Adventure Magazine Cover — page 184: what you’re looking at

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

748 trustee of the estate and the bargain legal. Don Felipe then said that none of the interested parties would ever live to see it executed, and the following morning had inveigled the youth on the ride of which Haskell had heard, had shot him through and left him for dead in the forest. All he remembered was being borne on the shoul- ders of Indian bearers. He came to con- sciousness in the hamlet, under the care of an herb-doctor and was getting well. When Jack had heard Haskell’s story to the end he sat looking at the little red case which Haskell had given him and, after a moment’s Silence, put out his hand. “Haskell, will you shake on our getting that fellow?” “T’m with you and we will get him good!” said the engineer, gripping the thin palm. “But I tell you, boy, I feel there is some- thing more behind all this than a mere quarrel between brothers over a trustee’s rights.” “Senior,” said a grave voice behind them, “your words are the words of the wise in some things, but of the foolish in others. Take warning and return to your own coun- try.” It was Nufiez Paola. There was a serious gentleness in his tone that gave his utter- ance unusual importance. “‘T—I did not know you understood Eng- lish!”’ exclaimed Haskell. The old man shrugged his shoulders as he turned away and said: “I was General Hernando Ortegas’ body-servant at Ox- ford, fifty years ago—and I wrote his lessons for him.”’ Silently they watched him as he strode away. ‘Say, Haskell,” said the convalescent in a lowered tone, ‘we think we are a smart people up home, but I will bet that a lot of these old Mayas could give us cards and spades!” Pee WHEN Haskell awoke the next =H) morning after restful slumber and attacked the steaming breakfast Juan placed before him, he missed the old Maya and asked for him. Juan shook his head: “He struck inland at daybreak, some cakes inside his jacket, and he bade me say to you, sefior, that you are commanded finally to take the young sefior and go back to your own country and come here no more.” Adventure The little withered man nearly dropped the leaf on which he was serving the fried plantains when Haskell made his comment, but in a moment the big American laughed, ate his breakfast and, lighting a cigar, said: “Juan, go out and tell every able-bodied man you see that I want him to work for me, and I will give him five dollars silver a day for a month.” ‘Oh, sefior, sefior, ask me not this thing! They will lash me for lying to them!” “Why, hang it! I mean it. GodoasI tell you. Also, if you will stay with me, that is your wage-rate from this time on, but let me tell you there is going to be more work and fewer fiestas in this corner of the repub- lic than there has ever been before!” In ten minutes’ time there was a wildly excited mob of a hundred men before the hut, and in the background were the women and children. Haskell, with Jack leaning on his arm, walked out under the coiba and told them what he wanted. He picked out twenty men who could handle axes and sent them into the forest to cut young trees for piles. He picked out eight men who were boat-builders and set them to construct- ing four ten-foot barges. Half of the others were to get the piles out of the woods to the beach, and the other half were detailed as shovelers, with the exception of two men who understood carpentry and masonry. These he held for further orders. In an hour’s time the ordered work was under way and he was showing the carpen- ters how to build a pile-driver, using a block of granite for the hammer, with guiding grooves chiseled in the sides and a big drum windlass on which to draw it up. Not being ready to use the shovelers yet, he led them down the beach to the point where the three had come to tide-water the day before, and set them to building a working camp. That evening he wrote a long cablegram to the firm and at dawn one of the boats put to sea to carry it to Cozumel. CHAPTER VIII WAR AND ENGINEERING CpNE week later Jack Peters was strong enough to transfer himself down to the working camp, and there he found a work under way that made him yell and whoop. Beginning at low-water mark a double line of piles was being driven inland entirely COmicloookkSs.G©