Adventure, February 1917 — page 144: what you’re looking at

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

Tinished | | AFiveDart Story, Part Ir - FIRST laid eyes on the lean, clean figure of young Anscombe, idler, big-game hunter, on that Spring morning in Pretoria, 1877, when Great Britain took formal pos- session of the Transvaal. A year later we met again, this time because of Anscombe’s determination to hunt buffalo in the Lyden- burg country back of Delagoa Bay. I tried to dissuade him, for I knew the Basutos up-country were unfriendly; but the outcome was that I went as his guide. From the flaming morn when we trekked out across the veld, till we entered the bush, far north, all went well. Then suddenly we came upon*something which even gave me a start, and I have been in as many tight corners, and seen as many weird spectacles in the heart of Africa, I presume, as any man alive. What startled me was a temple—a home there i in the wilderness, built of snowy mar- ble. But if the home seemed strange, a thousand times more mysterious were its two inhabitants, Marnham, an old man, and Dr. Todd, whose shifty eyes made me - distrust him immediately. = I knew at once that they were anxious to be rid of us. Was it because of a mysterious Miss Heda Marnham who was expected at any time? Dr. Todd, it was plain, was not _ anxious to have her meet young Anscombe. Or did these forest-dwellers fear we might discover the reason for their living thus? idexr Hagfard At any rate, we soon shook the dust of their yard from our feet, and began our hunting. But almost at the sound of our first shot we were ambushed by natives; and from a wounded black I learned that they had been informed of our coming by a white man. All thought of fighting it out with the Basutos fled when Anscombe caught a bul- let in his-foot. We must win back to the Temple. We did. And Dr. Todd pro- nounced Anscombe’s wound too serious to allow traveling for some days. Then a strange thing happened, which gave me a clue to the “trading” that Dr. Todd vaguely said was his and Marnham’s reason for dwelling in the bush. The Basutos had followed almost to the Temple. broke into song and spent the night in rey- elry. I knew they had somehow got hold of their greatest enemy—liquor. From this my thoughts snapped instantly to their weapons. Where did they get them? And what, beside their friendship, did they give in return? I stumbled on the answer to the first question next morning—a box, hidden away in the bush back of the Temple, filled with rifles; powder, and spirits. ° The second question, that of the pay- ment given by the natives, Marnham cleared up the evening he and Dr. Todd taunted Anscombe and me into a card game 142 nichbook But instead of attacking they — (EO)