Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 68: what you’re looking at

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

66 each one were sealed. No man wanted to be the first to speak. A good thrashing would have helped Gibbs as nothing else would have done but down in the heart of each one was a kind of pity for him. It would have been like striking the old and feeble or the crippled to hit him, they felt. OW less and less often. A time or two they had trouble with the priests. Beyond the reach of the roads and the tele- graph lines the priests have taken unto themselves all the authority of both church and government and reign supreme. This is stated here for its worth and not from any malice against any church or religion. It has always been thus when one man or set of men have absolute power over others. It is human nature that they grow haughty and exacting and jealous of whatever power they may have. No man can deny that these priests have worked wonders in civilizing these peoples and among them were many whose hearts had not been affected by the power they held over the people and who sent slaves with these strangers to point out the road. But there were others who curtly bade them return whence they came and only consented for them to proceed when they saw that it was an order which would take the best of their fighting men to en- force, if it were enforced at all. For these men did not start out to be turned back. As they proceeded southeast these mis- sions grew fewer and fewer and at last they saw no more of them. The country grew wilder and wilder. Dense forests of Pin- heiro and Imbuha and Canela began to appear. Game grew so plentiful that they killed more than enough to eat without any effort. of some nose, lip and ear piercing tribes. They marched through these with the thirty-thirties held ready for action and fingers upon triggers. }But although it raised a commotion in the camps and the fighting men came out with bows and spears and immense, rawhide-wrapped blow-guns twice as long as a man, they did not attack when they saw that these strange creatures meant no harm. These Indians were absolutely naked and were more black than red. Their hair was straight and blue black. Their faces were horribly disfigured. The lobes of some THEY struck the small settlements They came upon tribes of Indians . Adventure of their ears were stretched over round pieces of wood as large as saucers and the lower lips of some were stretched over pieces of equal size. It was noticed that the blocks in the lower lips had a small hole in the center and through this hole the wearer made strange whistling sounds. All of them wore sharp sticks through their noses some of which were as large around as the wrist and over a foot in length. Hughie Gibbs was in mortal fear of these Indians. He walked to the offside of the party when any were about to be encoun- tered and scanned them from behind the others. He had never stood guard since the first night that Bibb had failed to call him and the others had divided the time among themselves. At night he always spread his blanket in between those of two of the others and dur- ing the night he shuddered and spoke in his sleep of these Indians. He had not taken one photograph. These Indians would have been good material. When one of the party spoke to him about it he said he did not think he would trouble to take any pictures on the trip. The next morning the cameras and photo- graphic supplies, which weighed consider- ably, were left out of the packs and Gibbs hacked them to pieces with his machete. These men had packed the materials for many a weary mile. They had tried to carry out the contract with Jessee. Yet no one of them had complained at Gibbs’ failure to do his duty. Had one of them been capable of taking the pictures he would have doneso. But they knew noth- ing of these things and each man regarded Gibbs solemnly as he slashed them to bits. They passed out of the country of the disfigured Indians and into a country yet more wild and rugged. They were high on the mountain-sides yet the forests were so dense that it was almost twilight at noon. Great cat-like beasts slipped into the jungles just ahead of them and many fell in answer to the roar of a thirty-thirty. They were skinned, the hair removed and at night were tanned by rubbing with the brains of some animal for hours. After cleaning each skin was given a coat of arse- nic and alum dust. Before long each man, including Gibbs, owned one of the skins. But it was one of the others who killed and tanned it for him. Dan Murdock laughingly commented that CoOMmiclsoo ©