Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 63: what you’re looking at

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

A ath Nh \ a | \ A fK oy +43 Ue) KDA SPOS ¥ b ¥ OSV? : z be > . Ay atte SEC [es Hs f MSS Ta) I, Font. 2 wre Pith) 7; ae fy if \ ris By DON CAMERON SHAFER gle are possessed with devils. They are fit only for the rubber fields and extermination. I, Joao da Cal- vero, one of the oldest seringales of the Amazon, should know—Parque, have I not many times purchased these worthless sav- ages as new conscript labor for my rubber gathering?” With descending darkness the sobbing wail of the howling monkeys died out and the nocturnal birds and beasts took up their round of noise. The moon came mounting swiftly above a distant fringe of towering palms, flooding the undulating surface of the matted and tangled jungle with a bril- liant, mellow glow which barely trickled to earth about our tambo, or camp, so dense was the foliage above. Night—but not still! A continuous rus- tling in the jungle—a continuous slashing in the river. Now and then a rotted, creep- er-strangled branch, gnawed through and through by insects, crashed to earth. Down = A LL those wild Mangeromas of the jun- 333 near the water a great tropical owl shrieked and moaned and there was a flutter of strong wings from restless parrots in the palm fronds, the squeak and clatter of night- time animals on the dank earth and many unexplainable sounds. Once it was as as though a distant bell was ringing—the measured beating of a hollow drum—and again a piercing, unearthly shriek of death. “ But what have the wild Mangeromas to do with the high price you are asking for your rubber?” I questioned in my best Por- tuguese as I watched Joao in his fire-lit hammock deftly rolling another cigarette. “It is true, senor, that I am asking of you foreign rubber buyers a high price,” an- swered Joao, quite unperturbed, “ but you must not forget that every hundred kilo- gramo of caoutchouc I have stored in my defumador has already cost me many pieces of gold—and at jeast one human life.” “ Even so, senkor, but have I not also heard that human life is cheapest along the Amazon?” com “ s-