The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 2 — page 60: what you’re looking at

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

242 the time the steamer had reached the junction with the Amazon, he had deter- mined to find what he could in the small city of Manaos and return forthwith. He got together a gang of men much* smaller than he should have taken for the start on the new plant which he contem- plated. He found a missionary who seemed to have very little to do. He had spent only two days thus far, and he boarded his steamer and gave the order for all speed back up the Rio Roosevelt. The swollen condition of that river and the flood current made the ascent a mat- ter of more time than all he had used be- fore. Two days and three nights were gone when he found himself within a cou- ple of hours’ run of the plant—a matter of less than six miles, but, against a cur- rent running as many miles an hour in the opposite direction. His anxiety had got the best of him to a point where it had him standing in the bow of the little steamer, straining his eyes ahead long before any sight of the Gordon works or clearing could possibly be expected. Somehow he could not get over the feeling that at any turn he might catch sight of the Reade cruiser in flight down the river. As his boat nosed its way toward the third bend from the last and began to negotiate the difficult eddy off the point, his attention was riveted upon a pecu- liarity of the collection of driftwood at the vortex of the whirlpool. At first he thought the round, white thing was but some bit of floating paper from the plant above. The idea that it was a human face could be nothing but the fancy of a somewhat overwrought brain. Suddenly the none-too-competent na- tive wheelman lost his grip for an instant, and the vessel’s bow was swept several points from its course before the regular pilot, with lurid oaths, snatched the spokes from his assistant and began the task .of holding the course through the whirling currents. In that instant Hag- gins got a sensation as near to fright as first. THE ARGOSY. probably ever came to him in his hard, strenuous, fearless life. The thing was a face. It was turned toward the boat. Its lips were moving, though if any sound were coming from them it was drowned by the engine’s throb. It was Phillips! The realization of what that fact might signify sent Hag- gins’s bronzed cheeks as white as those of the exhausted man in the water. At his order, shouted in a hoarse yell, the steamer was slowed enough to hold its own and no more against the current, while a life-boat was lowered, manned, and rushed to the aid of the all but drowned manager whom Haggins had left as his successor. Phillips could barely speak. Haggins, bending close over his lips, managed to catch: ‘“ Revolted—I got away—lost in the jungle—caught in the whirlpool—I—” Haggins raised his head, his face gone livid, ; “You got away! You damned whelp of a cur—what did you do with Evelyn? Where is she? You—” With a string of unprintable oaths he kicked the help- less man on the deck. = Phillips winced, with the pain. Half dead as he was, a flood of bitter rage arose within him. It died again. He could not blame Haggins until he had made him under- stand how he had fled because no other hope offered at the moment, because it had been flight or the carcel where he could have done none of the things he had hoped to do by getting away for the time. He tried again to explain from th beginning. | | ‘It was Pinhon—he proposed to Miss Reade and—went mad when she refused. He poisoned two of the men and made the rest believe I was feeding them poi- son in their mess. She—said she could take care of herself. I—started to arrest Pinhon—but he had started to arrest me The policemen turned on me, got my guns. They almost had me in the car- CORMMICOOOKS (C@