Adventure Magazine Cover, November 10, 1924 — page 135: what you’re looking at

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

The Three Missing Men “Garn!” said Sam. “Yes, sir, mates, there he sits an’ no mis- take. When I wakes up I thinks it over a while afore openin’ my eyes, an’ I listens real close. All I hears is the feller breathin’, so pretty soon I opens one eye, just half way you know, and takes a look. “It’s so dark down there, all I see is them two green eyes. Two green eyes set close together, and shinin’ bright as runnin’ lights, there in the dark. Green eyes, lookin’ right down into my face, sarcastic-like!”’ “Then what?” asked Jim. “T hollers,” said Bill. ‘Yes, sir, I hollers. I betcha they was vessels forty mile away that heard that holler, an’ thought they was bein’ hailed. Soon as I holler the feller disappears off my. chest and the eyes wink out, like blinkin’ shoal lights. He doesn’t get up off my chest, mind you, or jump up, or roll off—he disappears off. An’ all this, mind you, on top o’ the pig, an’ the seaman missin’, an’ them eyes lookin’ at me on deck. When I thinks o’ them things I keeps right on hollerin’. “Pretty quick nigh onto all hands comes boilin’ down the ladder. But o’ course, by that time the feller has disappeared anyway, so they don’t find nothin’ but me, hollerin’ my head off in the dark. “They takes me to the Old Man, an’ I tells him the whole yarn from start to finish. But you know how them square-head skippers is. You can’t tell them nothin’.” “‘Ain’t it the truth?” droned Sam. “So he tells the mate to put down in the log that I’m clean off my nut and has lunacy, but is harmless when sober.” “Real smart skipper,’ murmured Jim. Bill-disregarded this. “Bein’ in irons has some advantages, though few. At the time they lets me loose, they is Just piping all hands on deck for a rakin’.over. “Who done it! yells the Old Man. ‘Speak up, now, an’ come clean!’ “I thinks at first that they’re tryin’ to find out who sat on my chest, but I finds out that such ain’t the case. [Everybody looks blank. It’s just comin’ dawn, and the light is real dim, but you can see the boys lookin’ from one to the other, real mystified. Finally one of ’em pipes up— ‘* “Tyone what, sir?’ ‘The Old Man just turns an’ yells down the companionwav. 133 “““Mr. McPherson, come up here!’ he says. “McPherson bein’ the mate, he comes up. When I sees him I near swollers my gizzard. There he stands, stiff and im- portant, with ome pants’ leg ripped off clean. Yes, sir, mates, one pants’ leg was tore off pretty near up‘to the waist. “Done that!’ says the Old Man, pointin’ to where the pants’ leg should ’a’ been. It comes out that the mate was walkin’ along the deck, when all of a sudden he steps on a body. Next thing he knows his pants’ leg is ripped off an’ the feller gets away, an’ no more seen of him. “Well, sir, the boys stood there lookin’ back an’ forth from the Old Man to the missin’ pants’ leg, an’ then to each other, and anybody can see that they don’t know nothing about it. But a big long Irishman, by the name o’ Paddy McClosky, he busts out laughin’, so they claps him in irons. “This monkey-business has got to stop,’ says the Old Man. “Well, it run along to the next night, all hands arguin’ over what’s what, but none of ’em knowin’ anything. That day we decides to scrub down them things belongin’ to the feller what disappeared, and divide "em up amongst us. So we swabs off them clothes, an’ the rest o’ the dunnage, and long about night we weights ’em down on the forward deck to dry. “Long about two bells in the night watch I happens to be on deck when I sees a sight the like o’ which I don’t never expect to see again on land or sea. Crawlin’ aft along the wind’ard rail, comes that missin’ feller’s empty shirt, crawlin’ on its hands an’ knees!” “Who ever heard of a shirt havin’ hands an’ knees?” demanded the melancholy Sam. “Well, then,” amended Bill, ‘“crawlin’ on its sleeves, an’ the place where its knees would be, if it had knees. But, mark my word, knees or no knees, there ain’t no such disturbin’ sight, no place, as a shirt crawlin’ along in the dark, all by itself. But I says nothing, knowin’ as how they already got me marked down as cuckoo, and be- ginnin’ to believe it myself. “Well, here comes that shirt takin’ little short steps, an’ upwind at that, an’ me backin’ away from it, .when around the corner 0’ the deckhouse comes McPherson, COmiclbook C© 5}