Adventure Magazine Cover — page 86: what you’re looking at

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

84 passengers of nondescript appearance who wore, some of them, unclean pajamas and others, no shirt at all but only an open coat over a dingy singlet. !’ I exclaimed. ‘‘But this is not the custom among us. A coat of some sort one must wear, even though it be only a rag. Man, you were naked.”’ “How should I know?” he defended. ‘In any case, if the captain thought I was scan- daliging his ship he should have told me in priate. Instead, he called a slovenly ter and whispered certain instructions ‘had the fellow present me with one of Own not so very clean white duck uni- orm coats upon a salver.” “Wame of a saint! And what then?” I asked quickly. “Well”’ he grinned widely again. “I accepted it and bowed to him and put it on —I am learning your customs, you see. And then, at the next meal, I called the Same waiter and whispered to him and had him present the captain with a pair of socks.” “And you “Sanectissimasl’’ I shouted. ~ liver” But I was forced to laugh with him. For, by the Holy Ones, the man had deserved the return. And, knowing that captain,-I knew what a tale that would make for the cafés; how my gringo bearded the bad man on his own ground and suffered no penalty. ~The lad begins to strike back when he feels that he is in the right,” said I to my- self. “Here is good metal for the tem- rin le But I called an Indian to take up his pair of great leather satchels and I hurried him away trom the boat with speed before I, too, should become embroiled with the enraged captain; and I made him welcome to ham- mock space in my own bateldo. Being late, we ate and slept; and in the morning we talked of plans for the fortune that he was going to wrest out of the wil- derness. “Tintéo, here we are,” I said to him. “You find yourself at last in the lawless jungle that you thought was Manaos City. For Santa Isabel, as you see, is but a tram- pled landing place for the steamer and an adobe hut which the owner calls the hotel, and a deserted rubber shed. From here up iS Our country of the upper rivers where the law is to him who can make it. Here you may live with pistols tied to your thighs in Adventure the uncomfortable manner of your com- patriots of the central plains. You are now a pioneer.” “Good,” said he. “My fathers were pioneers. Here perhaps I shall fit. In Manaos, where I would have been friends with everybody, I met only hostility; which—” he grinned again—‘“may possibly have been somewhat my own fault. But ) “Oho, you have indeed begun to learn!” I said to him; and I clapped him on. the shoulder. “But my young friend, let me tell you this: Here in the jungle, where you hope to wrest a fortune, do not hope to be friends with anybody at all; for everybody is striving with all his mind and his heart and his sinew to accomplish the same thing, each in his own way. What way have you in mind to adopt?” ‘‘Let me be accursed if I know,” said he. And he sat, swinging his legs from the hammock and frowning in thought. I, watching his face and his careless con- fidence, thought that I might use this young man here where there were few people for him to insult. So I made him a compli- mentary offer which many a youth of the city would have given his soul to ac- cept. “Good,” I said. “I shall give you em- ployment working with me till such time as you know the ropes, and then you may strike out for yourself.’’ But, carramba, he refused the chance as airily as if I had offered him a cigaret. “No,” said he. “I thank you, friend of the jungle places where I must look for no friends. I can not take employment; for in my home town, in an institute for the teach- ing of business, they taught me an advice for all young men, ‘Be your own boss.’ So—” he cast about in his mind—“T shall make a business for myself.”’ Truly the man had a talent for giving offence. Yet he had smilingly called me his friend on top of my warning. And I reflected that it would not be a. bad thing to have a youth with his unconquerable confidence and energy allied to me in those upper rivers. So instead of leaving him to his own devices, I decided to help him. “Bom,” I said. “You talk as if many varieties of business stand cataloged ready tohand. Yet business can be made by such men as are not fools or cowards, else how should we river runners live? Tell me, Gomicbooks.com