Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 18, 1925 — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

MODERN CASTAWAYS, tn the air. For a moment he lay blinking at the cloudless sky and listening to the buzz-saw snores of the man at his side. Gradually there came to him, subcon- sciously first, then consciously, a feeling that he was being watched, Turning slow- ly to raise himself on one elbow Ammon caught a sharp breath and a sudden tremor shot through his body. Jerking to a sitting position, the.astounded man swept staring, protruding eyes to the right, to the left and to the rear. They, he and Dynamite Breen, were the center of a complete circle of crouching black men. The faces of these men were grotesque and ugly and smeared with streaks and daubs of white and yellow paint. Huge white rings dangled from their ears; their bodies were almost nude. Fach squatting figure held a spear, each face leered and grinned. Ammon kicked his companion in- to consciousness. | “Wot’s th’ big idea?” demanded Breen, sitting up and rubbing heavy eyes. “ What do ya—? G-g-g-—!” An amazed exclamation died a choking gurgle in his throat as the fighter scrambled to his feet. His small, deep set eyes batted and blinked at the surrounding sea of black faces; he assumed a defensive crouch and raised his arms in front of his body, fists clenched. Lew Ammon clawed desperately at those arms. “ Don’t rile ’em, Dynamite! My Gawd! Don’t rile ’em fellows!” he begged piteously. Dynamite Breen hadn’t the slightest in- tention of riling ’em. His fighting attitude had been purely instinctive. Courage in a ring, against one man armed with padded gloves, was an entirely different proposition from courage out here on a desert island facing a score of men, cannibals perhaps, with spears. The well-known American middleweight’s knees threatened serious in- jury to one another, his heart hovered quiv- eringly just back of his tonsils, beads of perspiration dotted his sloping brow. Dyn- amite Breen was scared. As yet not a sound escaped the thick, round lips of the squatting natives; none, in fact, had so much as moved a muscle. One, evidently their leader, rose now and a) =e - ~~ = ~ = «js Sy. a = ‘ 257 stepped inside the circle facing the white men. 3 He was a huge, burly buck, towering a good six inches above Dynamite Breen, and he wore—in addition to the regulation breech-cloth and earrings, a soiled, white celluloid collar about his black neck and what had evidently been a pearl gray hat of the bowler type on his head. From his lips came a torrent of guttural phrases in an unknown tongue. “Wot’s he sayin, Lew?” asked, drawing a shaky hand across his forehead. “ H-h-how d-do I know,” replied Ammon through chattering teeth. The black man added a series of equally unintelligible gestures to his speech and then swung about and uttered a sharp com- mand to the others. Silently they rose from their haunches and formed a row upon two sides of the trio, their leader pointed toward a line of foliage which sprang up some distance back from the sea and mouthed more guttural expressions to the dazed white men. “He’s giving us the office to go some place with ’em,” Lew explained weakly, ‘an’ I guess our ticket reads his way.” Dynamite nodded, and, with the big black in the lead and a line of natives in light marching formation on either side of them, they got under way. “You played hell, you did—smackin’ that mate,” Ammon wailed as they walked. “These guys are Australian head hunters, that’s what they are. I read about ’em one time. Gawd, how I wish I’d stayed in the U. S. A.” “You an’ me both,” echoed the fighter, shaking his battered head from side to side to add emphasis to the statement, ‘“‘ Where do yuh reckon that boss black got th’ col- lar an’ th’ gray Bennie?” he asked, after a listless period of thrusting one unwilling foot ahead of the other. ‘“ Some bloke they killed an’ et?” Ammon nodded. “A missionary, most likely,” he suggested morbidly. ‘ They’re specially fond of white missionaries.” “They'll find my carcass a dam’ sight tougher chewin’ than missionary hide,” dez clared Dynamite grimly. Dynamite —— . as = — —— = — ig = > : Se $ —, te ig ee | ee Fon « }} | lg a re ee ey - > = ~ wo * fp — - - _ ye es - - -” ee - “6 “ — ~ te _— _ - i = _— = = c - “ - 5 at — — - * - * * — = . a “i _ ee bee + ee ee oe — — ao Pn tl en a 2 - =) oe ay « te SS na eee - +i. i mE Se, aaa - ar. Peper IS er S se =. oe ae Se Se ae Coon es ine Soe. << < ee a a en ee ee eS ae en ee ee ee ee epee os ae