Adventure Magazine Cover — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

an ee i Cee ae a ae: followed and stood above him as he kneeled, rolling the packs and knotting the ropes with his large, muscular hands. Had I had a knife I surely would have plunged it into his back, for my heart was boiling with sullen anger and red spots floated before my eyes. “He finished rolling and roping the packs to his liking and then motioned for me to turn and have one of them put upon my back. When it sat upon my shoulders he took up the other and slipped his huge arms through the ropes. Walking ahead, he motioned for me to follow him. “We passed down the street between the tents. My _master stopped and chatted with a few of the other gringos he met as we passed out of the town. The shoes were crushing my toes, the ropes of the pack bit into my shoulders, my jaws were swollen from the blow he had give me on the chin, a dull ache was in my back and my heart was broken with homesickness. “Thus I left the home of my birth, the slave of a man with whom I could not speak. Was there wonder that I hated him? I vowed and swore by the saints as I had heard grown men do in Santa Ysabel that I would kill this man the first time I had the chance. “TT WAS late in the afternoon when we set out, heading down the newly-laid track in the direction of Tepic and Guadalajara. After following this for a few miles the gringo searched the sierras off to the east with a careful eye and we left the track and headed across the plain in the direction of the mountains, passing a few miles south of Escuinapa, which in turn lay a few miles south of my home village. Sensing that I might try to slip-away, the gringo made me go ahead of him and, bowing under the packs, we soon left my home far behind. “T had ceased to blubber. Homesickness had left me. My heart knew only anger and a desire to kill this ‘man burned within me. Perhaps it was because I was a pure- blooded Indian, although a Mexican, that this was so. “The pain had given me _ fortitude. Also it had given me patience. I would wait my chance and strike quick and sure. “That night we camped in the bottom of a deep barranca at the edge of the sierras. The gringo showed me how to build the a, ale The Man-Maker : nw AES i PSS fire and made me watch him cook the food for both of us. When he put my portion on my tin plate I grabbed for it to take itin _ my hands and wolf it as we were used to do at home, where a fortilla served for knife, fork, spoon, and bread—a sort of imple- ment that grew smaller with each bite, for when a scoopful of beans went into the . mouth that much of the Zortiila was also bitten away. “He grabbed my wrists and forced a knife and fork into my hands. Although I watched him carefully I was scarcely able to eat fast enough to appease my hunger. torture he was making me endure. - “When we had finished he motionea for me to take up the dishes and pans that had been used and carry them to the creek. Here he taught me how to scour with soap and sand until everything was bright and clean. “When we had lain down. to sleep I: resolved to stay awake and kill him by striking him over the head with a large stone that lay near. Several times I opened my eyes and saw him staring across the fire at me quietly. Then I went to sleep and did not awake until it was broad daylight and he was prodding me to wakefulness with his toe. ‘“‘We had breakfast, climbed the moun- tain until noon, ate dinner, walked until dusk, ate supper, slept and began the march the following day. For eighteen days we traveled thus into the wildest part of Old Mexico. The mountains grew higher on all sides; the air was so cold that I shivered from morning until night. “The gringo seemed to be searching for something among the mountains. He would stop and look up valleys and peer into the sands of the clear streams and pick up bits of stone and stare at them. I had learned a few words of his language and I was learning something of his ways. “He had struck me many times for break- ing certain rules that he observed in eating, bathing and keeping the camp clean. I soon came to see that he had struck me, not because he wahted to force his manner upon me, but because my filthiness dis- gusted him and interfered with his own enjoyment. This caused me to watch him closely and ape certain of his habits, for I — the blows of his heavy shoes and = a = 2 I took this as another kind of ° oak LEA! B . ’ ( . hime “ - . . ‘ ae eet x ‘stirel) B44 of BVA}, eee ee Pe aes <9 _ ~ = - yi a