Adventure Magazine Cover, June 20, 1925 — page 114: what you’re looking at

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

96 cross to the island and after a little difficulty Alex discovered his saddle. — “Look here!’ he ejaculated suddenly, “somebody’s had a fire right here, an’ there’s oats scattered around. built a fire, an’ I know well, I never had no oats.” More than ever interested the men began to look around. Cheney rightfully guessed that it was the outlaws who had camped there, and he wondered what they had done to Lisbeth—if anything. Presently the wagon boss let out a yell and hurrying over Alex found him contemplating the skele- tons of three dead wolves. There were other signs there yet that could not be mis- taken. “By , 1f ole Lisbeth didn’t kill them wolves I’m a hiar,’’ Alex marveled. And presently a new thought began to occupy his mind. It was unreasonable in the extreme to think that the old mule had survived. Even a strong young mule would have perished early in the winter, but J @ BOR the love of Pete don’t say Sea “Bill Adams says’ unless you See prefix it with “That fool 5 Bill Adams says,” or words to that effect. What I mean to express is the fact that what I may happen to say is not of any consequence. I loathe people who have that infernal habit of laying down the law. I detest the self-sufficient folk who are so eternally cock-sure of themselves, and so keen and ready to tell the rest of us just how to live, to think, and in general how to conduct ourselves to make the old world better. I think it is a pretty good old world for all of its sin and sorrow; and it is my own belief that, if there be above us all a Father, He is a quiet minded Overseer who has less patience with the serene and self-satis- fied than with those of his children who are forever falling and yet still in their..hearts willing to climb to the difficult heights. I ought not to say “I hate—” yet, I am inclined to hate all preaching and_ all preachers. I never LIPPES Litt by Bill Adertusr Adventure Lisbeth—was Lisbeth. - me if I don’t take time to look around till I find out what’s become her,” he asserted firmly. ‘Fey! Look!” exclaimed the wagon boss. “What’s that comin’?” It was Lisbeth, her curiosity aroused by the sound of voices. She was gaunt and scrawny. Her hip bones projected dis- mally. But on she stepped forward briskly as she recognized Alex. ‘There were tears in Cheney’s eyes as he threw his arms about the old mule’s neck. “T wouldn’t ’a’ thought she could ’a’ made it—at her age,” gaped the wagon boss. “Look there,” said Cheney sternly, but with a kindly, tear-dimmed twinkle in his eye. He turned Lisbeth so that her right side was toward them. On its white side face, dim but still readable, was this legend in black tar: ’M OLD BUT I’M AWFULL TOUGH BITTERSWEET II me THINK that there are men who ! are dead to beauty, for a time. I have been there myself. I’ve sam staggered home at midnight and before dawn, from the orchards, sick from hydro-cyanic-acid gas, night after night with nothing to look forward to but the same thing tomorrow night, after a day of tossing on a sweat-wet bed in July heat. I’ve worked till I was far too tired to care whether the sun set in gold or behind a blackness. One can get so weary that one shuts one’s whole soul up and is merely an animal. All one longs for is sleep and rest—one gets to think of food, of sleep, of a day off, and beyond that of nothing. I don’t think that evil, or vice of any sort ever quite kill the love of lovely things 1n the mind of man. Men will always exclaim at a great beauty, no matter how low they have sunken. The thing that kills the knowledge of beauty in our souls is not the world’s com- mon evil; but the inhumanity of man to his brother man. COMIGDIOOKSEEO