Adventure, December 3, 1920 — page 82: what you’re looking at

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

72 ‘wonder if there might be a few dollars of mine left in one or two banks right now; and besides that, my folks are rather prominent in a way. That means that I’ve had to step lively a few times to stay unmarried. “ve nothing against women, but until now I haven’t met up with any that I wanted to travel with. Mostly they’re insincere, artificial, and worshipers of money and social position. But the Golden One is a real honest-to-God girl, uncontaminated by mercenary ideas, and a whizzer of a beauty besides. “Run away and leave her? You couldn’t drive me out of here with a machine gun until she’s ready to go out with me. Tell you what I’ll do, though. If you jiggers are set on making a break tonight I’ll help you all I can, short of shooting up the place. No? All right. Then Pll start dolling myself up for this ant-fest.” yee Lily BEGAN rummaging among his t™ goods, whistling away as if the coming sa ordeal were something pleasant. Out from a big rubber-covered bag he took smaller bags full of salt. Leaving these hidden behind other things, he went to the door and argued with the guards until one of them yelled to some one. Soon women came with four big jars of water. “Strip and take a bath,” he told us. “I convinced these chaps that we needed water for bathing and drinking, so we'll have to make Each taking a jar, we bathed, while the guards watched us from the doorway. After a while they turned away and went back to their places. ‘Then Senhor Locke slopped most of the water from his jar, and into it he swiftly emptied the bags of salt. “That ought to make brine that would pickle a horse,” he said, beginning to dress. » “Tt will make you sick if you drink much of it,” said Pedro. “Drink it? Lord, I’m not going to drink it, but pickle my arms in it. If the salt is an antidote to the ant-juice, the chances are that they don’t like it and won’t chew me up so bad. ??? I was doubtful about that value of this, but I said nothing. It was worth trying, and I knew of nothing else. When he was clothed again he stirred the salty water with his hands and then rubbed it into his arms up to the shoulders. After that we lay in our hammocks and talked. The time dragged. At length the Tucandeira_ arose and dug out from another bundle a bunch of cards. As he did so, a small rubber bag rolled out on the dirt floor. He picked this up, and suddenly he laughed as if a bright idea had struck him. Glancing out at the barbaros, he slipped the bag inside his shirt. Then he Adventure’. brought the cards over and began showing them to us. They were colored pictures of many things— tall buildings, men and horses, steamboats, mountains, and so on. They had been printed from photographs taken in his country, he said, and he had brought them from America to give to Indians who might do little jobs for him. We were so much interested in them that we did not know any one else was there until a soft voice spoke at the door. The Golden One stood there smiling at us. She had come to look again at her man. P and I arose and offered her our hammocks. Then we went outside and squatted against the wall. The guards were uneasy. They grunted to each other, moved several times, and finally stood where they could look inside and watch us too. We heard the man and the girl behind us _ talking and laughing for a time, and then they seemed to speak more seriously. After that we paid no more attention to their voices, for we began to pass the time by talking about the barbaros whom we could see passing about the village. None of them gave much attention to us, except a few girls who gathered at a distance and giggled. At last we noticed that the pair in the hut behind us were not talking. Then came a little noise that sounded much like a kiss. We winked at each other, and the grins were still on our faces when the Golden One came out laughing and blushing and looking very lovely. She saw our smiles, blushed still more, and ran swiftly away to the house of the chief. “Well, amigos, I win,” said the Tucandeira, coming out. “We knew that, senhor,” laughed Pedro. *' “Oh slush; I don’t mean what you think I mean. I bet you jiggers that the Golden One was American or English, and I win that bet. She’s American! “See these post-cards? I showed them to her too, and she recognized some things right away and called them by their right names. “See this one of the cow-puncher and his — horse? She knew the horse right off the bat— called it ‘horsie,’ as a little kid would do. She’s never seen a horse since she came here, because there aren’t any in this jungly river country; so she must remember those she saw before she left the States. And she’s never seen a steamer here, of course; yet she recognized that too, and called it a ‘ ’*teamboat.’ “Besides that, she knows part of her name— says she is ‘Baby Mary.’ And she remembers a man she calls ‘daddy’ lying dead in a canoe with a stick in him—an arrow, of course—and awful black birds following overhead for a long distance, and then the canoe grounding on sand where she got out and a tall Indian finally EOPMNICLOOOKS (E@)