Argosy, Vol. 120, No. 1 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

4 ) | THE ARGOSY. pointed again. Poonoosawmi was almost ‘weeping. “‘ Q-oh, marshter, this is abomination and desolation. Tracks of the savages is like spider’s walk. This unknown bamboo tope party is hemmed in by all sides. What profit is accruing to marshter by sharing their bloody fate? More better is we fly - backwards.” Smith kicked him again with gentle re- flectiveness while his brow bunched into puzzled corrugations. Then he came to one of his swift decisions, and plunged ahead. A few minutes brought him to one of those unaccountable long strips of clearer ground where the tough, lusty growth of giant bamboo kills off all other verdure and stretches like a winding river through the jungle. Bamboo grows in huge tangled clusters or clumps. The clumps themselves are im- penetrable, even to elephants, but they grow in scattered confusion, thirty, forty, or fifty feet apart. clear of all other green stuff, and is flat and dry and deliciously carpeted with slender dead leaves. Bamboo Jungle is, therefore, ideal camping ground. - Through these open spaces Smith could see the front of a large tent and the glar- ing white sheen of several smaller ones. Voices and the accompanying clatter of a large and carelessly confident camp drifted ~ to his ears on the puffs of wind. He stood and voiced his amazement. “Gor-strike me! Don’t these babes in the wood know anything at all?” He made a face at Poonoosawmi, indi- cating that he was to stay where he was, and then he strode lightly forward. He always believed, as a matter of well-tried principle, in seeing as much as possible before himself being seen. He slipped noiselessly, therefore, from one clump to another, and looked at this astonishing en- campment from several angles before he should make his presence known. Not that his caution was at all neces- sary. A dweller of the cities could have walked in on this arcadian gathering with- out being detected till he said: How do you do? There were two expensive-looking tents which had obviously been selected out Between them the ground is . of some dealer’s catalogue, and a large mar- quee, evidently for eating in, set up in a sloppy manner which made Smith grunt with indignation. Several pup tents at a distance accounted for a crowd of servants. Pack saddles and camp equipment lay about in what he considered the ultimate confession of amateurishness. In front of him a slender youth, dressed in an appal- ingly neat shirt and riding breeches, crouched, careless back to the open jungle, absorbed in some occupation with some sort of an instrument. Smith clucked his disapproval of such fatuous confidence. Then his eyes nar- rowed in a mischievous smile, and he glid- ed in on the boy from behind. So engrossed was the young man that Smith stood behind him for a long time watching a mysterious performance with ‘glass tubes and shiny levers of which he understeod nothing. Then, as the other stooped, a flash of Smith’s boyish irre- — sponsibility which he had never outgrown came over him. With keen enjoyment of the dramatic surprise, he brought his vast palm down with a sounding smack on the tight-stretched breeches. ’ “ Well, son,” he ejaculated boisterously, “enjoying yourself on this picnic?” CHAPTER II. BABES IN THE WOOD. "THE youth leaped away with a little shriek, and whirled to face Smith, who stood grinning with his hands deep in his pockets, tugging, as he turned, at a toy re- volver in his belt. And then Smith’s face went white under the tan and flushed slowly back to a ma- hogany red. He stepped back with an arm half raised as though to ward off a blow, and his eyes in their terror assumed an ex- pression of staring ferocity which was belied by the looseness of his jaw. The furious eyes which shot electric fire up at him from about the level of his shoul- der were as steely gray as his own, and quite as steady. But there the resemblance ended with an abruptness that was akin to an explosion. # GOnmlepoo (-) CO