Adventure Magazine Cover — page 97: what you’re looking at

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Jungle Business But that was out of the question, of | course. Much as the captain would have liked to favor them against the gringo who had so cheerfully flouted him, he dared not openly break the rule. So the discomfited castanha traders stood about in groups and erumbled and asked each other what might be done in the matter. The answer of course was, nothing. They had come late as usual; and he who had come first with his business had been first served. What is the usual outcome in such a situ- ation? In a crowd of some forty or fifty rough fellows of no very great intelligence it is inevitable that anger should turn against the foreigner. Somebody. started @ murmur, and it was not long before the general grumble was against the accursed gringo who had outmaneuvered them. Somebody started the suggestion, and it was a matter of only a few minutes before there was a concerted move to go and inter- view this gringo. The thing was very nearly ready to become a mob. It remained only for somebody to start the suggestion about what to do with the gringo. And that sug- gestion would devolve naturally out of the heated words which would be exchanged at that interview. So the crowd, with much loud talking, moved toward the old rubber shed. They found the gringo swinging in his hammock and kicking his heels. They stood about hesitant, waiting for somebody to begin that argument. The gringo looked at them never once. He was deeply en- grossed in playing with his pistol, rolling it in a curious manner round his finger through the trigger guard so that the butt swung into the palm of his hand with a soft and satisfactory slap. He spoke no word to the crowd; and no man in the crowd quite liked to start speak- ig to him; for the national shooting pro- pensity of you Americanos was well known _ to all of them and the story of the shooting of that particular pistol had very whole- somely spread. It followed thus that there was no argument of heated words. There- fore nobody started the suggestion of what to do with the gringo, the crowd never becamea mob atall. Instead, it went softly away to attend to other business. ' But the enmity of the thing remained. For this I did not blame the Pelloroxo this time. It was no fault of his forcing that home town annoyance down the throats of 95 our people. It was but the natural penalty that the foreigner must always pay for his cleverness. None the less, he had very thoroughly antagonized the whole of our up-river community. A most unfortunate thing when one wishes to conduct a business in that community. 7 I was much perturbed when I heard of it. But, diabo, qué facer? There was nothing that could be done about the thing. It seemed to be his fate to antagonize people. But it is my observation that business is antagonism; and it takes much skill to con- duct a business and not make enemies. And, by the very ’s ill luck, just when the business was starting to stand on its feet the effect of all these antagonisms ac- cumulated upon our Pelloroxo all in a heap. His very first success was the invitation that drew the most powerful opposition upon himself. That shipment, upon its arrival m Manaos, created a stir. Tagua, high-grade and in quantity! That called for attention. For no other was coming in from the Rio Negro side at all and the price was high. If the stuff could be collected by the ship- load there was money to be made. So reasoned the merchants of the town, being entirely ignorant of the astute organization that lay behind that load. An old enemy weighted the matter in his mind and decided to take action. No other than Da Sylvestra, the pompous fellow who had got mixed up mm that theater riot. Here was a chance to invest some money to the purpose of making a profit and paying off a debt in a very pleasant manner. Soon the very next return steamer he came up to Santa Isabel himself. (Set TT] NEARLY a month had passed, PL and the Pelloroxo was, of course, ‘| waiting with his rubber shed full -I of tagua. The castanha men should have learned their lesson by this time. But it takes more than one lesson to teach a man the value of time; and even then, having learned that value, to know how to speed up his little organization of jungle workers who had been dilatory all their lives. Only a few of them, therefore, were ready. Room enough in the steamer’s hold for all. The Pelloroxo stepped on board to go through the formality of arranging for his loading. But the captain grinned a surly comicbooks.com