Adventure Magazine Cover — page 49: what you’re looking at

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

The Butterfly Hunter there. They saved the women with Krag rifles, for which the rescued people thanked Providence. But the Boxers had their own ideas—and haven’t forgotten yet.” “T believe that the meek shall inherit the earth,” said Wheaton quietly. “Yes, six feet of it,” said Thusby. “Or they’ll inherit while somebody is protecting them while they inherit. Remember, this is Rasgana, and it is the head season, and the natives are mad as hornets because we have caught Asama. If you go into these hills alone, it means death, and we’ll risk our lives to show these natives that they can’t kill white men and get away with it. “Seven years ago there was a sailor who killed the mate of a tramp steamer down this way, and swam ashore in this neigh- borhood. He got into the hills, and that was the last seen of him. His head is hanging in a head-house somewhere up in those jungles above us.”’ “‘Nevertheless, Pll start in the morning,”’ said?,Wheaton, and Thusby shrugged his shoulders as if he were unconcerned further in the matter.. “T’ll send a couple of black boys down for your baggage,” said the policeman; and, leaning out over the end of the veranda, he raised his voice in a queer high-pitched cackle. Two natives came out of the palm grove in the rear of the house. They were naked except for wire-grass fringes about their middles and breech-cloths of trade cotton. Their long, black hair hung over their shoulders, and they walked with the pecu- liar high-stepping stride of men accustomed to hunting in close jungle. Thusby cackled at them again, and they hustled down toward the beach to bring up Wheaton’s stuffi—a light tent, speci- men cases, butterfly-nets and a haversack. “Dravidian types!’ exclaimed Wheaton. ‘‘What splendid creatures of the wilds!’ “Ves,”’ said Thusby, “they are.” And then he added dryly: “One was caught with heads, and the other ran amok and killed five Malay women With a knife made from an old file. We hold ’em here by feeding ’em, but they don’t quite understand that they are prisoners. The company has no power of trials or execution, you see, but I’m sup- posed to keep such birds herded up and out of mischief—if I don’t happen to kill ’em when I’m catching ’em.” 43 “Tt seems so unfair,” said Wheaton. “White men with modern weapons, inter- fering with the child-like people of the jungle. That is what makes them lawless— they realize their helplessness, and they. protest in their own way. After all, this is their country.” “But they would be at constant warfare with each other, if we did not interfere,” said Thusby. ‘We have practically put down head-hunting and tribal feuds. You believe we make them lawless, when as a matter of fact we protect the weak against the strong, and give the women and chil- dren a chance for life. We five white men on this island prevent it from becoming a shambles.” “Do you teach them to follow the ways of peace by making war upon them? Why, we white people ought to be able to teach them something better than modern ways of killing!” “T am dealing with things as they are, not as they ought to be,” said Thusby. “If you want to go up in the hills and take your own chances, that’s your affair—I can’t prevent it. You’re likely to want a couple of -my men—and their modern weapons—before you’re done. And if you do, you’ll not be the first trusting white man that’s prayed for one of your own kind to hurry to his rescue—with a gun.” And Thusby departed from the veranda abruptly, to tell the Chinese cook to get lunch ready. Wheaton kept off the subject of the natives during the meal that followed on the veranda, but he did get from Thusby some rough maps of the hill trails across the island, and all the information that the policeman could give on going one way and returning another. It was Wheaton’s plan to make a circuit of the interior part of the island, unless hé got the specimens he desired on the first or second day out. The trip he settled on would take him a week or more, and he announced his in- tention of leaving early the next morning. His heavy baggage would remain at Thus- by’s bungalow; and the butterfly-hunter carried only a light silk tent, his mosquito net, simple cooking-utensils and a supply of the lightest and most concentrated foods. “The darn fool!” growled Thusby as he saw Wheaton disappear into the jungle just after daylight. “I sometimes believe that the Almighty has His own scheme ier CORNICGLOO© S (C@