Show abw orar adventurers CLUB snapping doom famous headline hunter by FLOYD GIBBONS MAKE AKE room for pete gill of new york city pete is distinguished adventurer and since theres always room for one more in the adventurers club we won wont t have any trouble finding a seat for him pete is a ship f 1 steward not a steward on a big ocean liner buttic bu the sort of one who has charge of the feeding of the crew on a tramp steamer that kind of a steward goes a heck of a lot of places and sees a heck beck of a lot of things and usually he has a heck of 0 a lot of 0 things happen to him too well sir BIT pete Is no exception to that rule lies hes had plenty of things happen to him but the most hair balsin raising of them all was that adventure adren ture in australia in the spring of 1922 ills his ship sailed out of san francisco francis ca in may alay and its first stop was at a port that went by the peculiar name of rockhampton Roch Rock hampton meat works it was just a canning factory dock about four miles from the town of rockhampton Rock hampton on the northeast coast of australia rock hampton itself was only a small town the whole doggone region very thickly populated between the town and the meat works there was a strip of desert that inhabited at all IC it was retes petes first trip to australia and he wanted to see the place 91 so 0 he be decided to take a tt alk alb to r lock bafo defore re he left he be arranged to meet some of his shipmates in town at a pub run by a man named jack oak ne he started out about 4 in the afternoon and as he left a longshoreman warned him watch out for dingies dingoes dlo dIn gocs goes this part of the country Is full of them k ever hear of dingoes dingies Din goes wild dogs pete had bad heard of diri dingies dingoes goes the wild dogs of australia but he h had ad never thought be any that near the coast lie ile take the long sho horemans remans warning tiny liny too seriously but he did cut I 1 himself a good stout tick stick to defend himself with just in case some of those wild pooches poaches did come along pete walked for about two miles without seeing a sign of any wild animal lie ile had covered half his journey by then and he was b beginning eg inning to think that the longs horemans story was just a lot of horse feathers then suddenly he be heard a sharp yelp behind him and whirled about there not a hundred feet away from him were six dingoes dingies din goes their heads down foam dripping from their jaws making for him at full speed pete knew better than to try to run from a pack of dogs that was just what they wanted A dog Is most dangerous when pursuing a fleeing quarry he stood in his tracks and faced the t h a oncoming beasts thanking his lucky stars that he had stopped to cut the stick which he now held poised ready to swing at the first dingo that came at him in fl a few seconds pete says they were on me I 1 swung the stick and beat the first one off I 1 had barely time to whip the stick up again when another jumped I 1 knocked that one down then the do dogs s drew off a bit and began to circle around me that was what pete had bad been afraid of once they began lunging at him from all sides he be would not be able to defend himself hed have n X j P N ks n the snarling devils were lunging at him from all sides given anything at that moment for a tree a wall a rock anything he could get ills his back up against anything that would keep those snarling snapping devils out in front of him where lie he could hold them off hut but on that flat sandy bandy stretch of australian desert there was no shelter for miles odds against him were six to one behind him a third dog growled and closed to pete turned to beat him off and as he did so another leaped at his throat if that dog had made it the battle would have been all over but somehow he managed to get his stick between him and the animal A fifth dog jumped and tore the sleeve off petes coat for bior ten minutes pete fought on ile he get off unscathed either cither that dog that had taken his coat sleeve had bad taken a little flesh along with it ills his trousers were in shreds and blood was streaming from his fingers legs and arms 1 I was pretty weak from siale swinging ing he says and from the loss of blood although by that time I 1 had almost beaten one of the dingoes dingies to death they were still coming at me courage plus a big stick saved him then the battle began to turn in petes favor two of the dingies dingoes ran away another was laid out on the band halt half dead from the beating pete had given it ile he made another vicious swing and laid out another dog but the remaining two still kept coming by that time courage began to come creeping back into petes pete body he began to feel fee that maybe he could handle those two re dogs after all and then over the top of a sand dune came a man a native of the country he raised a rifle and there was a sharp crack the last fast two dogs turned and ran and in another minute pete was being half carried toward the town of rockhampton Rock Flock hampton the australian took pete to jack oaks pub and they put a couple of stiff drinks of brandy into him and tied up his wounds after that pete felt better again jack oak drove him back to ills his ship in his car and the ships chips doctor did the rest but heres the joke of the whole business it I 1 bad only known enouf enough gh to light a match says pete id have been all right because the dingoes dingies dont like lire fire and wont go anywhere near IL if 0 service |