Adventure Magazine Cover — page 72: what you’re looking at

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

636 sunburn. The third day out it got hot, and when I got peeled down to undershirt and thin cotton high-collared blouse I was my- self again. So were all the others of the bunch except Abie and Joey. They did have sense enough to keep their hats on, but the first morning they took their coats and collars off and by night their necks were raw with sunburn. The next day they turned their shirt collars in for a kind of low necked effect so that the shirts would not rub the burns. Before night their chests and shoulders were sights to see, and then Abie fixed up an invention that nearly split that crew in two when he came on deck. He found an old parasol, tied it to a long stick, fastened that along his back-bone and came on deck with no shirt on at all. ‘We got through the Windward Passage at night and five days later sighted Point Mike. We stood along the coast to the east and about daybreak a fishing-boat came alongside with Mena-Mena’s nephew, a little yellow hunchback with a major- general’s commission signed by his uncle. He told us we were to land far up in Cris- tobal Lagoon, and if he knew the selection for presidential candidate he did not tell me. Following the fishing-boat we made the inlet at dawn and before sun-up were anchored in fresh water between two strips of islands thick with trees. Fresh though the water was, it backed up or went out with the tide and by noon the Fortuna was as nicely squatted in the mud as anything you ever saw—just like an old duck of war hatching out a hell-brood in the hot sun. ‘““We had to keep quiet, for we did not know who might come cruising around in there before night when we could get farther inland and hit hard ground. Just as the sun was coming up I walked forward to see how she rode, and there stood the Smooth-bore Hermanos holding hands and watching the steaming water and the stink- ing jungle within half a stone’s throw. ‘“ ‘Oh, Abie, look by the parrot fowl,’ cried Joey. ‘“‘ ‘Oh, yes, see the monkeys; vat a glad- ness they make it,’ answered Abie glee- fully. ‘* “Abie, it is a country like Central Park, only worse,’ commented Joey. “The monkeys, looking for shell-fish left by the outgoing tide, were frisking about the drooping limbs just over several Adventure rough logs in the mud and reeds. Suddenly three of them dropped in a bunch and in- stantly there were wild screams of terror from the whole monkey crew. The logs had waked up into so many able-bodied and active alligators. One big mouth got two of the monkeys and the third monkey was shared, literally torn in half by the other two big ’gators. Loud as the monkeys screeched, the brothers went them one better. They tried to run, to look, to hide and to talk and yell murder all at once and ended up clasped in each other’s arms, dancing up and down on the deck, sobbing like two frightened children. The mate grabbed them and shoved them below to stop their noise. About two hours later the St. Kitts nigger steward brought me a letter: “*Jennerill Hoap Complamennty Preezentatings Dear ser—This indenture witniset that me & A. Berkintowitz cancils the contract agsaid and returns payment made. You diden told us you half them here R we wooden half come J. Berkintowitz We doan know the dade, thanking you in advance. “When I got through laughing I wrote them a nice little note refusing to cancel the contract, returned the two thouand- dollar bills and put in two for ten thousand each as a bonus. “We were floating at eight that evening and by dawn the next morning we were made fast along a jut of rock some miles inland and began to get the ‘angles’ ashore. The brothers worked like good fellows till one of them, venturing twenty feet from the gang, got in front of a red, black and yellow land-crab and it scuttled for cover, going over one of his feet. He let out one yell and a string of Yiddish prayers and dived for the ship, his brother after him. It cost me another twenty thousand of Torres paper money to get them back on the job. “When the work was all done the rest of my command showed up—one hundred and sixteen whites and blacks commanded by three generals and divided into infantry, cavalry and artillery, the same being the ten thousand men Mena-Mena had prom- ised me. ‘The nearest town was Ayoilo, ten miles away, and we decided to attack it the next day. I looked over the bunch, dismounted all the cavalry and all but one of the generals, and cradled the extra stands COmiCLOOokkS. GO