Adventure Magazine Cover — page 159: what you’re looking at

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held the yellow man to climb trees. The Peccaries ~ for those people are easily angered, and their anger is deadly. Then the chief ordered all but those who And while we climbed he fastened the Yellow One’s hands to the tree—yes, only his hands; he did not use the thorns elsewhere on him. Then jhe chief himself and the other men followed us into the branches, so that nobody except the evil Peccary re- mained on the ground. Shouts came to us, and the sound of bodies crushing through the tangled forest, and the grunts of pigs. Soon a huge white- lipped peccary trotted out, followed by others. From his perch in the tree over El Amarillo the chief bellowed at the animals, and the first ones stopped, looking around them, while the rest of the herd came run- ' ning in from the bush until more than forty of them were crowded under us. The chief roared again, and answering calls came from the hunters he had sent out to drive the beasts here. We heard sounds of climbing, and knew they too were taking to the trees. And then the chief spoke to the man below him, at whom the pigs were staring wickedly. : “Here are peccaries. Show them you are king. Make them take out the thorns!’ The Yellow One broke into horrible cursing. He howled the vilest words I ever listened to, raving until froth was on his mouth. And he kicked out at the stinking pigs. His voice and his movements maddened them. Suddenly they surged at him. They took out the _ thorns, hores. The weight of their charging bodies tore him from the tree. He fell, screaming. But so thick were the beasts about him that he fell not on the ground but on their backs, and fought to his feet again. Yet when he had risen he could not escape; he was wedged among them and knocked back and forth. Squealing with rage, the devil-pigs seemed to boil up around him, climbing on one an- other’s backs and leaping upward to strike. With their knife-edged teeth they chopped and slashed his body and arms and legs into ribbons. 10 SéN- ‘furious animals. Then he went down again, and rose no more. His body was thrown on the heaving mass as it was struck again and again by the Then it rolled down among them, and his ghastly yellow face disappeared. @ LONG after he was dead the pec- @inm caries tore him and trampled him into the dirt. And other pigs dashed at the gold-bags made from Peccary clothing, and ripped those also into tatters, and scattered the gold all about. Some leaped up against the trees where we perched, their vindictive black eyes - fixed on us and their teeth clashing together. But as we made no move, but only stayed beyond their reach, they soon abandoned us. And at length, grunting among them- selves, they all moved slowly away, their white lips now stained deep red, and leaving behind them only a torn thing that had been a man, fragments of cloth that had held gold and their own disgusting smell. We came down again. The savages fell into line and started away as if nothing had happened. But I felt sick, and I wanted to see‘no more of these men. So I told the chief.that now I would leave him and go back to my own people and tell them how he and his brave fighters had destroyed the foul pig-men of the hills. He nodded, pointed the way I should go and strode away. And without a farewell word or a backward look the whole band of wild men passed on into ine forest, and I was left alone. So, senhores, that is the tale of the Pec- caries. Upin ‘the hills of Peru the vines are creeping across the place where once stood their village, and where now remain only sodden ashes and scattered skulls. Out in the pathless land beyond the farthest rub- ber-workings, where only wild men and wild animals prowl, lie the bones of their leader and the blood-stained gold he gathered. And soon the great green jungle, which has swallowed many better men, will blot out every trace of them, and only their evil name will live on for a little time at the headwaters of the Amazon, to'die out at last and be forgotten. For that is the way of the jungle. 145 Eomichbooks (E(0)