Adventure Magazine Cover — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

Tupahn the Thunderstorm ~ 5 to the top of the slope, carrying our guns ready. Less than a rod from the edge v we saw a flimsy shelter of poles and palm-leaves. In it hung an empty hammock. On the ground lay what was left of the man who had slept there. His bones were scattered about, his shirt and breeches now were only torn rags, and we saw nothing at all to show who he was. But we quickly saw why he was there. In the skull gaped a big bullet-hole. For a few minutes we stood looking at it and at the bush round about. Then Pedro turned the skull over with his gun-muzzle. “Por Deus’? he muttered. “This is a sweet thing to find lying on the river-bank, Lourenco. It is murder.” I nodded, for I too saw that the man had. been shot while asleep. Only the one hole was in the skull, and it was high on the back of the crown. The bullet had been fired while he lay at rest, ranging downward and probably coming out through his throat. “Shot in the night by a companion who then fled in their canoe,’ Pedro added. “The murderer dropped that rifle down below in his hurry to get away, and either forgot it or could not find it in the dark- ness. The gun may belong either to the killer or to this man. Let us look at it. Perhaps it may tell usa tale. There is noth- ing else here that will.”’ But just as we turned back toward the water I saw a brownish bit of wood among the rags. Stooping, I grasped it and picked it up. It was the haft of a sheath-knife. “Here is something,” I said. ‘A rusty blade of about seven inches, with four nicks on the back which look as if made by a file. And the-wood has been checkered to give a firm grip in a hot hand. It looks like the weapon of a knife-fighter.”’ ‘‘And so it is,’ my partner agreed after studying it and feeling its weight and bal- ance. ‘‘Those four nicks must mean four human lives. That is why this man was killed by stealth, no doubt—his killer dared not fight him. Now we have only to learn who carried this knife and who traveled with him.” “A very simple matter in this vast bush, of course,” I jeered. Yet it was much more simple than either _of us expected. The answer to our problem came before we again picked up our paddles. Down below Senhor Tom had stepped ashore and pulled the abandoned rifle out of the driftwood, and now he and the Sen- horita were looking at it. As we slid down to them he turned to us, his blue eyes gleam- ing. “Say, fellows, this is— Hullo! What’s that you’ve got? Find something up- stairs?” | “A hammock and this knife,”’ I answered, passing the ugly blade to him. ‘The girl leaned forward eagerly and looked. “Oh, now I’m absolutely sure of it!’ she cried. ‘“That was the knife of the tall man!” “What tall man?” Pedro demanded. “One of the two who carried me to the camp of the Hawk! He was a yellow-faced animal with a thick mouth and the eyes of a snake, and he was noisy and quarrelsome. He drew this knife more than a dozen times on the journey, threatening the other man with it, and once he pointed to these dents on the back of it. I saw this handle stick- ing out from his waistband all the time for three days, and I shall never forget it. “The other man was shorter and very brown—an Indian, or nearly so—and not so noisy; but I watched his eyes once after the tall one threatened him, and they made me shiver. T hey looked positively poison- ous: He——” She stopped suddenly, looking from one to the other of us and up at the top of the bank. She paled a little. “Are they—are they dead?” she asked. “The tall one is very dead,” Pedro told her. “The other is gone. But what about the rifle?”’ Senhor Tom answered: “Miss Marshall was saying she thought this gun belonged to one of those skunks, though she wasn’t sure. The butt is dented. See? Looks like old tooth-marks. Some animal bit it some time, perhaps. Nothing else to distinguish it from any other re- peater. Forty-four caliber, as usual, and rotten dirty inside and out.” He dropped the weapon and climbed the bank. While he was gone we examined the - gun and found it just as he had said. Be- tween rust and foulness, it was worthless. I pitched it back among the muddy sticks and rubbed the rust from my hands on to my jungle-stained breeches. And then Senhor Tom came slipping down, grinning. “Old Lady Nemesis sure tapped that mutt hard when she called on him,” he said. '“Shoved her finger clear through his head— Gomichbooks (EC)