The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 2 — page 51: what you’re looking at

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

SOUTHWEST OF “ Si, senhorina. The brave Senhor Phillips has taken flight. At present he has hidden himself in the jungle. No doubt. he will come out of his shelter when Senhor Haggins has returned to in- sure peace hereabouts. Until that time [ am in command—but yours to obey.” His mincing tone was more menacing than any threat he could have uttered. For one second Evelyn Reade felt herself swaying, felt the world whirling about her, saw the darkness growing darker be- fore her eves. : She was glad that she still knelt over the wounded policeman. Had she been standing she could not have kept her feet. Then she summoned her faculties by a wrench of will. She put her hand toward the pocket in which reposed her pistol. “ No!” snapped the doctor’s voice, all its suavity dropped. ‘“ This time I have you covered with my gun.” But, as he spoke, apparently alert to the fact that she would fear him vastly more than his pistol, and that shooting her was the last way to gain his own ends, he leaped behind the nearest of the peons, pushing the fellow between them. He was perfectly right in his conjec- ture. His threat had not stopped her hand. His movement was not quick enough to stop the pressure of the trigger. But it was the peon whose body inter- cepted the bullet. And Pinhon was quick enough to take advantage of the confusion thus brought upon the girl. Three steps forward he pushed the man she had shot, holding him upright until, sensing the purpose of the move, she began to raise herself to her feet. Then, with a Strength she would not have credited him with, he hurled the wounded man directly upon her. “Take her!” he shouted as she was bowled over from her half-balanced po- sition. The men leaped to his bidding. As she fell her finger pressed the automatic’s trigger once more; but the bullet went wild. Her arms were caught, wrested up- ward. She was jerked to her feet. THE LAW. 233 ‘Even the gringo women are murder- esses,” Pinhon observed to his duped un- derlings. Then, speaking to her, he con- tinued with assumed indignation in his tone: “You have shot one of my people. I regret the necessity of imprisoning a lady, But you must come. I shall, however, be more merciful to you than your fellow- countrymen have been to mine. I shall not confine you in the wretched carcel your friend invented.” Again he addressed the one of those with him who was in the police uniform: “You will take the prisoner to the bungalow.” CHAPTER XIII. THE RESIGNATION OF HOPELESSNESS. WHEN it was finally borne in on Phillips’s mind that he was utterly lost, a very madness swept over him. He raved, cursed, caught at twigs that hung about his face and tore them for the sheer inward need of smashing things. For his own sake he could have taken the matter very philosophically. He was haedly afraid of anything the jungle might contain so near the clearing of the rubber company. Even if the coming of a rainy day should not give him a sight of the sun, he might have waited for another to give such a view to provide him with bearings. A day’s fast would not hurt; he could probably find edible palm-tops enough to keep from starving for several days. Somewhere to the eastward, not more than two or three miles at the outside, lay the river; and he could hardly reach it more than two miles from the plant, above or below. Indeed, had he had but himself to think of, it is doubtful if he would have run, even from the enormous odds against him. He would have chanced being killed or put into the carcel. It had been the certainty that his imprisonment was in- tended solely to remove his protection coOmichooks Gor