Adventure, December 3, 1920 — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

64 inch of my nose, then lifted and disappeared. I could hear other feet swishing around me and sounds of a struggle—gasps and blows. T ‘hen everything was quiet except for grunting voices. Strong hands forced my own hands up behind my back and tied my wrists. I felt my machete drawn from my belt. The men on me got off. I scrambled to my knees and then to my feet. Pedro and Senhor Locke were on the ground, both tied. The American’s face was-red and bloated from choking, but he was still trying to fight. One booted foot shot up and caught a savage in the groin, and the man yelped and fell backward. But others jumped on his legs again and pinned them down, and he could only wrench his shoulders uselessly. I started toward him, but stopped short, held by the rope around my stomach. Then I looked around at the men who had caught us. They numbered about a dozen, and, for barbaros, they were fine-looking men. ‘They » were of medium height, well muscled, beardless, very smooth-skinned, and naked except for belts and mats of woven fibers and bark. Their faces were grim, but not so brutal as those of many wild men [I had seen. This cheered me, for I thought they probably were fiot cannibals. So, having been in the hands of barbarvs before without suffering any serious harm—though that was mostly because I was lucky enough to escape in time—I decided to put on a cheerful face and make the best of it. “You had better stop fighting, Senhor Tucandeira,” I said. Why I called him Tucandeira instead of Locke I do not know—the name came naturally frommy tongue. “We are helpless, and we may get better treatment by not resisting further now. Later on we may have a chanee to fight again.” He coughed and made a hoarse noise, trying to talk. Soon he managed to make his throat work as it should. “Roped!” he snorted. ‘Roped and hogtied! We’re a bunch of bally short-horns, I'll say! But I salivated a couple of ’em anyhow. Didn’t hit you too, did 1?” I told him no. Glancing around, I saw two of our captors dead on the ground and a third holding a bleeding shoulder. “Glad of it. They had a hangman’s hold on my neck and I had to shoot blind. Hullo, I winged another in the shoulder! Not so bad— three hits out.of six shots, and me being lynched at the moment. Now it’s their turn, and I reckon they’ll make us prance around some, what?” “If you mean that they will torture us, I do not think so,” I assured him. “Our Indians usually do not torture, but kill quickly.’ Then I grinned, though J I did not feel very funny, and added: \ Adventure “You came here to see things, senhor.- Now you are seeing them.” Whether he answered I not know. One of the barbaros, who seemed to be the leader, stepped in front of me and looked me in the face. He had big staring eyes, and in them was a queer expression which I could not read. For what seemed a very long time he stood there looking at me without once blinking. j stared straight back. At length I smiled and spoke to him, asking him what he meant to do with us. He did not understand. I tried again and again, speaking slowly in Portuguese and Spanish, then in the Tupi /engoa geral, and finally using bits of other Indian dialect I had picked up at different times. The first two meant nothing to him, and he scowled as if he did not like their sound. The Indian words made his face brighten, but I saw that he did not understand these either. As my hands were tied, I could not make signs with them, and thus I had no way at all of talking with him. So I turned to Pedro. “T have tried everything I know,” I said. “Can you speak any tongue I have not used?” Pedro, who was sitting quietly and watching, began to grunt and click his tongue in some sort of strange language. The big-eyed leader left me and went to him. Soon he made several noises as if trying to answer. Pedro grunted away more rapidly, but the wild man was silent. Finally he turned away. said my comrade. nderstood, but he does not,” “T thought he u “I did not understand him.” The leader said something to his men. One of them, holding the noose of twisted fibers around my body, pulled on it and moved his head toward the American. We stepped over beside Senhor Locke. Pedro and another wild man came also, and we three prisoners stood there in a row, each held in a tight noose. The other barbaros picked up everything belonging to us, and four of them also lifted the two dead men by shoulders and feet. ‘The ropes tugged at us again, and we filed away into the bush. Noticing that they were.carrying their dead, . I guessed that we would not go far. I was partly right. We went only a short distance between the hills before we stopped and all the burdens were laid on the ground. But we had not reached any place where we were to stay. Several of the men picked up the two bodies and went away. The rest of us waited. After a time the absent barbaros returned without the dead men. We fell into line once more, and now the real march began. ya ALL the rest of that day we trudged on through the jungle. Nobody spoke. “te There was little use in talk, since we had no idea of what lay ahead and could not learn anything from our captors. 1 he@pnichboo (C@)