Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 172: what you’re looking at

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

| picked up the chicken. = the sun could not penetrate. = _ __ ys everything was green, and the light it- - Then e shrugged my shoulder; and to = z myself smiled. -“ What does it matter,” I ratieed: as “ From a man I should feel hurt, but this Barlow is not a man. Yet, aya, gracias a Dios, he can — shoot! It is well. Let El Carnicero be- ware!” — | lt was not a kilo more, senor, when we | ‘descended from the hot dry hill bamboo to the low land that followed the Rio Boton. __ And how green and cool it was there after our sweating in the afternoon sun. Be- neath was the earth damp and soft to the ~_ feot. Above the branches of the tall trees met and formed a green mat through which All about 3 = self was of the same color, and the green air smelled good, and cooled the throat and Monkeys swung above us, following our way, and chattering in their ereat == curiosity over what we might be and what ‘he cursed them for the noise they made. that we’re coming,” he snarled. we were about to do. The paymaster did ‘not like this. And — They Ul tell everything within ten miles UT kill a couple of them to teach them a lesson. Why can’t they let us hunt in peace. Like = = thos damn Negrit’s back at Gordon's. And he raised his rifle. But I bade him stop a minute. ~ &Tt is bad luck to kill a monkey, senor, ___-when we are on the hunt for pig. Let them go. They tell nothing. _ talking and fighting together, and no crea- ture takes fright at the chatter.” He glared at me, his rifle still calcd They are always toward the green roof of the bosque. - “ What the hell difference does a monkey or two matter?” he snarled again. * By Heaven, they even look like those cursed Negrit’s too. And I only broke even in that game, when that infernal fool Chief | Augustin, or whatever they call him, butted in with his bleeding brat. Stand stil, and | _ Tl teach them a lesson.” What could I do? I seized his arm, expecting that he would: attempt to stoke me a blow with the rifle putt. | the meadow and the bosque met. they. had ears that could hear the crawling of a python a hundred paces away, and ‘There’s something belie us. -ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, 2: “ Senor Barlow,” I cried in a aha - “do not shoot. tt is not far now to the open flats near the rio where the pigs feed.” For a moment he glared at ie, and senor, my hand slipped back to my bambeoo bolo, there was such a look in his eyes. Then he gritted out another curse, and dropped his rifle to the crook of his arm. “ That’s all that'll save them,” he cried fiercely, “Come along then.” Of a truth the devil was in that brute! And yet, what a man to shoot. I felt within me that I wished I were in better company. And yet, too, I felt that no charging baubui would have a chance to rip my poy into pieces. So on we went. after we had made another two kilos, and T cautioned the paymaster that he must be on the watch now. For the sun had dropped behind the hills to the west, and the pig would be feeding in the soft earth where Also compared to man the python makes but the sound of a fluttering moth. Slowly, slowly, we crept along, leaving the trail now, and following the edge of this meadow. Twice we saw movement, and heard a scuttling through the brush. And each time the paymaster became like a statue, balanced; and the safety latch of his rifle dropped without a sound. Aye, he knew well the manner of the hunt. But each time was he disappointed—and I, toe, if the truth must be told. Then once he stopped short again, his head cocked to one side, listening, Slowly his head swung about to me, while his body remained, one foot in ‘advance. Again he did this. _ And this time he whispered to me. “ What was that?” I shook my head. “J heard nothing, senor,” I replied. His eyes bulged at me. “Damn you; keep your ears clean! Heard it twice.” I felt the blood = to my teal again. But it is not for nothing that I have my oO The meadow Jand ee out Sse <e OMiIGbOOKS co na