Adventure Magazine Cover — page 145: what you’re looking at

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

The espe Hour af tie foerth dey Gt he thought he saw a buck moving in some low bush, and stood on that treacherous rock to get a better view. WITH his hunting knife he cut two straight branches, and 4, smoothed them down on the one Y side. With these he fashioned some sort of support for the broken limb, and bandaged it tightly, as well as he could, with strips torn from his shirt. A make- shift job at best, yet productive of infinite \( Aad it took time. When he had finished he saw that the sun would be sinking in half an hour, and it behoved him to gather a supply of firewood, for it was lion country. The big Umbweni game reserve stretched to within ten miles south of him, and to the east were the forests of Portuguese terri- tory. In the morning he would think out some plan of action, but meantime he had to live through the night—if he could. Luckily, wood was plentiful near the dried watercourse, but it was a dreadful business gathering it. He managed to get a fair amount to the open, sandy patch where he proposed to camp, but he knew it was not enough for safety. Mercifully it was sum- mer, and the night would not be so very long. He made some strong tea and finished what was left of a guineafowl he had shot and cooked the previous day. It was an - effort to do this, for the work of collecting firewood had tried him to the utmost, and all he wished to do was to lie quite still and try to forget the agony in his leg. But he knew it would be fatal to give in, for that way lay surrender—and death. He would fight! He’d show Du Plessis that even with a broken leg he could make his way back to some native kraal, and live. Heknew of a small one not much more than twenty miles due west, and he would set out at daybreak. But in the meantime there was the night. The sounds to which his years of roaming _ had accustomed him took on a new signifi- cance now that he was alone and crippled. No longer could he ignore the twin spots of greenish light that shone ever and anon in the blackness and told of some prowling beast that watched him. ‘The coughing rear of a lion, seeming to come from all points of the compass, made him curse softly; and when this changed to the sinister silence of the stalk he piled more of his precious wood on the flames and reached for his carbine. It was a desperate vigil. Barely would his wood last till dawn, and yet it was out of the question to seek a further supply. Even had he been whole it would have been madness to leave the protection of the fire. Two larger, gleaming eyes were starmng at him from some bush away to the right. He raised his carbine and fired, more to hearten himself than with any idea of kill- ing. There was a frightful snarl, and some- thing went off at speed through the bush. He laughed at that—laughed almost hys- tericallv—and heard further hurried move- ment at his back. He swung round, and fired again. He was convinced the wild knew he was crippled, and therefore doomed. Never be- fore had he known animals so persistently to hang round a camp, especially after a gun had been fired. Constantly he saw eyes in the darkness and heard stealthy sounds im the long grass. But good fortune came to him in one way, for the old tree trunk against which he had made his fire was dried out and rotten, and at last it caught. It would burn for hours, so long as he looked after it. Carefully he raked together all the small stuff that was left, and held it for emergency. He even dozed a little. So the night passed. 7 At the first sign of daylight he got to work. He made a crutch by cutting a two- foot stinkwood branch and fining down one » end in the fire till he could jam it in the muzzle of his carbine. The butt fitted com- fortably under his arm, and except for the fact that the wood would not jam firmly for ~ any length of time the crutch answered well enough. Then he made for a waterhole he knew of, not more than a mile away down the old watercourse. It occurred to him then that the proximity of this hole ac counted for the number of eyes he had seen round his camp. It cheered him up to have this natural explanation, for it was appalling — to think that the wild knew he was doomed, and was merely waiting. It was a tedious business getting to the waterhole, and took him out of his way, but it had to be done. The next water he knew of was ten miles back, and he was not all sure he could make ten miles that day. Even in the cool of early morn progress was eomicbooks.com