Adventure Magazine Cover — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

Picks tumbling seek: his painted f face, the nos- trils of his aquiline nose twitching with excite- : ment, was leaning far over the edge of the feo- Ss alli and shouting down galvanic commands to * ~ the armed men below. A detachment of eight -__ men, including Quetzal, my former guard, broke 4 _ away from the hollow square and stacking their _ Mausers by the swivels to one side of the plaza _ went loping swiftly up the cow-path in the wake of la Caballera del Sol. spoke of discipline and arduous training, the hollow square formed into double ranks of ee = = | 7 squads. Other naked bronze men came bound- ; ing up armed with Mausers and joined the _ formation, falling into ordained places without commotion or disorder. Then, numbering fully _ six-score men, their guns at the carry, the com- =~ pany went running at quick timethrough the ‘es Se non toward the distant fields. iy ee The one-two trot of the men and the weird wailing of the huddled women ‘in the hovels aa hung i in echoes about the windless plaza. There - was no one left in that scorched, heat-quivering eos save Metztli and I up there on the brown adobe platform of the feoca/fi. The baked curls _ of the priest leaped snakily about his painted _ face as he swung his eyes upon me. Those black eyes glittered watchfully now as if he 5: were a cat, and I some bird. _ “Sefior,” he said politely enough, ‘who are these paisanos of yours, this white hombre and his woman, who have joined hands with the per- « fidious and audacious yellow meng Is the hombre indeed the teniente, Dicenta, whom la __ Caballera del Sol so cordially hates?” ___ _I shook my head. “No; he is not Dicenta to my knowledge and _ what’s more neither of them are friends of mine. ___ The two are Morley and his wife if I judge cor- -__ rectly, two former members of the crew of our little ship. They have turned traitor to us.’ _ “Ah!?? and his arched nostrils suddenly x “They are your enemies! It is welll!’ ae “Si, si,” I nodded. ‘They went over to that ship with the niany sails, last Night, and per- suaded the Japanese to come aboard our craft to get that chest of gold which Mariquita says belongs more to her than to any one else. That was the trouble which drew the saffron priest to the beach, leaving me in the hands of the man who was “T’m glad he was killed!’’ burst out the priest vehemently, his nostrils pulsing like hearts of artes fire, his black eyes cruel. Baas “Chispasl Would they all-were dead! They ane are infernal lizards for treachery and deceit! They told you, sevor, they did not intend to re- main in this country of the Guiacuras; they told us they would combine forces with us and found all lies!’ Instead, without apology or by your With a military snappiness and quietude that together a great new Nahuatlac nation. Lies, Toyama’ $ leave, they have squatted upon the land given to us alone by Quetzalcoatl, the Good. “This can not be,” he went on more calmly. “We Guiacuras have a trust to maintain, a lofty charge to keep, a debt of outrage to repay. Senor caballero, we are about to drive into the | desert to rid ourselves forever of the irritating neighborhood of these sly tricky ones. “Will you ride with us? We do not need your aid; we are more,than sixscore strong; but you © say the white man and woman are no friends of yours. They have played you false. Perhaps you would welcome this opportunity to come along in order to requite your white paisanos for their treachepy.” “Would I? I should say!” I exclaimed gladly. “And thank you, Metztli old man, for the ~ chance!”’ It was indeed my chance to help in the rout- ing of Morley and his wife and their Japanese. — Perhaps through it I might be enabled to regain control of the Seventy-three, release the loyal - crew and Jim Hathaway if he still lived and arrive at some understanding, finally, as to © who was entitled to that chest of golden hidalgos and medio-hidalgos in the forward magazine. OF A sudden the girl Mariquita ap- peared upon the star-blazed stallion at the head of the cow-path. She came tearing down, her tumult of lustrous black hair once again confined beneath the silver-corded sombrero which she probably had ridden out to recover. She went flying by, drawing up sharply before a mud and stake hut a little below the plaza. Athletically she leaped out of the silver-sparkling saddle and vanished into the dark entry. From the chasmy break in the chrome cliffs reappeared on the run the detachment of eight men under command of Quetzal. They were incrusted with white clay up to the neck, a white coat that glistened in the stinging rays as if it had been freshly moistened with water. They had probably gone to the pigmented earth of the Collado de Colorado and there by the rim of the pool molded the clay upon their limbs | and nude bodies. Each grabbed nif Mauser from the stack in the plaza and separating dispersed into the hovels, to the four quarters of the feocalli, from whence the sound of wailing still rose and fell and hung for odd moments on eery notes. In a hot swirl of dust, the long company of armed bucks, who had trotted away at quick time, thundered into the plaza atop saddleless horses—fine, upstanding creatures of spirit, quality and gleaming coats, black, bay, chestnut, roan and sorrel. The two drummers and sey- eral buglers were in the lead, their sleekly shin- ing instruments held under a free hand against their thighs. The blue-steel Mausers of the COmmicloo® S ma f , UGE i Pee * ae . PA waht) Uf. ¢ Ny k Aer te foil Cpe Ca ates eS ta Os dh i Sal) he SRR aN 0 OT ak a ~4 , Phy ites ised, bie? bend 2 AY, Ds ta el as, uP gy ty AS fi ~