Adventure Magazine Cover — page 32: what you’re looking at

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

t 596 this strange situation to my entire satisfac- tion, but it was my guess that in some way Pulgar had become arrayed against Guz- man, and it turned out that I was right. I told Pulgar that I would give him an answer in the morning, and spent the night with Ortega, under guard. I tried to draw him out, but, evidently according to orders, he would not even talk about the weather. At sunrise we went to see Pulgar. When asked for my decision I inquired what the result would be if his revolution failed. “Then I am sorry, my dear Captain, but you will lose your cargo, while I will lose my life, which is of infinitely more importance to me. But the revolution will not fail!” he vehemently declared. As though impressed by his confidence, I announced that I would accept his offer, with a mental reservation to escape at the first opportunity, for I did not propose to fight against Guzman. “That is excellent,” he said, with the sug- gestion of a bow. After coffee I went with him to inspect his troops. He had about 3,000 men, many of whom were already armed with the rifles I had brought in, and they were strung across the narrow arm of the peninsula in a line almost as ragged as their clothes. I was formally given com- mand of a battalion of 300 men, and an In- dian servant, who, I afterward found, had orders to shoot me if I attempted to escape, was assigned to me. I accompanied Pulgar back to his headquarters, where I was given an old sword and the tarnished shoulder- straps of a colonel, these constituting my uniform. “Now that you have allied yourself with my forces,” he then said, “‘ you will have no use for your ship. You will therefore write a note to the officer in charge, directing him to proceed to Curacao and await orders. She will be safe there and,” with a quizzical smile, “you will be safe here.” As there was nothing else for me to do, I complied with it at once. It was cutting off my one only forlorn hope of rescue, but the adventure was getting into my blood and, to tell the truth, I rather liked the idea of being left to my own resources amid such strange surroundings. I had been trying for about a week to whip my lazy, ignorant troops into some sort of shape, when word was brought in one morning that “the enemy” was ap- proaching. We had no advance guard out, Adventure though I had tried to induce Pulgar to post one, and, a few minutes after the scouts had been driven in, the action became general, with the forces apparently about evenly matched in numbers. Instead of allowing me to lead my bat- talion, Pulgar ordered me to remain with him on a little knoll in the rear, from which he made a pretense of directing his forces. He could have accomplished much more in front, for what his men needed was a leader, nota director. They were fighting in Indian fashion, with every man shooting indis- criminately from behind a tree or log, and they paid no attention to commands. I will say for them, though, that they fought hard and stubbornly, but they were gradually driven back, and Pulgar, who had a terrible temper, was furious. All at once the opposing troops were largely reenforced and came with a rush which quickly con- verted our orderly retreat into a rout. Pul- gar, cursing like a madman, dashed into the disorganized mass of his liberty-loving louts, with Ortega and the rest of his staff at his heels. I was left alone and was hesitating as to what I should do, when my Indian servant tugged at my trousers-leg. ‘Follow me, Colonel!” he said. ‘I know where there is a boat.” He started off at the run and covered ground so fast that I had to gallop my horse to keep up with him. He led the way to the beach near where my cargo had been landed and pushed a native boat from under a clump of mangrove trees. We jumped ip and shoved off in a hurry, for Ortega and several of his men had just appeared on the - bluff above and were making for us. There were no oars in the boat, but we pulled a board loose from the bottom and used it as a paddle. A strong current from the east swept us clear of the peninsula and out tosea, but I was not alarmed, for I fig- ured that we would soon be in the path of coasting vessels. Scattered rifle patter reached us for a long time, indicating that my former comrades in arms were being ignominiously chased around in a way that must have been most discouraging to Pul- gar. Toward the middle of the afternoon, as we were trying to work in toward the land, the Indian let our paddle get away from him, which left us entirely at the mercy of the elements. We drifted around for three days and CoOnmicoooks (C@