Adventure Magazine, December 10, 1924 — page 51: what you’re looking at

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

The Blond Spiders The Kommandant’s yell was as the touch upon a secret spring loosing mechanism into mad activity. As simultaneously two officers and the sergeant grasped and began to obey the order, two revolvers spat twice each. At the first double discharge one man with a broken wrist dropped his gun; another slumped back into his chair, shot through the head. At the second the Kommandant’s whirled chair smashed the lamp; somebody swore gutturally; somebody grunted. For a moment the beam of the moon stabbed across darkness upon the back of von Muhlhauser’s bald skull, to leap back to the window as if terrified as the body of the lamp crashed on the table and burst into flames. ““Get the doc!” yelled Tony to Plessons; and, fearing to kill the Kommandant, dropped his rifle, sprang and swung his left on to the bearded jaw as von Muhlhauser was grabbing for his revolver belt, which had fallen off the chair back. . As Tony continued the motion to give the Kommandant a quietus with the revolver barrel, a bullet crashed into the wall above his stooping back. Whirling, he knocked up the third officer’s muzzle and saw the man’s face split redly in the flame of his gun. Then, swinging about, he tapped the head of the Kommandant just as the latter had wriggled around and grabbed his ow” revolver. Another shot crashed in the confined space; and, turning, Tony saw in the light of the flaming tablecloth the officer with the broken wrist dive through the doorway after a bullet from Plessons had caught him through the shoulder blades. __ Grabbing von Muhlhauser’s fallen revol- ver and placing a foot on his stomach, to give warning when he regained conscious- ness, Tony looked about him. His gaze took in the body of the sergeant slumped across a chair with his face smashed in from a vicious blow from Sawyer, who stood in the corner strapping the Doktor’s hands with his belt. Just then Plessons leaped and, snatching the blazing cloth and the wreck of the lamp, hurled them outside. They alighted on top of the wounded off- cer, who half rose to his feet, scrambled a couple of yards and collapsed as yells and the sound of running boots arose. The rough table made of logs sawn in 29 half was already saturated with paraffin and afire. Seizing two legs, Tony tried to overturn it, but the legs would not budge for they were set in the ground, the table top being merely laid upon four posts; so, yelling to Sawyer to grab his end, they ran it through the door, where luckily it fell up- side down on the wreckage of the lamp, partially extinguishing the flames, just as Plessons, firing from the end window, dropped two of the soldiers rushing up in the moonlight. Then as Tony joined in from the door, sending another man to earth, the others turned about and with oaths and yells made for shelter. “Yah!” shouted Sawyer triumphantly. “We'll put it all over em, the ——!”’ _ And in his exuberance he planted a boot in the prostrate sergeant’s ribs so vigorously that it brought the latter to life. Seemingly in one motion, he had his arms around Saw- yer’s legs, bringing him crashing to the ground. ‘‘Aie-e!”” squalled Sawyer as they heaved together. “Mind my leg, can’t yer, yer —— “Shut up,” commanded Tony, ‘‘or I’ll tap you on the head. Listen; what’s that, Plessons?”’ Above the grunting and cursing on the floor rose a queer muffled sound, a kind of hoo-hooing from outside the camp. “Why it’s them dumb fellas hee-haw- ing!’ exclaimed Plessons. ‘‘Gettin’ excited abaht——”’ A sharp crack, preceding a fusillade, interrupted him. Several bullets wiee’d through the cheese cloth window frame and others smacked against the outside of the walls, which were fortunately double bricked, “Vil kill yer, yer grunting from the ground. “Here, Plessons, help pry those mutts loose,” Tony snapped angrily. ‘That fel- low will do to interpret. My German isn’t strong.” Fumbling in the dark hurriedly, they both tore away arms, swore when they discov- ered they were operating on the same man while the other did his best to choke him, and finally dragged them apart. A revol- ver muzzle in the pit of the stomach quieted the guttural spitting sergeant, and he allowed himself to be tied. In the mean time several more fusillades had whistled through, and smacked against, the hut. 12 ’ Sawyer was CoMmichook Wh) C© 5}