Adventure Magazine Cover — page 72: what you’re looking at

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

70 those more valuable parts of the outfit had been taken. He wanted to be sure; and the surest way to learn was to let them steal more; cross the lagoon and from the other side take their course—north or south or east. He hoped they would stay until dusk or dark, so he might follow them un- observed. Yet he determined to follow them anyhow and tocapture themifhecould. The plan’s one weak spot was due to his ignorance of the ways of Arctic coast ice. The thieves remained in the tent a long while; and Knight began to hope they would not emerge until the early shadows de- scended on the lagoon. In this he was dis- appointed. They began to make trips to the sled, loading it but lightly. -“Goin’ easy on us this time?” he won- dered. “Or have they got all they want?” No, Ike Holland had not all he wanted. There was quite another reason for the light loading of the sled. The thieves made off, slantwise, across the lagoon, the old Eskimo ahead guiding, the white man at the clumsy handlebars. - And Jim Knight crawled out of his retreat, not bothering to drag after him his skin bed. He had a little food and kindlings in his parka’s breast pouch; on his hip was his Colt; and in his heart a murderous anger. He dodged around the rocks to the side of the tent, and from this cover peeped out and watched the moving line upon the ice. When it was half a mile away he pulled his heavy gauntlet mitts tight upon his hands, shoved his parka sleeves snugly into them, and crawled out upon the ice. His overalls were new and of brown duck. The ice was dry. This was because the tide was out, but he did not know that. On hands and knees, like a bear, he made forward rapidly from hummock to hum- ‘mock among the protruding, ice-capped rocks of the shallow shore. They would expect no pursuit; they would probably not look back. If they did they would not be likely to see him. Never mind that— though he much preferred to get their true course homeward before he was observed. In fifteen minutes—he had to crawl low, now, for he was beyond the shelter of the protruding rocks—he raised his head oc- casionally and saw that the thieves veered constantly. This enabled him to lessen the distance between them. But when, sud- denly, he found the ice wet he decided it Adventure would be imprudent, in that air, to crawl longer. He must keep dry. So he arose and walked in a crouched-over posture, watching the men ahead of him with all his eyes to note if they observed him. Ap- parently they did not observe him. Apparently! Jim Knight, a forthright man, a forthright fighter, was no sleuth versed in the ways of rat-like, guilt-con- scious men, nor of the always alert natives. He had been observed from the first mo- ment he emerged from the rocks. And Ike Holland and Nagachuck had divined his intentions and planned to kill him. The old Eskimo, obsessed with the not ignoble purpose of ridding his people of the invading, all-consuming strangers, would ‘have shot him out of hand. But he was half-cracked from the shocks of years before —as Ike Holland was aware—and little knew or recked of the consequences. Not so Holland, whose constant care both before and since he became a “squaw-man” had been the keeping of a whole skin! He re- minded Nagachuck that under the white- man’s law, absurdly forced upon them by these aliens, theft was much less of an offense than killing. The tides would still run for a number of days and obliterate the signs of the sled. But a killed white man would freeze in, yet not be covered up until the uncertain com- ing of the big snow; and, lying there on the ice, would point the way to white pursuers. Let them, then, lure him farther—to where the ice was thin and the Buckland water flowed beneath! ‘The body would never be seen until next summer, in the open Arctic, if it were not consumed before then. So, never turning their heads to warn the white man that he had been seen, they veered gradually toward the head of the la- goon and nearer and nearer to its channels where tide water, merging with the outflow of the river, obscured the treachery of its undermining. Jim Knight, not relishing a sprawl in water to duck a rifle bullet, hurried after them, and when he judged the distance right for his purpose, bawled to them to stop. ae IKE HOLLAND turned. It would have been useless to pre- tend he did not hear, in the dead- level silence of the lagoon. He gave one quick look and pretended alarm. He called to his father-in-law to swerve Gomicbooks.com