Adventure Magazine Cover — page 52: what you’re looking at

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

Ee aa speaking he cheated us ect? for our suits had cost eighty dollars each, | —_ to say nothing of twelve-dollar shirts, -____ fourteen-dollar shoes, _ hats; but we were glad to trade for khaki and twenty-dollar trousers, jumper, heavy brogans, butternut hat and a light blanket. The bargain also included a frying-pan, two cakes of Minas cheese, a bag of farinha, three liters of black beans and a couple of kilograms of ground coffee. We held out our collar-buttons, cuff-lnks and pocket- knives for future trading. Being in an outfit that provided some comfort for hiking, we bent our necks and walked early and late. The railroad fol- . lows the Parahyba River for a great part of the distance, but going in the direction we were there was no chance of floating down it for we were going up-stream. The country grew wild as Siberia: We came to a mountain and could see the track winding back and forth above us. A section-gang, working the track with huge garden-hoes, pointed out a path which cut straight across, and we labored up this and down on the other side. It was just getting dusk, and we camped a few paces from the track by the side of a cool mountain-stream. Hearing some one walking on the rail- _ road, we looked and saw the man with the blanket-roll we had seen on the outskirts of Rio. We had gained on him by crossing the mountain. Few people walk from Rio to Sao Paulo. We had met no one tramp- ing in the opposite direction, and this was the only hobo we had encountered. He came over to our fire and laughed heartily as he saw the change we had made in raiment. He squatted by our fire and began preparing his supper, chatting the while in perfect English with scarcely a trace of accent. His frying-pan was equipped with a “reflector” to bake his cake of bread, and his manner of cooking was that of an American prospector. When he had finished eating and had washed his frying-pan and tin plate we fell to talking. We recounted our adven- tures since leaving Panama and_ back beyond in Central America and Mexico. His eyes glistened when we spoke of small towns on the west coast of Mexico in the vicinity of Escuinapa, and he grew silent and listened intently to each word. | High overhead the stars gleamed coldly. To the south blazed the Southern Cross. 7. . ness, which-surrounded us like a curtain. Our faces glowed like dull, burnished copper. . Down below, the brook gurgled and murmured among the stones. From moun- tain and plain now and again came the night-call of some bird or animal. Queen Mab, the fairy, came in her car made of a single pearl and wrapped us around with her shimmering veil, and our gaunt, hol- low eyes glimpsed life with a rosy tint, as ‘those of the four lean, unshaven men in the garret had done when she came to them. Our companion finished his cigaret and tossed the stump among the coals as we ceased speaking. “Brothers,” he began, “I am a Mexican born, from the pueblocito of Santa Ysabel, on the coach-road from Mazatlan to Tepic; . but I have been on big trails with big men and I have seen things and have seen life with my own eyes. So that you may understand, it is well thateI begin at the beginning; and if I should speak amiss of your people it is not that I have prejudice in my heart, for I have traveled through your States and I know that men are not to be loose-herded there any more than they are in other countries.” We nodded for him to proceed. ZY | ‘FROM a small child I had heard bow of the dreadful gringos, men without Mird. Si fear and without honor, blond, con- quering brutes; for it was thus that the mothers scared their children when they were stubborn. ‘Ya vienen los gringos!’ was shouted many times a day, and men and women repeated little doggerel verses that had to do with the fierce men of the north who stole land, carried away women and who ate up children at one quick gulp. It is not to be wondered at that in our hearts grew up a hatred and a fear of your race. “Nor is it to be wondered at that a great fear prevailed among grown men and wo- men when finally the gringos came—big, rough-looking men surveying out the line of the railroad from Mazatlan to Guadala- jara. On their heels came others by twos, and threes and by dozens and hundreds bringing mules and scrapers and tents and construction-material. The heavens shook with the rumble of the explosions as they tore a way through the cliffs for the grade ae Noa = Polaris. was Sow “enestie the hone : se =< Our little camp-fire stabbed at the dark-