Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 3 — page 192: what you’re looking at

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

AU4 Arnold ground his face into the woven canes of the bed, and tried not to think or hear. Tamas, who had been left with him, lounged in the doorway and watched the proceedings in the compound. Many minutes passed; then there arose a great howling from the Aguarunas. “Santos Dios!’ exclaimed the Aymara. “‘ Sefior Grimshaw may have been a bad -man—but he was a man!” Arnold noted the past tense. “Ts it over with, Tomas?” he asked. : — “ Yes, senor; he is dead. I think they are going to eat him now.” CHAPTER XXVI. LOVE ENTERS IN.) 'ROM the day of Zalmon’s passing, both Amold and the Aymara were allowed their liberty, with restric- ‘tions. They were no longer bound; and they had the run of the compound, with the‘understanding that their lives would repay any attempt at escape. Of this latter there seemed small chance. The curaca realized the value of sharp discipline; and his sentries were many and as vigilant as fear for their skins could make them. Everywhere the two captives wandered, keen black eyes were upon. them, by night and by day. Arnold saw that an evasion, if possible at all, would have to be a matter of time. ‘“‘ And we must not make a mistake, senor,” said Tomas. “I like not the eyes of this curaca. What he says, that will he do.” : In the mean time the chieftain advised Jim to think over the proposition of adop- tion and marriage into the tribe. But, though he had set his heart on it, the wily savage did not urge the white man. His method of gaining his end, to his mind, was much more subtle. He made his in- tentions public, and they at once became the talk of the town. Matchmaking was as popular a sport among the Aguaruna females as it is with their distant cousins in Fifth Avenue. Among the maidens of the village, from ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. whom Jim had been assured he might have his pick, there was a pleasurable flutter of expectation every time he walked abroad. With no less a thrill the matrons placed all the éMte on parade where he could not fail to see them. Did he so much as look slantwise at a dusky damsel, she became the envied of her comrades, and all of the - members of her family put on outrageous airs in consequence. Naturally these things engendered jeal- ousies. To tell all the truth, Jim was the innecent cause of a number of lively hair- pulling matches in secluded spots behind the maloccas, and of one near riot in the open compound—all because of his careléss and uneven distribution of his smiles. Be it remarked in passing that Jim had made good use of Grimshaw’s razor; and his frank, rather quizzical countenance and fair skin made him seem a young god to these forest belles. His reputation, too, was high because of his destruction of the dreaded witch-doctor Maqui. One there was among the fair eligibles who was uncontent to wait the slow process of selection, but who boldly flung herself at the handsome stranger’s head. Here began to show the fine Italian hand of the curaca; for the aspiring damsel was his sixteen-year-old daughter, a girl of un- deniable beauty, despite her brown skin, though with a rather too strong suggestion of her father in her cruel, imperious eyes. From the first this Lanao set her cap— figurative, of course: her glossy locks never had known such restraint—for Jim. She was resolved that when it came to choosing,~ she would be the first choice, and would rule the white chief’s prospective house- hold by threefold right of priority, birth, and temper—and of the last she had plenty. . In her ambitions Lanao had the tacit support of her powerful father, who was delighted with her choice. So she laid open siege to Jim’s heart; and so fiercely did she resent. all rivalry—on occasions with a club—that the other lovelorn lasses sighingly yielded her the inside track, and contented themselves with a close compe: tition for ‘‘ place.” As the social conventions of the Aguar-