Adventure Magazine Cover, March 20, 1925 — page 85: what you’re looking at

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

Native Born physical discomfort—an unanswerable un- dercurrent of mirth and mockery at Leep- er’s expense, particularly between Zuanich and his four, smirking and tittering and sputtering saliva on their beards or showing bad teeth. Leep’s heart hardened stead- ily against such men ever claiming to be Americans. Despite the squally rain and cold sea winds the inlander kept outside and away from the gang as much as possible. In the afternoon he spent some time examining the fine Marine engine on the Sea Horse, and when coming off he found Smith mooning about discontentedly. “Expect a man to cook. hotel style,”’ he complained, ‘‘and nothing to do with.” ‘“‘Measly bunch,” seconded Leeper, hop- ing to win Smith for a friend to count on. “Gang o’ rank foreigners.” “Huh, boy, they’s foreigners that’s hu- man.” “Huh back at yuh, these’s ain’t. Take them four fouls into the belly of our country would be like swallering flies. But if I make a move Zuanich is likely to get rough. He’s down on me, kinda. Tell yuh, Mr. Smith, us Americans—you and me—have got to stick together, haven’t we?” “Don’t call me an American! I’maman without a country. I’m international. I’ll never set foot on the U. S. again.” “Why, you’re on it now, ’cording to what you said this morning.”’ “Huh, just in the San Juan Islands in the north end o’ Puget Sound, one kangaroo jump from Canadian soil and safety. And I don’t aim to git in any furder.” “We gotta stand together.”’ Smith’s toothless gums were going at a furious rate on his pinch of finecut. “Don’t you go to fighting these fouls, as ye call ’em, expecting me to pitch in and help you out because you hail from the States. I ain’t taking no chances on get- ting hacked up and tooken to a hospital and questioned by the cops about a fight.” “Ain’t intending to go fighting them,” answered Leep testily. ‘All I want is to get away from here. This is the rainiest, coldest, lonesomest place I ever stopped at. I’m about to bust. Think of marooning those two American rum-runnin’ boys on that other island!” Leeper shuddered. The place was get- ing on his mind. 67 AT THIS moment the ‘bony-faced > Vike came through the brush from _k'*wal the hack. Smith muttered warn- ingly and flitted away. Vike demanded help from Leep, and together they hauled out a deep-sea diving suit and all necessary gear from the hold beneath the long after deck. This deck had a collapsible derrick rig and a mechanism for tilting the deck up at a stiff angle so that the cargo of liquor would slide over the stern into the water in case officers were closing in. Leep was chilled with fear that Vike and Zuanich would put that suit on him and send him down into the depths when they went for. the rest of the liquor that night. As it turned out, Vike himself went down, donning four thick suits of underwear to keep from chilling, and Leep was kept on top to haul inboard the netfuls of bottled stuff, hugging the net to him each time while the sea water ran down him in streams and his wet, numb fingers became bruised and raw from the hard, unpliable meshes and the rough burlap bags. And all the time Zuanich stood just inside the eabin door and bossed and jeered. And Leep changed from a boy to a man through this ordeal. He longed to smash, and he told himself that one of these days he would get Zuanich in his hand and squeeze. So he grinned thinly and said not a word. < This silence was not entertaining enough for the humorously inclined hijacker, who had a propensity for boisterous fun. “Why you not talk?’ he demanded. “Your tongue was plenty long when you say you will sick the officers on us fouls— me and my four passengers.” Leep held his silence and his frozen grin. “You no hear that maybe,” Zuanich kept on. ‘Maybe you hear this: Purty soon we go back to camp with this stuff. Tomorrow night me and Vike take a load to Seattle and come back. If the coast is clear, the next night I take my four pas- sengers and everybody else and go back to Seattle. I quit this island for good and get some new place to dodge the police. “I take everybody,” Zuanich continued in measured words, like a jungle cat creep- ing upon its prey, “everybody except one. You want to make trooble for me. So I maroon you on the island with no grub or CORnNIECLO©