Adventure Magazine, December 10, 1924 — page 170: what you’re looking at

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

148 semicircle. He knew she was raking the shore with a pair of binoculars. A half-dozen native outrigger canoes were hovering in a circle about the schooner. The men and women were holding up fruit to show to the native crew of the schooner, offering to trade. Other boats idled lazily at a distance, watching the strange schooner with curiosity and waiting until somebody from the schooner would want to be taken ashore. “She hasn’t been in long, I’d say,” re- marked Wade. He noted a boat at the stern, secured by a long painter. The dingey hung in the falls at the stern, but this boat adrift was bigger—a whale-boat. It was covered with yellowed canvas that was probably a tar- paulin, though it might have been oiled cot- ton cloth. It stuck up in the center of the boat as if it covered a pyramid of stores piled amidships. It probably represented goods of some kind to be taken ashore and. traded. Wade could see the boat-falls of the waist, hanging empty over the side. He reasoned that the whale-boat had been low- ered since the schooner had come to anchor. His expression suddenly changed to pon- dering seriousness. A new thought had come to him, a thought which spurred him to action. He let the leaves fall back into place, turned suddenly in his tracks and broke his way back to the open ground. When he reached the narrow trail of the glade he broke into a swift run without stopping to pick up the drinking-coconuts. He loped along through the heavily bow- ered little valley, making all the speed he could. Rising gradually with the cafion which sliced back into the hills, he finally emerged into a sun-bathed little clearing, which was partly natural by reason of the ground and partly the result of a careful cutting away of vines and the low bushes of the thin, volcanic soil. It had once been a native clearing, with- out doubt, for there were stumps of trees along its edges and mounds of basaltic rock overgrown with creepers. These mounds revealed the fact to any one who under- stood native customs that huts had once stood on them. At first sight the place lacked any- thing suitable for human habitation. But against the side of a cliff of basalt, densely covered with vines and bush, there was a Adventure crude hut of thatch in among creepers that had been drawn from the cliff and trained down over the dried mzpa of the roof. By this method the hut was fairly well con- cealed to anybody who might look across the clearing without being too inquiring. Wade ran straight to this cluster of vines, which partly hid the house, and, bending so as to pass under the low-hanging eaves of thatch which formed a sort of veranda in combination with a narrow platform made of flattened bamboo, called out sharply but in a subdued voice— “Doxey! Come out! There’s something up, and we’ve got to get busy!”’ II 2.) WADE did not press in through the N| door of the shack, but leaned against 2263 one of the upright bambouv poles which held the roof in place. His face was streaming with perspiration after his run. He rolled a cigaret from a square of pan- danus leaf and some native tobacco which he took from a tiny shelf on the upright and nervously struck a match with shaking fingers. There came a grumbling reply from the inner darkness of the shack. It was the response of a man who had been roused from heavy sleep, and was not in particular good humor about it. In a minute he appeared in the narrow doorway. A man of heavier build than Wade, but not so tall, was Doxey. He wore the same type of breech-cloth, but nothing on his head. His feet were bare. His skin was burned to a blackish tan. His hair was black and over-long. It hung down over his forehead in a damp mass, and he shook his head and brushed the locks away from his eyes. His thick calves were mottled with white spots, the healed sores of ulcers caused by leeches fastening to his skin in the moist jungles. “Bring the coconuts?” he asked sleepily. “T’m strong for a drink; can’t go that sulfur water of the spring.” He yawned and looked at Wade, and then glanced about the little veranda in search of the desired nuts. He held in his hand a pocket-knife which had in place of a blade a grooved spike, suitable for punching out coconut eyes and drawing off the liquid. Wade moved to Doxey and grasped a bare and browned arm with a gesture that was Comichook ) © =