Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 177: what you’re looking at

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

THE TUSK OF he slept; and when he did sleep, moaned and was not still. And about the mid of night, senor, he suddenly tangled BP my brains with a loud cry. ** Something—somebody —!” he called out, looking about him, and with one hand upon the bag hanging from his neck, the other graspimg his rifle. “What was that, sewor?” I asked. “Damn you, why can’t you keep awake! What are you here for anyway? Some- thing—”’ He felt his neck again, mumbling to himself. _- And finally he lay down. And f thought him asleep again, and gone back to his restless dreams. Yet once again something awakened me, and there was that pay- master sitting up again, feeling of the bag that contained his tusk, and holding his rifle in the other hand. Aye, that did not make me feel any more comfortable, I tell eae == Was El Carnicero stalking us once more. IT wondered. Or was it something else. And that tusk about this Barlow’s neck. Was he so far gone as to believe in its power to keep off that great king baubui? There he was fumbling with the bag again. “ What is it, senor?” I ventured to ask again. He elared at me. I could see the whites of his eyes reflected in the starlight from the smooth running Boton. “‘ Something—my neck—Curse you, have you no ears?” I sat upon my pride again, and made as fhough to listen. And sure enough, from the village of Chief Augustin, came sounds of a drum. And also the wailing as of many children through the night. ‘““ What are they making that infernal racket about?” snarled the paymaster. And of a truth I could not say. For they were not singing the song of the dead. They were crying out for joy, and the song of the hunt, and of the fruitful conception, and of the happiness of the living. And this I cowld not understand. Dawn came at last. We passed through the village, and again IT could not understand. For once more were the Negrito folk in mourning. And THE SUTCHER. 959 ~Chief Augustin squatted before the door of his hut, bleary of the eyes, and returned but a grunt and a nod as I gave him buenas Dios in his own twittering tongue. . “Let the filthy wretch alone, can’t you!” cried that paymaster. ‘ By the eternal I'll get that damn beast to-day.” Yet all that morning, and during the heat of the noon was our search in vain. ¥et, too, all the day did we hear strange rustlings behihd us, and once, I swear it in the name of the martyr Jose Rizal than whom no man was greater, I heard the swift pattering feet and sudden snort of a pig. And that pig, again and by the same name do I swear it, was none other than El Carnicero. Aye, he was a watchful one, and bided — his own time. And as I said in the begin- ning, senor, what a cunning mind he had in that narrow head of his. In the middle of the afternoon we made for the village again. It was the pay- master’s plan to get one of the Negrit’s —_ 40 go out with us, hoping thereby that El Carnicero would make a charge, and thus enable him to make the kill. And so it was that we stood in front of Chief Augustin, while I put into the Negrito tongue this Barlow’s demand. And I was but way through, when there came a sudden scream from the vio, and a woman came running, crying: ** El Carnicero. El] Carnicero!” The paymaster did not understand what - she said, but he did hear the terrible snort- ing squeal that came from behind her, and he did see the great form of the king baubui rushing after. His rifle was up in a flash, and a shot rang out. And I looked to see the great one fall into a kicking heap, but he did not, and came rushing on. And the paymaster fired another shot—and still did he rush on. And all this time I stood as in a dream, unable to lift my gun, unable torun. And, too, I was astonished that Chief Augustin still sat there on the earth before his hut, smoking his cigarette, calmly, with the burn- ing end inside his mouth according to the Negrit custom, and watching the paymaster with a strange light in his eye. Of a truth, co Eomichbooks