Adventure Magazine Cover — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

t S- 4 wey ee ae a —* - the Spaniards as slaves, just as I was being further domesticated and tamed by the Phe body and actions had gradually bent to the yoke, but my heart and feelings d become more rebellious day by day. ithin ‘me was a growling tiger ready to spring and kill at the first chance. “T had grown to understand each word the gringo spoke and I was able to express what of my own thoughts was necessary for the work of the trail. We spoke little to each other of things aside from the actual work in hand. “When we stood on the lip of some great barranca at sunset, watching the purple and red shades of light painting the depths and walls of the cafions down below, I was touched in my heart by the majesty of nature and felt strange forces surging within me to give tongue to my thoughts; and, watching the gringo as he gazed, I knew he felt the same emotions that I did. Yet we turned to speak of such sordid affairs as hunting a place to camp where the cold winds would not search us out during the night, and of the stock of grub we had in hand. Often we sighted some animal perched high on a cliff and the gringo reached for his long-barreled revolver under his arm and, aiming carefully, brought it tumbling to the ground. *“‘And I knew that the gringo feared me worse than he did the mountain-lions and tawny tigers that slipped silently through the cafions, than the huge-framed lobo wolves that howled during the nights. He read my thoughts, as I did his, and he watched me with a careful eye day by day. “Quite well he dissimulated a devil-may- care disregard of me. Many times as I skinned the game with my keen-whetted ‘knife he drew close and turned his back carelessly to me as if by accident, yet I knew should my arm raise he would wheel and kill me. “He had ceased to beat me now; not that he was afraid to, but because I observed the rules he had taught me with kick and blow and oath. I was as clean a man as he around the camp and with the cooking of the grub and the scouring of the pots. And I washed my body clean and scoured my clothes until they faded from the rub- Saeee tock My ancestors had | 2 fenced and domesticated to labor for 5 =~ — i a — ns ~e os J pee a an re en ee ee ae Fi eS: need se a es oo. . — = : Est ~ e oe % F ig & Ma in-] M aker Se ez ~~ ~ ~ - ~ <S —- oss rs te =~ ee = As ~, J <= 3 a i ee oe a. = pa ~ es '. Bael Soe : a : Sse . nt RAK % we xs a oo | “The g gringo had other suits j in fis bundle, — and shirts, and leather and nails for half = = soling the shoes. He had needle and thread — and a wor'l of useful things in that pack. I had woacched him roll and unroll it so many tnnes that I knew them by heart. And I knew he was a man who had been long on the trail and was wise to the things - of the trail, and I came to understand that he had worked with the gringos for the sole purpose of buying such equipment as he carried and gave to me. “Yet in my heart the smoldering coals of hatred glowed with a red heat. I was an animal at the time, unable to reason things . out ina rational way, and [ still remembered. the tears flowing down the olive cheeks of my four sisters as they were led away into slavery, mere children, casting dumb, appealing glances backward at the mother who had given them birth and at whose breast they had sucked life. “The scary-cries of the old women that the gringos would come had been too true. Well, they had come and I and my sisters were in their toils. “When such thoughts as these were in my heart and I looked up into the eyes of my master, his jaws set andmhe looked at me fiercely for a moment and. then looked away as if he had not noticed. When I moved in the night his eyes flipped open, _and he looked to see what I was about. Many times, after a hard day’s work in the streams and on the hike, I thought him too tired to notice, but he always did. “T have since learned that this is a subconscious part of man that watches over him while he sleeps, and that men in wild places become like tigers sleeping with eyelids scarce closed and with the muscles of the legs tensed to spring. At that time it seemed as if he was a cunning devil with superhuman powers to avoid my hate. “Eighteen months we remained in the Mexican sierras, and I was a hardened boy of seventeen, speaking with the gringo when necessary in correct phrases of his own language, but keeping my own thoughts to myself. He treated me more kindly and tried to gain my friendship more than once. This cut deep, for I felt he was treating me like an ox which had been broken to the yoke. Some day I would show him what kind of an ox I was! “Finding little gold, the gringo headed south, taking the eastern slopes of the niGDOOK