Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 13, 1923 — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

ARGOSY-ALLSTORY i: dees wees ee o. Sues VoL. CXLVIII SATURDAY, JANUARY 13,1923 NUMBER 4 Y - x Y, wie TP. j Yj y Z r —— if, f. Wii lf ll = i By KENNETH PERKINS Author of ‘‘ The Blood Cail,’’ ‘‘ The Beloved Brute,”’ ‘‘ The Bull-Dogger,’* etc. CHAPTER I. THE EDGE OF THE UNKNOWN, RITISHERS rarely came to Ganj. B The only lodging house was an ill- reputed dak-bungalow built on the outskirts of the jungle in order to be well apart from the reeking native town. For lack of patronage the publican who kept the house had let it fall into such decay that it seemed literally to be rotten. Its whitewashed walls gave the impression of the soft pudgy white of a mushroom. Tamarind trees shut off the murderous Indian sun so that the light never pene- LA trated the dampness of those broad veran- das. Rattan curtains, hanging askew, di- lapidated, ant-eaten, were never rolled up to admit either the heat of day or the night winds from the plains. Thick chunamed walls and warped doors imprisoned seasons of foul dampness and murky air. Just before the breaking of the monsoons when this foulness was most oppressive, Surgeon-Major Kesh arrived at Ganj and. sought shelter from the blistering heat. He was a tall angular man, his whites wet through with perspiration, his cork helmet covered with a fine layer of dust because of the thirty miles’ journey from the nearest 481 ECORMICLOOO© SS (E(0)