Adventure Magazine Cover, June 20, 1925 — page 110: what you’re looking at

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

Q2 Adventure Only once did he look back. Lisbeth was still standing where he had left her. Her long ears were pointed straight ahead, and he knew that she was trying to figure out the reason for his desertion. A hot sob came into his throat. He waved his hand as he would at a fellow traveler, and rounding a bend in the river disappeared from sight. For two hours Lisbeth stood where Cheney had left her, looking toward the place where her master had disappeared. Then, at last, she turned her head and gazed at the saddle which she had carried for so many hundred miles. She heaved a deep breath, that was almost a sigh, and began to move. She had no intention of following Alex, for the saddle represented camp, and she had learned long ago not to stray far from it. Neither did she doubt that Alex would re- turn. She began to paw in the little circle of tramped down snow. Her little feet, with the thin, wafer-like iron shoes, sent snow flying in all directions, but they un- covered no grass. What they did encounter was an uneven surface of ice. Late in the fall the island, which was really a swamp, had in most places been under water. It had ‘frozen hard, then snowed, thawed, and frozen again. protected by an armor of ice. Hour after hour Lisbeth pawed patiently at the ice. Occasionally she obtained a few spears of rank grass as a reward for her efforts, but not nearly enough to compen- sate for the energy required to get them. Gradually she widened the circle around her, but that was hard work. Along toward night she determined to try a large willow bush that she could see fifty feet away. The edge of the crust was breast high. Bands of horses have been known to starve rather than attempt to conquer such an obstruction. But not Lisbeth. She reared up until her front feet were above the edge and lunged forward with all her strength. The crust collapsed under her weight and she came down on her side. But in a moment she was up repeat- ing the maneuver, and with each lunge she gained a few feet. But unfortunately for the poor old mule the willow bush was hardly worth the effort. It was water-killed, and its branches were bare and destitute of bark. In dry sticks there was no nourishment—even for mules. The cold that night was intense. A hard Such grass as there was was wind sprang up from the northwest, and despite the hard, scintillating surface of the crust a fine, powdery snow was picked up somewhere by the wind and driven along with such force that the tiny particles struck the old mule’s hide and stung like innumerable pin pricks. Lisbeth got behind the willow bush as best she could and humped her back to the storm. Morning found her cold, weak, and miserable. Death was preferable to fur- ther exertion. But in Lisbeth’s mulish make-up was an indomitable courage that could not accept defeat so long as there was the possibility of victory. At first, when she began to move, her legs were stiff and unwieldy as stilts, but after several fruitless attempts to break trail they became more pliable and she was again able to go for- ward. Night found her nearly half a mile from where Alex had left her, and she had lo- cated a patch of young, second growth wil- lows from whose bark she was able to obtain some slight nourishment despite the fact that her teeth had been worn short and smooth by the years. THEN, suddenly, her big ears shot forward eagerly. She had heard the sound of men’s voices. But it was not Alex’s voice that she heard, and so she waited where she was. Soon two men came forward on foot. She could see another man farther back with some horses. ‘“‘There’s his mule,” one of the men ex- claimed. ‘‘Now what d’ye make of it?” ‘What gits me,” said the other man, “‘is how he was able t’ git this fur without grub an’ without bullets, an’ on that miserable ole white mule besides. Reckon though hunger’s got him an’ he’s gone loco an’ wandered off.”’ “Loco?” sneered the first speaker. “Not so —— loco that he didn’t know enough t’ take them sacks o’ gold dust with him.” ‘“Mebbe he throwed them away long ago t’? lighten pack,” suggested the other. “Lighten nothin’, I know Cheney. Whatever he undertakes he’ll stick to it to the end. The truth is the old mule give out an’ he took the dust an’ went on in a desper- ate chance to reach Fort Hall. He can’t a been gone long, an’ as we know the fix he was in he must be awful weak. The COMICLOOOKS. CO