Munsey's Magazine, December 1923

The Voice of the Desert

This complete novelette by L. Patrick Greene interweaves two parallel narratives in South Africa. The first follows a Bushman war party—led by the wise elder Graybeard and including a gifted young tracker named Cogas—traversing the Kalahari Desert. The second concerns Tom Armitage, a white adventurer camped at a desert water hole awaiting the arrival of Bushmen; he has accepted payment from an American professor to capture one of the indigenous people for anthropological study.

When two Bushmen scouts, Cogas and the ambitious Namqua, arrive at Armitage's camp under cover of darkness, tension erupts. Namqua, coveting Cogas's leadership, strikes him down treacherously, then flees. As a mysterious storm approaches—confirmed by Cogas's earlier premonitions—the mules bolt in terror and Armitage awakens, finding himself in grave peril.