Adventure Magazine Cover — page 136: what you’re looking at

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

134 the blacks because they might make trouble for us‘on the way back. So Harris—he was the man who did most of the talking for the three we picked up—got ’em to come in the cave with some tobacco and grub he offered ’em. Everything went ait right till they got drinking. We had some booze left. Then they began to makéarouble with the women. You could see the blacks didn’t like it but they didn’t do anything. “Not till daylight. I didn’t have any- thing to do with the gims and I didn’t have anything to drink, to speak of. So I woke up the first move they made. . I hadn’t slept much anyhow. A black saw me and swung up his club. I yelled and triéd to dodge and that’s the. last I knew till I saw you fellows. Then I thought——”’ He stopped and gingerly felt his pandased head. ‘Well, you’re alive,” said Cole, guessing at what Brown had imagined when he first came to. ‘And you’re lucky. Outside of a stiff neck you'll be all nght again in a few days. Now, you’ve talked enough.” ‘“You said Sievers was through,” persisted Brown. ‘‘What happened?” ‘Your crowd got wiped out by the blacks. Sievers was, anyway, and it looks as if the rest were. They went after the blacks and they haven’t come back. Now, hold on to yourself.” Young Brown fought with hysteria, his eyes filled again with horror and the fear of sudden death. He rocked to and fro, moaning. “O God, if I ever get home again! Sievers made me come. Oh, my God!” After a while he quieted down and they left him alone, going out again to the gold, separating the shining metal from the sinter as best they could and piling it up into a little glittering heap. Petrie insisted on coming with them into the air and sat in the shadow of the crags, watching them. - Presently Morbora joined them. “You eat now?” he asked. When they put him off, he demanded sz- tongo. He was more assured, though still watching the spinifex to the south where the blacks had disappeared and the scrub had swallowed up Harris and his mates. They worked until the sun was low and ‘then went into the cave to get the evening meal. They watched through the night, Morbora taking turn with them, Petrie in- sisting on his watch. he said. Adventure “TI owe my life to that beggar Morbora,”’ “Funny the way they’ll be ready to murder you one minute and then pull you out.” | ‘That was a trade on Morbora’s part,” said Cole. ‘He thought we were going to tie him over an ant-heap. <A couple of shirsht \\ fix him up.”’ Dawn came without alarm though Mor- bora was still confident that the tribesmen would come back to get the loot they had left behind. Just as sure the white men would not. They prepared the dynamite sticks, explaining to Morbora that they were great magic. ‘Seems sort of tough to. kill them in cold blood,” said Petrie. ‘““Those other chaps brought it on themselves after all. But we couldn’t make friends with. them after what happened to their women.’ “Tf they’re half as smart as Morbora, _ said Cole, ‘‘they’ll smell us out.” ‘Huh!’ Morbora snorted contemptu- ously. ‘“‘You no fool that black fella. Sup- pose you no bury, maybe can do. Pretty soon he come.” The shadow of the crags had diminished by more than half before he gave warning. Presently figures appeared coming out of the spinifex in twos and threes, spreading out over a wide area, cautiously approach- ing the caves in converging lines, as the sticks of a fan lead to the handle. They were smeared with red and yellow and white paint and, as they came closer, the soot with which they had blackened their chocolate-colored skins was visible. Their hair was glued with beeswax into solid masses into which white and yellow feathers had been stuck so closely that their heads, peering round their narrow shields that were crudely blazoned with totem patterns, looked like so many chrysanthemums. They were unmistakably a war-party. Suddenly a tall warrior swung his bundle of spears above his head and uttered a terrible yell. At once the rest rushed toward him, shouting at the top of their voices, lifting their shields and swinging their weapons high in the air. They divided and marched in two bodies to nght and left, advancing in zigzags, stopping at every turn for a moment in silence and starting afresh with terrific howls. Again they broke up, starting to run swiftly toward the cave with long elastic leaps, jumping high in the air and falling MICLOOOK C@ inn