Adventure Magazine, April 10, 1924 — page 93: what you’re looking at

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

The King of No Man’s Land gI ee, | WITH that he began eating. The > others, though saying nothing, lil’ Jooked at the girl with more sym- pathy than he had shown. In a way, her life was pathetic. Captured in infancy and grown to womanhood among savages, still she possessed the superior mind of her white ancestry. And that mind, hemmed in by the soul-crushing jungle, was eternally grop- ing for higher things. The crazed priest who saved her had been a nobler being than the greatest man of her tribe—the wizard whom she had spurned even in horrid ex- tremity—and to his twisted but forceful in- tellect she had instinctively attached her- self. In the queer, hopeless réle of priestess which he had laid upon her, she had traveled the haunts of savagery until revulsion drove her to Macas—there to be jeered at by the rabble and returned to the jungle by the clergy. And then to the masterful mental- ity of the pseudo-Indian Rana she had “‘turned her heart’’; and her heart still was with Rana, despite any brief coquetry with Tim. Reaching, blindly reaching toward the light, like a flower striving to rear itself above snake-breeding muck—such was the pitiful urge of the soul of Nuné. In her present struggle between crude superstition and higher teachings these hardened adventurers from the North saw no joke. For once, the cynical humor of the Spaniard jarred. “Tf it’s all the same to you, José,” Knowl- ton said coolly, “I wouldn’t josh her any more about her gods.” “What! Ha, ha, ha! Por Dios, is our gold-haired feniente now the victim of the soft brown eyes?” The blond man flushed. His mouth tightened, and a glint came under his silky lashes. “No. But she’s a good kid. And her be- liefs are none of our business. Get mer?” José peered at him. For an instant a hot spark glowed under his own brows. Then it vanished, and he chuckled in a good-hu- mored way. “As you will, comrade. I have seen men fight to the death because they did not agree about some idiotic quibble of religion, and I hope we are not such fools.” “IT don’t care about her religion. there’s no sense in plaguing her.” “True enough,’ José agreed equably. But “There is none. So let us say no more about it.” And no more was said. Soon they were again on the march, swinging along at the steady, unhurried gait which ate up distance without apparent fatigue to the Indians or to José, but which the Americans found a bit stiff to maintain. At the end of that day’s traverse Tim gazed ruefully at a heel-blister formed by his new foot-gear, and all three welcomed the news that the next day they should ride. They had nearly reached a certain creek at which, José informed them, he had ordered a concentration of canoes. “For the next few days,” he added, “we shall travel in very close quarters, for every canoe must carry all the men it can. So, Sefiores Tim and Knowlton, decide between you which shall be the one to sit close to our little friend here.” He squinted impishly at Nuné, then at the pair he had addressed. Knowlton laughed with his usual good nature. “Put her next to Rod,” he advised. “He’s absolutely woman-proof. Didn’t mean to pick a fuss this morning, José. I flare up too quickly sometimes.” “No fuss was picked, amigo. I wnder- stand you quite well, and why you spoke. Yet is it not queer how a woman can cause words between men without even knowing she does so? I shall be truly glad when she is once more free in her own land.” “Ye’re dead right,” agreed Tim. “This li’ lady, she’s all to the mustard and game as they make ’em, and I like her fine, even if she did slip me the frosty mitt. And yet, somehow, I got a hunch we’re goin’ to git into a peck o’ trouble about her. I dunno why; I jest feel that way. I wisht she was back home, like Hozy says, and we didn’t COMmMiclboookSs.G©