Adventure Magazine, December 10, 1924 — page 127: what you’re looking at

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

The Trail Smellers freight and to whom it is to be delivered. You wish me to go even beyond the country of the Putumayo, beyond the caxoeia of Unti, or cachuela, as they call the bad water rapids up there in Colombia. And the fancy food is for Gabriel, the adminis- trador of Indians, no? Ho-ho, for Gabriel the Zambo, the half- negro and half-Indian. Gabriel, who never had but the one name; but whom they call, “Angel” Gabriel; for when his voice is raised aman dies. Senhores, this interests me much. But your freight will I not CHI, i PCION carry. I will not cheat you. For look, they do not want fancy foods at the sztio Gabriel today; no, not even though paid for in advance. That one freight of which I spoke as being worthwhile do they want; and the sztzo Gabriel is the one place where they want it. Guns, senhores. Rifles of Weenshterr, or better still of Mauserr, with many cartridges, is all that they want; and they will pay for them in gold. Gold that the Indians bring in fat quills of the jabiru stork. Look you, amigos—draw your heads near and pretend to look at this map while I tell you softly— There are rifles on this steamer, a consignment from the house of Frantz Weiborg in Manaos going to Quito, where the garrison is talking of revolution because the pay has not come for four months. What matter how I know? It is my business to know what happens along these upper rivers of Amazonas. Now, if the senhores can devise some means of acquiring these rifles, or a part of them, we can do good business together; for Joselito Davis, the Blanco, will pay many quills of gold for each such weapon. Gold that the Chima Indians bring in 105 from nobody knows where; for nobody has ever been into their country except this Joselito. My belief is that they smell it out; for they hunt game as do wolves, running with their noses in the air. Listen, I will tell you the doings at the sitio of Gabriel o Angelo, and ycu shall see what a trade may be done in rifles just now. CLs THIS Joselito, you must under- 2X stand, is a blanco, a white man like ourselves. His father was of Ameri- ca of the North. A man tall and fierce, and a miracle with the pistol. Him I never met; but the tale is that one might throw a gourd in the air, and he would im- mediately produce two enormous revolvers of Colt from nowhere and would pierce it with twelve shots. A great traveler was he of much eccen- tricity and an unconquerable antipathy for his own people. He settled first in Manaos; and from there suddenly one day, upon arrival of a gringo who said he knew him, leaped upon a river steamer and came to Teffé at the mouth of the Yapuré. From there he came suddenly here to Sao Antonio and stayed but a few months. Then swiftly once more he packed up and traveled up this Rio Iga, pressing ever deeper into the wilderness where he might not be bothered by meeting with wandering grin- gos. Finally he reached the country of the Muniwas, who had never seen a white man; and there he seemed satisfied at last, and took some six or eight wives to work for him, and built a chacra and settled down to live on plantains and mandioca and monkey meat. Truly men are strange and have many - strange ways which are beyond our under- standing. But what matter? I tell you these things only that you may understand what manner of man his son was. José, they called him; and later Joselito. For as the lad grew up with the stringy muscles and turbulent spirit of his father, his talk was ever of beccming a bull fighter, and Joselito, ‘““The Wizard,” was his hero. Long-faced and thin-nosed he grew to be, with narrow eyes and faded hair, as light skinned as any one of my Hluitotos; he never gained the height of the Americano, his father. Yet a youth good to look upon and of good promise. But what chance of fighting bulls could Comicbhook ) © 5}