Argosy, Vol. 120, No. 1 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

NAKED MEN OF NAGA. receive an exhortation to be good, along with a bag or rupees. At Dimapur a thin trickle of a desultory railroad line came into the jungles and was there suffocated by the thousand creeping things that grew up and choked it. At Dimapur, therefore, there would .be white men. Among them, Smith knew, would be a person or persons connected with the other end of the winding line which ended up in the toy camp—for so helpless an outfit could surely never have existed without some guiding spirit to bring it into being. It was a good. ten days’ travel, even for Smith, to get to Dimapur. Under ordi- nary circumstances it would have taken two weeks; but the circumstances, as we have seen, were far from. ordinary. Poonoo- sawmii, who had the abnormally alert eyes of a very old and a very crafty ape, and the intuition of a very young imp, summed up the circumstances pretty accurately when he said: ‘“‘ Marshter, that Miss Sahib who marsh- ter is beating in the pant is not at all fearful, is it not?’”? Then he wondered why Smith growled at him. But he chattered on in impersonal appraisal: “‘ If the unedu- cated heathen is seeing he will say: ‘ This is incarnation of Sita Devi.’ ” The rumble in Smith’s throat was that of a’ discontented elephant, and Poonoo- sawmi realized that he was treading on that inexplicable thing, the white man’s sensi- bilities. Smith, as a matter of fact, was wishing, in an indefinte sort of way, for. the first time in his life that he might have known as much about Greek mythology as he did’ about the Hindoo gods and god- desses; or about science, or about anything else that would place him on a more even footing with this amazing girl. But all he did was grunt and stride tirelessly forward. At Dimapur, as Smith had felt sure, there was a white maii. Theré''were other white men, of course, lone exiles of the railroad, and one or two seedy looking, ~half-white unaccountables. But this partic- ular white man was not that kind of a per- son; he was clean and businesslike and much too new to have lost the white man’s sense of decency in his appearance. He had 11 established himself in the railroad dek- bungalow, and he lived there for no appar- ent reason, and he was quite mysterious and quite perturbed. Into his disquiet of many days burst Villiers, who had once been a gentleman himself. He was now permanent station- master at Dimapur, a thousand miles from anywhere. Therefore, he was perma- nently drunk. He came with stiff gravity into the white man’s room and told him with awesome seriousness: ‘““Mr. Nicholson, we’ve been talking about the devil, and now he’s here. ‘It’s a bally miracle, old chap,’ I said to him, and he said: ‘ Go to hell;’ so this is him.” He was tugging at what appeared to be an immovabe rock outside the door; but he might as well have tried to drag the unwilling foundation of the house in with him. Presently the resistance gave way and the man they had been tajking about so much filled the doorway. He had delayed while he tightened up his belt and tucked his shirt straight; for he had a sense of decency, too. Mr. Nicholson looked dubiously at the great, rough-hewn frame, and the mahog- any face with its short thatch of pale straw and its paler eyebrows, from under which half-shut eyes looked at him in un- compromising appraisal. Till suddenly Smith smiled. He gently laid a vast hand on the station-master’s chest and swept him with calm unceremony through the door, and closed it. Then he strode, and gave support to the reference to the devil by saying: ““T knew you were wanting me about ten days ago, so I came along to look into your proposition.” CHAPTER IV. AT DIMAPUR. NICHOLSON’S start was of more than surprise. ““ How?” he demanded, with quick suspi~ -cion. Smith smiled with his eyes only. Nichol son knew, looking at that face, that this © man would speak no word more than he = - €O 1IOO S CO@