Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 174: what you’re looking at

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

tusk. -_-yours. —— of him. ‘TH carry it om every hunt, and 7 lessly. = And I too, as I piled up bamboo for the 956 the tusks of El Carnicero?” he demanded. ~ “PLeook how great it is, senor,” I cried. “There is but one king baubué in all the Beton that carried such tusks, | ‘There is but one who could so deeply slash Chief Aagustin’s son as you saw. Of truth it is from the jaws ‘of El Carnicero.” He stared at the thing as though deep in : thought. Then he shrugged his shoptders: and ‘thrust the broken tusk inte his pocket. “Then I have part of this pig devil of And, by Heaven, PH get the rest it will give me good luck. Il need the pair of them. TPll show those—* And he broke off into a stream of most blasphemous —— not so much lay with them as with us. Lieutenant Douglas, who had first dared ~ him to kill El Carnicero; and also the name -of Chief Augustin whom he now hated __ because he spoiled the poker game in which he had not won as usual. Aye, what a brute! - - “Where do we camp for the night?” words, in which I made out the name of Then he suddenly turned to me. I told him that we must first cross the meadow, and enter the bosque agam, and that with a quickness we would come to : a good place. He did not- speak any more from that __ time until he rolled his blanket and rubber = poncho about him. And then ¥ heard him mutter, as though in his sleep: — stk Following us, by heaven! ra get him pa ee I wonder—why—following us— me—” And then he began to move about rest- But he spoke ne more. fire that would make the ground at our feet warm through the cold of the river- bottom night, wondered much. That the tusk: this “Barlow had shot off was none _ other than one of El Carnicero’s, | had no - -deubt. But had that devil pig been follow- ing us? And if so, why? — ~~ Or a truth was that El Carnicero in-- ___habited by the evil one. _ ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, = Send he eacte! out and picked up the _ “You are sure that this is one of With the ast oray of = new morning did we arise, I to make coffee and boil - water for the canteens loaned by Lieuten-— ant Douglas of the destroyer, this Barlow S to rub his eyes and sit unwashed, handling the breken tusk and bringing down the tmaledictions of all things that are good - with his foul cursing that came aes ‘to me above the rushing of the stream. Half an hour later, the breakfast - “was finished. And I wetted down the fire and Tepacked, and we made for the hunt. ~ But in that were we disappointed. Not a baubui did we see, or even hear. It would seem that the maiming of the king of the Boton baubui had become a news to the whole of his kind, sand they Ess hidden: fn the bosque in fear. - Yet to me it seemed that the fear should This I cannot explam, senor, but as I say it so it was There was a something in the air, a feel, that £ cannot put inte words. : You have. felt days, sefor, when your ship was lying in Canacao Bay near the yard at Cavit’, when though there was nothing visible to fear, yet was there a something ~ in the atmosphere that bade you wait—wait for something that was just behind the horizon, and coming, coming, coming, and coming not for good. A stillness in the air, a brooding of all things, when even -the mosquitoes were not humming about your ears, and when the fishermen whose bancas were tied to the propeller guards at your stern fetched up not a single fish, but ionly those things of evil, long and brown with markings of poison yellow, and cruel = ‘little black eyes, the deadly ajas iubig. — Aye, well you know. And thus it was on this morning. Nothing to greet the ear, the very monkeys being silent. Nothing to _ greet the eye, the very leaves of the bamboo drooping as though in fearsome waiting. Only this—this feel, senor. And what foulness did this paymaster say! I looked to see the buen Dios strike him dead at any moment. But this He did — not, awaiting Himself perhaps for the moment when His vengeance could be more. suiting and complete. = At last we made for the oy group of huts that was the village of Chief Augustin. = -comicbooks-com: