Adventure Magazine Cover, November 10, 1924 — page 142: what you’re looking at

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

140 desert. The greater thing was the fire within him, the iron in his soul. Deeper and deeper grew his love for the old man. Whimsical, odd he might be, but Melvin knew that a saner man never lived, a man of more profound human un- derstanding, a man of finer discernment, a man of gentler philosophy! John Johnson, that was his name, but he was known near and far as ‘‘Snowdrift,” from the mountain upon which he perched, or simply as “Drift.” that the commonplace John Johnson was not the only name of his partner; there had been once the hint of a bitter past in the days of the Black Hills. They had several good claims, some owned in equity. With beginner’s luck Melvin made a borax strike in the Gray Owl Mountains that brought them nine thousand each. For several months Mel- vin haunted the Gray Owls, and insidiously there took root within him the belief that there was infinite wealth there. Drift chaffed him over it, and Melvin straight- way took up the cudgel. Jim,” chortled old Drift, ‘I swear be- fore you got miner’s fever, yer a desert rat. You'll never git over it, my boy— never.” “All right—all right, but come over to the Gray Owls with me next week and I'll show you a valley——”’ ‘“‘Whoopee—I been over the Gray Owls with a pocket comb. They ain’t nothin’ there but dirt, an’ maybe a little more 0’ that laundry soap.” But Drift went over to the Gray Owls with Melvin. The range lies thirty miles east of Snowdrift Mountain. It is not a notable range, but it holds all of the mystery, all of the malice, all of the defiance of the desert. In the bland gray walls there is a breach, a cafion with a white sand floor, shadowy, desolate, utter in silence. It led the prospectors ultimately to a cup-like valley that must once have been a crater, so ringed about was it with precipitous hills. It was evening. Great violet shad- ows lay on the desert floor like recumbent dogs, heads on paws, watching. “By the Holy Buzzard, I only seen this pocket once—from the yon end,” cried Drift. ‘“‘Ain’t it purty.” ‘‘That shoulder over there,” said Melvin, “T want you to look it over. Looks like asbestos tome. Fibrous stuff.” Melvin had reason to believe Adventure ‘“‘Asbestos!”’ echoed Drift. ‘Well, you’ll be findin’-radio sets out here an’ make a furtune. Us old fellas, ’bout all we look for is gold.” They circled the basin but it was too late that night to inspect the jutting shoulder, and they made camp to await dawn. Melvin had a keen sense of dis- appointment upon awakening to find that Drift was up in the golden sunlight, putter- ing about the camp. “T seen yer mountain,” said Drift, “but it ain’t asbestos. It’s sillimanite.”’ “Sillimanite?”” Just faintly in his mem- ory the word touched a thread, but that thread seemed to snap. He had all of the intense irritation of one with a word on the end of his tongue. “Tt’s purty rare,” continued Drift, stab- bing a can of beans. ‘‘They’s more there than I ever see—but what the good is it?” ‘““That’s the point = Again Melvin broke ‘off abruptly, and again came that irritating prick of intangi- ble memory. All of that day he wrestled with it, hoped for that dim and inexplicable surging of thought which oft-times solves these puzzles, but it did not come. They went on, this way and that, finding that modicum of quartz color which is almost universal in the desert, but nothing worth more than a moment’s pause. Two afternoons later they were back at the cafion mouth, Melvin with a poignant sense of bafflement. Jenny Lind, the musical burro, had gone astray, and despite her bell the prospectors consumed an hour in finding her. Drift pelted her with chunks of lava until he had her headed for the mouth of the cafion. | “Step up, there, Spark Plug!” he roared. Abruptly he lost interest in the burro and stopped in his tracks. Melvin had emitted one shriek and straightway achieved a somersault he had never achieved in the Los Angeles Athletic Club. ‘Plum’ locoed!”’ breathed Drift. “Locoed!”’ yelled Melvin, who had been about fifty feet distant, but was now slap- ping the old fellow on the back. ‘TI guess you'll be locoed! Spark Plug. You crazy old son of a loon—that’s what that stuff is for—spark plugs! Why, man, the big manufacturing companies have been look- ing for that stuff in commercial quantities for years. I know. Didn’t I back three CoMmicboook A) © =