Adventure Magazine Cover — page 144: what you’re looking at

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

130 eyes sparkled, and his face was alive with his thoughts, though at times he looked a little puzzled and doubtful, too. When he was ready we went back up- stream. This time he gave no call, and we paddled steadily until we reached that place where first we had seen the woman. There he turned toward the little creek, and as we neared it I saw her again. Pedro had made tryst with her and now he stepped out on land and went boldly to her. _ I stayed in the canoe. “T think there is no danger here, Lou- renco,” he said, ‘‘but be alert.”’ He talked more with her while I watched them and everything around them. As before, she chattered and laughed with him, and I could see that she admired him much, which was not strange, for men admired him too—he was so tall and straight and strong. I saw also that he was questioning her, and that she was not answering all his questions. Once she wanted to look at the stuff in our boat, but I warned her off, and Pedro himself held her arm and stopped her. Finally he stepped back into the canoe, and we went on up-river until we were out of sight. There we picked a place to camp and stayed there that night, lighting no fire. Before we slept, he told me that the woman was living in the jungle with a man, but what sort of a man he was or where he lived she would not tell him. This man, she said, was away somewhere that day, and what he was doing she did not know. When Pedro asked her if she would lead us to the man’s camp she refused. Then she asked what we had in our boat, and he told her they were supplies for a new camp. It was then that she tried to look at them and we prevented her. After that she asked where this new camp was, and he told her at a certain place well up the river, where there really was no camp and where none was intended. In leaving her, he told her he would not work the next day because it was his birthday, and he would come to meet her again at the same place. “T ask you again, Pedro,” I said, “what is the meaning of all this? And why are you so interested in this savage woman?” “Lourenco,’’ he answered, “we are now not very far from headquarters. All of our five friends whom the Death has struck Adventure have disappeared not far from headquar- ters—or so I believe. The place where we first saw that woman is not far from head- quarters. The place where she answered my call today is still nearer to headquarters. More than that, she answered from a spot very near where Antonio Maciel vanished. Now there is a riddle for you to puzzle over. I am.going to sleep.” IN THE morning we took out all our bait and put it into the bush. Pedro sat a while and watched the creeping shadows, and, when it was time, we went down the river again. As we paddled along I said: “Pedro, if this woman has anything to do with the Death, as you believe, then we are fools to meet her again where you agreed, for we are likely to go into a trap and never come out.” He laughed and replied— “Tf the Death is what I think it is, it is now up the river seeking that new camp of which I told her, and so it can do us no harm.”’ He seemed to be right, for the woman awaited us, and they talked again for some time, and nothing at all happened. I could see that she was very much taken with my handsome companion, but, as before, he could not make her answer all his questions. After we left her he said: ‘She is no fool, Lourenco, for all that she seems so simple. Still, I think that in the end we shall learn what we want to know.” When I suggested that we hasten matters by going straight to the place where she had answered his bird-cry and searching the jungle there, he snorted and replied: “Oh, yes, surely. That was just what Antonio was doing—searching the bush at that place. And there were more men in his party than in ours. Have patience, comrade, and do not jump in the dark.” This silenced me. We hid for the rest of that day and that night, and then we went to meet her again— for the last time, as it turned out. She seemed sulky, and when he tried to put her in better humor she answered crossly, and we saw that something had happened since we left her. Yet Pedro finally coaxed her into a cheery mood and she began to smile and give him soft looks. Later I learned that she had blurted out ‘EOMmIGcHDOOKS:. Go S|