts me farther than he can see. Says I snoop round too much. It’s a wonder to me he ever took me on as batman.”’ Snooping was not one of Tobin’s char- acteristics but he had Sammy Stokes’ name and interests at heart, and snoop he did. Everlastingly. His snooping, however, had brought little in the way of results. True, he had once listened in on a short parlez between the C. O. and that snippy thing from brigade—that gump, Jamieson, who’d tried to ride him down at musketry—during which the C. O. had flared up and said something about double-crossing. Double-crossing! Tobin had assayed that remark at length and had drawn the con- clusion that it was Jamieson who was doing the double-crossing. But in what way? Tobin knew Stokes’ story by heart and he was firmly of the opinion, as Stokes had been, that the C. O- was responsible for the disappearance of at least one of the mes- sages. As for the original—could Jamieson TOOL nn © inn