Adventure Magazine Cover — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

Red Saunders’ Protégé in his undertakings, were amazingly few. The pistol prodded viciously into the fellow ahead. ‘So I am to be held here, hey? Sort of expected me, did you?” Saunders remarked. “Perhaps that little snake Parchelly has been smarter than I thought, and sent on - word by bush telegraph?” The man half-swung around, his evil face working curiously. “Parchelly?” he grinned, showing yellow teeth. “Ho, so you got him, did you? Well, maybe he did let the sultan know about you. Y’see, Sadrash had Parchelly flogged ’most to death and sewed him up in - a cowskin for gettin’ sassy. You bet Par- chelly wouldn’t come back here unless he ~ could bring a offering to square hisself. Ho, that’s a good one, mister!” Chuckting, the fellow resumed his way, and not another word would he utter, but ever he kept up a running chuckle of deeply rooted mirth which set Saunders to figuring closely just how much of a tangle he had ventured into this time. Not that it made much difference. His complete self-con- fidence was not to be broken by mere possi- bilities. But he began to see something far less simple than a desire to trade in the methods of this old Timor sultan. Tales had not been wanting of such vessels as his own being unaccountably lost in the Flores and Banda Seas, and nearly always the missing ships had been self- owned by their masters, and making just one more clean-up voyage before quitting the seas for markets of disposal. And Parchelly might easily be an ultra-cunning decoy, willing to stage a street fracas and to accept a personal beating in order to at- tract the attention of the shipmaster he was sent out for. “What confounded nonsense!” Saunders laughed aloud at the thought. “Theatrical stuff like that is only done in films. I don’t believe Parchelly could doit. Anywa 3 They were nearing the shore, and he was willing to let the event decide. Then they were on the edge of the creek. ‘The schooner’s boat was there with two wide- eyed Gilbert Islanders waiting, and the schooner herself lay in apparent quiet, with only a couple of heads visible above her rails. “Everything all right, Sammy?” the skipper hailed. 43 One of the boatmen grinned without mirth. “No, sar; he all wrong. Massa Ca’ter he go look for dat Parchelly fella. _He——” “What?” snapped Saunders, suddenly smitten with foreboding. “Parchelly he bus’ open de safe, cap’n, an’ run fas’ ashore. Den Massa Ca’ter he say to plenty ob mans dat come on board from de sultan, ‘Yo’ git off dis ship, I got bodder ob my own,’ an’ dey no go, so he tell us to t’row ’em in de ribber. When dey git to land, dey holler very loud dat de sultan come back soon an’ burn we up, sar.” “So that’s how it stands, hey?” mused Saunders, darkly scanning the river and its encroaching jungle fringe. Soon he came to a decision. “Sammy,” he said, “take charge of this fellow. If he gives you trouble you may cook him and eat him. Take him on board, and lock him up. “And listen. Don’t let another man climb over that schooner’s rail unless it’s one of ourown men. Keep your eyes open, now.” Taking a whistle from his pocket, he blew a series of shrill blasts that echoed through the gloomy forest and awakened the rivalry of hosts of feathered things. Twice the call was repeated before Tod Carter plunged out of the bush, looking as black as thunder, with a sore and savage crew of Kingsmillers and Gilbert Islanders at his heels. “Find him?” snapped the skipper. The party’s blank looks answered him. “Find him!” growled the mate, spitting emphatically into the river.- “‘’Course we didn’t find him! Darned good thing, I say, that you was sensible enough to put them pearls in your pocket before goin’ ashore. He cleaned out the safe of all the rest o’ the stuff.” ‘And, by Godfrey, he got the pearls tool’”’ the skipper rejoined. ‘You were right, Carter. I was foolish. Now let’s go and straighten things out and make my foolish- ness profitable.” “That'll take some doin’,” grumbled old Tod. “Oh, go ahead just the same, cap’n,” he hastened to add, catching the hard glint in the skipper’s gray eyes. ‘“‘You ain’t got to ask or order me or the boys. Where you goes we goes, foolish or not. But—” his comichbooks.com <Sis