Adventure, February 1917 — page 71: what you’re looking at

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

- Nobody’s Island was interesting to watch; Edith forgot her uneasiness about the light last night, and the noise today, in the sight of that easily prepared mass of food. “They say one tree makes enough to keep a man and his family for a year; and Murua told me there were places in the west where the sago forests are as big as an English county,” she thought. The wonder of tropic fertility struck her yet again, as it had struck her many times be- fore. — — “T can see the rush coming,” she thought dreamily, ‘‘the rush that is bound to come, some day, from the small cold countries to places like this. Fuel free, clothes cheap— it’s the warm things that cost—land for nothing, houses for a few weeks’ labor of your boys, food growing in tons when you scratch the soil, or cut down a tree. So much for nothing! And then they grumble because there are no trams or picture- shows.” The boys were chopping away, chatter- ing like parrots. The inevitable leather- neck, excited by the talk, kept breaking in from the top of a palm with sharp querulous remarks, : “Oh, do get up now!” it exclaimed. “Oh eee) Another answered it excitedly. “A pretty frilly white petticoat,” - it squawked. ‘‘A pretty frilly white petticoat. A pretty frilly white pe-——” Edith looked down at her knickerbock- ered legs and laughed. “You may well call for that,” she said. “But I think it would be quite as incon- venient as Absalom found his hair.” Day was passing. The shadows of the sago-palms stretched out, as the boys worked on. Edith nursed her rifle on her knee, and kept herself from thinking about pe and what might have happened to “Murua was so right,” she said. must not think.” ey a te, EDITH lifted the rifle along her arm and tried its weight, her finger rest- ing lightly on the trigger. Then she looked through the sight. And right in the little nick of the V a long way off and above, appeared a small black head. Edith realized instantly that the head could not see her; she was sitting in the shelter of drooping sago leaves, and the 69 ‘sight had been taken between two of them. She kept the rifle up. She noticed that the beating of her heart made it shake a ‘little. Then the small black head rose higher, and half a body was to be seen, working hard at something. In another moment a — big boulder began skipping and rumbling down the side of the gorge, straight for the working boys. They separated, with yells. Another boulder started from a different place, and caught up the first. From a thicket of betel-palm another and another started off. They sounded like horses gal- loping; they kicked and swerved all over the hill; it was impossible to tell where they might be coming from. The boys had laid down their rifles in a heap; they could not collect themselves sufficiently to run back and get them. In- stead, they rushed howling about the val- ley that had turned into a death-trap, try- ing to dodge the boulders. Edith saw one boy knocked over and crushed into unconsciousness or death. An- other was hideously pinned against a tree; he shrieked and writhed. “Wow, wow, wow!” sounded from.the rocks above, as if a hundred dogs had been let loose; and down from the sides and sum- mits came a flood of Lalang men. Afterward, Edith remembered what they had looked like. She recalled how they had plunged down the precipices as though their feet were winged; how their stocky little bodies and backward arched chests seemed to be made of whalebone and India rubber; how their faces were painted white and red, and their necks hung with sway- ing human hands, loose jawbones and strung teeth. A spear struck the ground beside her with aloud whump! It went three feet into the earth. She never looked at it; she kept her sight steady on that little black head up at the top, that seemed to be directing the rest. Her finger_shook on the trigger. Could she pull it? What would Ben. Then suddenly came a howl down the mountain-side, in good emphatic English: “Shoot, you blazing idiot! I can’t get him. Shoot!” ~ “It’s Ben,” she thought, and was not the least surprised. She fired. The small black head disap- peared, and a body began bumping down the rocks. The attacking horde paused and EO LMICGLOOO (c S (C)