Adventure Magazine Cover — page 150: what you’re looking at

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

= worn down by my hard march that I wanted rest above all else, and besides I hoped to work out some way to destroy them, which was really what I had undergone all that hardship for. But I could see no way to do this, for I was one unarmed man among half a hundred cutthroats, and all I could think of was to set fire to their barracéos at night. This idea I discarded, for there was little chance that I could do them much harm by burn- ing their houses. And so for the time I did nothing but watch and listen. I saw that the rubber they had brought in from their raids was taken away again by a gang of stolid Indian porters, com- manded by a villainous caboclo with one eye, who probably delivered it at some place where it could be sent to a market and sold. I saw also why these men smelled so; for they killed peccaries in the forest, and ate their flesh, and smeared themselves with the musky fat from those pouches in the pigs’ loins; and as they never washed them- selves this odor quickly became most vile. Besides this, I saw Benne tnag of their treat- ment of women. As ten of them had died in the fight with my men, and all of them had had women, the-Vellow One now decided to give these girls over to other men. He had them brought out and lined up before him like cattle, and picked the best-looking for him- self, although he already had two others of his own. Then he gave each of his sub- chiefs one, and those who were left he handed over to men who had none. The girls made no protest, but went dumbly with the men who got. them—all except one. She was one of the youngest, and she turned from the bandit to whom she was given and begged El Amarillo not to make that man her master. He snarled, and told her to go as he ordered. Then she broke away and fled very fast, trying to escape; and the big brute who now owned her ran after her, cursing. He caught her by the hair, and his knife flashed, and she fell; and then he picked her body up and threw it out to one side for the wrubus . and came back, muttering with rage. The Yellow One grinned his beastly grin, and the others said nothing, but walked off as if such things were common. And I went away and‘ sat down by myself, sick at "Adventure: = Sa mS ae = SE pe Fe See fx SOON after that a dozen more In- “yy dian carriers came in, and the chief =~ took them and me and four of his fighting-men, and we started back to my old tambo to bring out more of the rubber. Before we went the Yellow One ordered that large boats be kept waiting for us at that place on the river where we had first taken to the canoes, as several trips through the bush would be necessary to clean up all the loot. At first it seemed strange to me that he should go back himself instead of sending a lesser man and devoting his own time to new work elsewhere. But as we marched back to the river I learned from his talk with his fighters that it was not alone the rubber that took him back, but that he planned another raid in my country, and a foul - one. For he was not satisfied with the three women he now possessed, but wanted more; and he knew of an Indian tribe who lived in the Brazilian bush in a great maloca, or tribal house, and who were lighter in color than most Indians and had among them many handsome young women. So, after our rubber should be all brought out and sent down the river, he interided to lead his © men against this tribal house by night, when the Indians were asleep, burst in its single door, and, in the darkness and con- fusion of the sudden attack, toseize a num- ber of girls and drag them swiftly away toa fate which I knew only too well. I learned, too, from their talk that this would not be the first time they had assailed those Indians and carried off their women, and that in a previous raid they had cap- tured, among other girls, the one whom I had recently seen murdered. Now, though I had been unable to help that girl, because she had fled and met her death so swiftly that I could not interfere, I had noticed her particularly among the women, and had wondered whether she came from a certain tribe of Indians whom I knew. Some time before this I had roamed the jungle with a man from your North America whom I called the Jaguar, because he was a terrible fighter; and we had been captured by Indians said to be. cannibals, but had not been killed and eaten by them because the Jaguar dared the chief to fight him barehanded, and killed him; and then a cunning old man who wished to use us for his own purposes made the —|