Adventure Magazine, December 10, 1924 — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

The Blond Spiders The two whites followed until he literally started to bellow. When they reached him no explanation was necessary. Four skele- tons lay bleaching in the sun. “Guess that’s plainer than a movie,” said Tony. “These fellows must have cap- tured them; he cut the old man loose in the night and they escaped and the other four were shot. But that doesn’t in the least explain why.” “T dunno, gov’nor, neither. they’d escaped from somewhere and them blokes was on their trail, don’t it? Maybe the old un was a pard making off with the loot. But why was the five black fellas deaf and dumb? Rummy go, I calls it.” While they were talking the Swahili had been watching them with the agonized ex- pression of an intelligent dog trying to understand his master. Evidently he couldn’t lip-read English spoken rapidly. As soon as they glanced at him he gesticu- lated energetically, pointing to the south- west. They nodded, and he seemed calmer. That night a heavy rainstorm passed, washing out the spoor, and the man de- veloped a high fever, growing rapidly deliri- ous. Examining him, Tony noticed that the pustules were more inflamed and were sup- purating as the old man’s had. Despite a powerful dose of quinin the man was quite weak. Although he made game efforts to struggle along, by noon he collapsed. As he was more valuable than the camp cots and the tent these were abandoned for Bodiker to pick up, and the two porters helped the sick man. They got him to an- other old camp, but he was undoubtedly worse; even his ungodly throat noises were feeble. There seemed nothing for it but to camp until the man was better unless they jet- tisoned more stuff, for two porters couldn’t possibly carry him, emaciated though he was, for the whole day. After food Tony had another look at him. He was raving, and his temperature was 107 Fahrenheit. “Out of luck,” said Tony. ‘“He’s almost as good as gone, but I’ll give him a sub- cutaneous injection which may pull him through.” He went to his medicine chest and to his astonishment found that the hypo- dermic syringe was already charged. “‘That’s queer,”’ he muttered, and then recollected that Bodiker had prepared a shot for the old man who had died before it Looks.as-if - 13 had been administered. Careless swine, he thought, to forget to empty it. Doesn’t matter; it’s only a few days old. After sterilizing the needle he rolled the dry-skinned, groaning wretch over and gave him the shot, remarking: “Tf we can pull down the temperature a couple of points he may pull through yet.” But as they stood watching, the man moaned heavily and straightened out; then a rigor shook the body; another passed; the muscles stiffened and the eyeballs became rigid. “Good God!’ exclaimed Tony, bending over him. “The fellow’s dead!” IV ‘ae } ON THE slope of the hills in the wee deep shadows of fairly dense tim- ber sat Tony, Bodiker and Sawyer on the bales which the porters had jue thrown down. “Can’t understand it,” Bodiker was saying. ‘“Quinin couldn’t have killed him. You must have shot it into him just as the death crisis came on. Well, it’s a pity he’s gone before showing us whatever he had to show—although to tell the truth I never thought there was much to it. We may as well get busy on the elephant stuff. Looks pretty good to me judging from what we saw coming up. What does Plessons say?” ‘Yes, he thinks well of it,’’ returned Tony, “but from what we saw of the fellow before he went west, what the old man said, and the murdered four I told you about, we both think the thing’s worth investigating. Anyway Plessons went off at sun-up to scout around a bit.” “Waste of time,” opined Bodiker with some obstinacy. ‘‘We’d much better make a camp here and start after the elephants tomorrow.” “All right, if you’re set on it,” deferred Tony. “Anyway we can always keep our eyes open while hunting.” “Well, don’t get sore about it,” elleied Bodiker with a touch of the old sour man- ner. ‘What d’you reckon you can make out of this circle and stone stuff?” : “T told you Iam not sure of anything. Just a hunch, that’s all. Mighty curious anyway. Well, I’ll get my men to pitch the tents.” As Tony rose to go over to the porters he caught on Sawyer’s face a sly grin which CoOMmichool A) C© =