Adventure Magazine Cover, October 30, 1924 — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

56 speechless, incredulous, in the grasp of a stiffing horror that mounted and mounted as the fool gibbered at him. Hampton put a hand to his eyes as though to wipe away the vision—looked again, was conscious of the laughter of Dias and the men around, but heeded it not. A spasm of unutterable agony seized upon Hampton as he realized the truth. In this poor creature he had found his brother. “Eli!” he exclaimed, dry-lipped. Is it you m “Welcome, sefior, welcome!’ cackled the other. ‘‘We shall give you of our best——”’ A wild cry burst from Hampton. “You devil, you devil!” he gasped out, as he turned and leaped straight for Dias. So swift and unexpected was his action that it succeeded; in blind and frantic agony of rage he caught Dias by the throat and half tugged him from the saddle. Then the men around were upon him, kicking and striking, cursing as they drove in blows. Dias himself, freed of that grip, regained his seat and looked on, but his face was slightly pallid. “Enough!” he said presently, and the men fell back from the _half-senseless bloody figure of Hampton. “Take good care of him, Bobo!”’ “Evidently,’”’ observed Doha Hermana, as she shook the reins of her mule, “the man needs a hundred lashes or so.”’ “All things in due time,”’ said Dias, and furtively put brown fingers to his throat. “Dios, the man has strength! Yes, he must be broken still further—in due time.”’ They rode away side by side, the men following them afoot. And Hampton, as he lifted himself dizzily from the dust, heard the vapid laughter of Bobo at his side. “Eli! II rom EVENING drew down upon the Valley of Mercy, and Dick Hamp- e) ton, after bathing in the lower creek, found himself entering into the life of the damned under the guardianship of the brother he had come so far to seek—E/ Bobo, the fool. The first shock of anguish and horror past, he steeled himself to accept the in- evitable and to endure in silence, as he followed his. brother and the squeaking carts from the creek along the rude cafien Adventure trail toward the rows of adobe buildings. It was growing dark now, here in the valley, and work was over for the day. The over- seer’s whip cracked, one unfortunate wretch howled aloud, and the others hastened to unhitch the mules. From different directions men came to- ward the adobe bunk-houses—weary, rag- ged, sodden men, with here and there the crack of a whip to hasten some unfinished labor. They came from the fields, from the lower valley toward the sea, from the upper cafion; here and there rifle-armed guards were in evidence, though these had separate quarters higher along the valley wall. The slave-quarters were not all large. Some were small adobe shacks, with women and children in sight, and the smoke of cooking fires went up into the late afternoon cool- ness. As he dragged himself along after the shambling figure of his brother, Hampton scrutinized these other figures coming in from all sides. Here and there he dis- cerned a bowed American, shaggy and rag- ged like the others yet marked by a certain surly defiance that still lingered in their hopeless and scarred features; he knew none of them. There were a few Chinamen, sleek and mud-spattered figures from the fields, who bunked apart by themselves, and in the buzz of voices that arose Hampton caught a few oaths in German or French, and heard one little cockney whining over agashed arm. The great majority of these slaves, however, were Mexicans of Spanish strain. Very few of them showed any Indgjan blood, while on the contrary all the guards and overseers were either pure Indians or mestizos. ‘ Hampton followed his brother to where a pot was slung over a fire, and crowded in among the mass of men. A stumpy little Mexican woman handed out bowls of stew, with tortillas. As Hampton got his share and turned away, he found at his elbow a red-bearded American, stooped and broken, who greeted him with weary recognition. “Hello, another Yank, eh? You're a new one, ain’t your Didn’t know a ship was in. Where you from, and who roped you in?” “My name’s Hampton. Panama.” “To see the country, hey?” The other grinned and wolfed his tortilla. ‘I’m Pap Hoskins, from Car-lina; started to dig gold, I came up from micloool © in