Adventure Magazine Cover — page 146: what you’re looking at

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

132 ten feet of it and never suspect that it was a shelter and hiding-place. If ever there was a great trap-door spider’ s nest, that was it. The man Schwartz had followed the trap- door spider’s example inside his den, as well as outside. That spider, as you prob- ably know, not only makes a door which swings shut behind him, and covers that door with things that grow around it, but he also makes a secret pocket at the side of his nest, where he can hide if any enemy discovers his lair. And the Spider had done this also. At one side of his den the ground rose, and there he had dug a hole and covered it over with the growing things so that nobody would ever know it was there. It was not meant to hide in, though, but to conceal the things he took from murdered men. In that hole, when the woman showed it to us, we found all the property of Custodio, Gumercindo, Saldanha and the brothers Maciel. There was Gumer- cindo’s money, the supplies taken from the others and their weapons and even their clothes. But of the men themselves there was no sign anywhere. When Pedro asked the woman what had become of the men, she said that after the Spider killed them and stripped them of all they had, he did with them just what she had finally done to him—threw them to the piranhas, which quickly destroyed them. Their canoes, she said, he hid until night, when he took them far up the quiet little creek where we had first seen her, and there, where neither flame nor smoke would be seen by any one, he burned them— all except the light, fast canoe of Custodio, which he concealed very cunningly and used himself. In this he made his spying trips, going at night and staying away for a day or two. No doubt he had been al- most beside us more than once, lying low, watching and listening with that spidery patience of his and learning whom he might kill with profit. In all these murders, the woman said, he used the bow and arrow which was silent and easy enough to handle at close range. In all the killings except that of Antonio Maciel he made. her lure the men ashore at ‘some place where he lurked, ready to strike them down. To Custodio, Lucas and Saldanha she had called and showed Adventure | herself, just as she did to us, and they came to her and so to their death. Gumercindo was caught in another way, for he was a shrewd man and was hastening home and thus was not so likely to tarry for any savage woman. The Spider had had her stay out of sight, though near the water, and scream as if in great danger. Gum- ercindo, like a brave fellow he was, sped to shore and dashed into the bush to save the one who was in such distress. He was shot in the back for his pains. Antonio Maciel was killed because he was coming straight at the Spider’s nest with his _ machete ready to cut through what he took for a natural tangle. Through a small opening in the side of his den the Spider shot him and dragged him swiftly inside, so that when the other men arrived they found nothing but the last place where he had cut his way. That was some distance back from where: he died. We learned, too, that Pedro and I were to have been the next victims, if we had come near enough. The Spider had a place down-stream where he could watch what went on at headquarters across the river, and he saw Pedro load up the canoe with what looked like many supplies, and so hastened back and made the woman run to that place at the creek and play her part when we passed on our return. While she tried to bring us ashore he lurked ready to kill us, but when we refused to come he was too wise to attack us at a distance, so he let us go. So Pedro’s foolish bait caught some- thing after all, though even he did not sus- pect that the Spider still lived. He carried that bait to see what might come of it and later he believed that the Death was some Indian. When we came back and Pedro had given the bird-call of her people, she was alone, for the Spider was away somewhere spying, and she wanted us to come ashore only because she was hungry to talk with the man who could speak her own tongue. After she left us at the creek she told the Spider, on his return, of our new camp and all our new supplies. He went seeking it, came back angry and beat her. From that time on she told him nothing more of us but met Pedro secretly. She did not know that the Spider had followed her on that last day until Pedro jumped, and the arrow flashed by him. Then her hatred Gomicbooks.co nm