Tiger River 53 pinhead! Didn’t I tell you to use tact when “Well, it’s me. I should never have you went to Dry Lake? Tact! You’re as chosen McAndrews to go to Dry Lake. Too tactful as a locomotive collision! You go thick in the head. I sort of knew it when back to the city! You belong in the county I sent him. It’s my fault. I’m as big a fool jail. I’ll make you a guard. You can make as the rest. It’s a case of nobody home, all speeches to the prisoners and they can’t around!” come back. Tact! Hump!” Later, in the moonlight, Sheriff Bill led ®j25 DOWN in Southern Texas the his cavalcade on the long trail toward Dry Itimi Reverend Gypsy Jones had just Lake, with Miles on one side of him and his concluded a great revival and re¬ favorite deputy on the other. The sheriff tired to his office-tent when a messenger was sleepy. The calm light of the moon thrust a telegram into his hand. The brought some peace and surcease to his Reverend Gypsy Jones tore it open and read: soul. At length he spoke to the deputy, Please do not convert any more aged Indians. after a long silence. His voice was gentle , (Signed) William D. Fraser, now— Sheriff of Empire County. “Do you know who’s the biggest chump of the lot?” “Now, I wonder what on earth he means “No. There’s too many to pick from.” by that?” asked the great revivalist. Author of “Black Hawk,” “Tupahn—the Thunderstorm,” etc. CHAPTER I rip of breaking underbrush, a dull thump, and he lay lifeless on the earth. WHERE WATERS MEET At the base of another tree a man quietly levered a fresh cartridge into his gun-barrel. T THE edge of the jungle a rifle For a few seconds he stood motionless, roared. weapon up, eyes sweeping the surrounding High up among the branches tree-butts and bush-clumps. Then he let of a tall buttress-rooted tree— the rifle sink and, velvet-footed, stepped more than a hundred feet above the soggy forward. ground—a big, red, bearded monkey lurched “So, Senor Cotomono,” he said softly, out into space. Headlong he fell. A swift “you will make your hideous howling, eh, "Tiger River," copyright, 1922, by Arthur O. Friel. 54 Adventure to tell all the world that I am here? You of that river, something came crawling into will yell to the tigres of this Tiger Water to the yellow vacancy at the end of the jungle come and tear Jose Martinez, yes? Too shores. Foot by foot, yard by yard, it nosed late you learn that it does not pay to make its clumsy way out of the west until its too much noise with the mouth.” whole length floated there, only a little way A sardonic smile played’ under his fierce from the land. There, for a moment, it black mustache. Even as the words slipped hung motionless. from his tongue his gaze lifted from the A grotesque, misshapen monster of the motionless animal and once more plumbed jungle, it seemed; a low-bodied thing some the vistas about him. Tall, sinewy, hawk- thirty feet long, with half a dozen short, nosed, bold-eyed, red-kerchiefed, belted rigid legs on each side; a humpy creature with a long machete, alert and wary as the with a small square bump in the middle, a great hunting-cat he had just mentioned— big round one at its tail, and more than a he looked a buccaneer chieftan marooned dozen smaller protuberances along its back. in a tropic wilderness, poised to fight man, Presently its little legs moved backward, beast, or demon. lifted, came forward—flashing glints of sun¬ A minute passed. No sound came to his light from its wet feet—and slid backward ears except the ceaseless rustle of unseen again. Its blunt nose turned up the clear small life, creeping about in the shadows water. It grew larger, crawling toward the during the hot hours of midday. With a spot whence the smoke streamed. And the lightning shift of manner he relaxed. rough little breeze, as if it had done its duty “Hah!” he growled. “Jose, you are over¬ in summoning the river-beast, passed and careful. You have hardly left the Amazon was gone, leaving the smoke to rise straight —you have only just landed on the Tigre above the squatting man like a telltale Yacu—and yet you stand as if you were far finger. upstream and had shot a head-hunter in¬ stead of a poor cotomono. You disgust me, THE man did not see the thing ap¬ Jose mio. Come, little howler of the heights, proach. Around him grew waist- and toast your toes at my fire.” _ high grass, which now, in his In one motion he swooped up the dead doubled-up position, rose just above his monkey and whirled on his heel. A few head and shut off from his view all but the strides to the rear, and he emerged at fire and his meat. The river-creature ad¬ water—clear water, about seventy yards vanced quietly, as if a bit wary. Fifty feet broad, flowing southeast, at whose margin off shore it paused. From it burst a roaring floated a small canoe. Some rods down¬ stream the limpid stream ended, merging “Hey, there!” into a turbid yellow flood rolling eastward— The man in the grass started, spun about, the mighty Amazon, here known as the lengthened himself toward his rifle, and in Maraiion. one second was behind the tree with gun Two swift glances he shot to right and cocked. His narrowed eyes stabbed through left—one upstream, one out at the tawny the sun-glare at the clumsy thing which had monarch of rivers. Only empty water, slipped up so smoothly within pistol-shot glaring under the sun, met his gaze. Lean¬ of him. In one tight squint he saw what ing his rifle against a handy tree-butt, he it was. drew his machete and sliced some tindery A Peruvian garretea, or river-canoe, with bamboo into kindling. A few deft slashes a pile of supplies corded in the middle, a with the same blade dressed the cotomono* curve-roofed cabin at the stern, twelve for roasting. Then, adding more fuel, he copper-skinned paddlers and a steersman, squatted and concentrated his attention on and four khaki-shirted white men; that was the cooking of his meal. the monster. The second glance of the lurk¬ A stiff breeze came rocketing down the ing Jose told him that all the white men clear-water stream, snatching the smoke of were deeply tanned and well bearded; that his fire and flinging it playfully down to the two of the beards were black, one yellow, great river. And almost at once, as if the and one unmistakably red. Then the voice tang of smoke and the savory odor of broil¬ spoke again. ing meat had evoked life from the depths “Come on out, feller. We ain’t huntin’ •The same monkey known as emriba in Brazil. nobody. I see ye got a bandanna on yer Tiger River 55 bean, so ye’d oughter be a white man. You “Ye ol’ son-of-a-gun!” he chuckled. “Ye savvy United States?” ol’ slashin’, tearin’, hip-shootin’ death’s- The eyes of Jose widened. head! Jest as homely and full o’ cussedness “For Dios!” he muttered. “Is it—it is as ever, ain’t ye! Mind the time we blowed not—yet the voice is the same! And a red them Red Bone cannibals all to glory? beard-” Gosh, that was a reg’lar scrap, I’ll tell the He stepped forth, rifle still ready but not world!” aimed. “I remember it well,” laughed Jose. “ Si, I savvy, senor,” he answered. “ Who “But you need not break my hand, amigo. comes?” The Senor Knowlton seems to wish to “Friends,” clipped another voice. “Any use it.” objection to our tying up here? Want to The blond man too had landed, and now sell that meat?” he shouldered the exuberant Tim aside and “It is my dinner, senor, and not for sale,” proceeded to make good his promise to Jose answered coolly, still squinting at the pump the Spaniard’s arm, giving him a run¬ boat. “Tying up here is as you wish. I do ning fire of banter the while. After him, not own this river.” cool and unhurried, came a tall, black- “AH right. We’ll shoot our own meat. bearded, wide-shouldered man whose set Paddle!” face and bleak gray eyes now]]were softened At the command the paddlers swayed in by a welcoming smile. Last of all debarked unison. The garretea floated nearer. Then a stocky man of medium height, with hat out broke the first voice. pulled well down over his brow. “ Say, cap, lookit the guy! Ain’t he a dead In contrast to the red Tim and the blond ringer for ol’ Hozy, the lad that was with Knowlton, the blackbeard spoke no word us last year on that there, now, Javaree as his hand grasped that of Jose; but his River down below? By gosh, I wonder— brief, hearty grip and direct gaze spoke Say, feller, mebbe this is a sassy question, what his tongue did not. And to him Jose but what’s yer name?” gave a look and a tone of deeper respect The speaker was the red-bearded, red¬ than that accorded his predecessors.