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Show UBIlsKBlk. Saeep9s (BeM bReatricc Grimsliaw Illustrations by i rutin Myerm Copyright by Hughes Hassle & Co. WNTJ Servlc show. The G. S. was at Darn In the Taurl, and news came down the coast native telegraph, you know that a white 'SInabada' had gone np the Itomilly in a canoe with half-a-dozen boys, meaning to strike Inland. So the Q. S. turned a handspring and had three cat-fits, and packed me off without with-out my lunch. So here's the Taurl to take her back; only I see you've been beforehand with us." He glanced with Interest at the figure of Jinny, who was contriving to look amazingly dignified In my khaki shirt and trousers. trous-ers. "By the way, Sheep," he went on, "what's become of your expedition?" For he, like every one else "down West," had known of my departure. It was difllcult to answer him. "I came back," was my lame reply. "Well," he said, "well" after a pause during which he had looked swiftly, keenly, at both of us. "I suppose I'm to have the pleasure of fetching you along to Daru also?" I was thinking rapidly; calculating Just what this new turn in my affairs might mean. The Taurl was a fast launch; she could take me home In a day and a half; half a day to fix up matters there, and get stores. Then a day and a half back, In the Taurl I stone wall than Bassett usually did. We made a very silent party, dropping drop-ping down river. With the current, and the speed of the launch. It was a comparatively short Journey. Dusk of next day found us on the opening reaches of the Romilly's estuary, with the gulf of Papua, flat and gray as a pewter table, opening out before. There was a long strip of beach at the river mouth ; you could scarcely see it at that hour. But If you could not see the beach, you could see, quite clearly, that which stood upon It the pointed shapes of several canvas tents. "We'll stop here for a few minutes," said the magistrate. "I didn't call going go-ing up; Just hailed them, and asked if they had seen anything of a white woman." "What did they say?" I asked. "One of them Caxon it was, I think; I hear be went with them shotted back that they hadn't, and asked who she was, and what It was about." "Caxon !" I said. "Who were the others?" "Only one other white. Yu know him Spicer." He gave an order to the brown, bare-limbed steersman ; and our boat took a wide sweep, and began heading Inshore. "Caxon I" I thought. "Spicer U not such a fool as he looks." For Caxon, old-time goldminer and survivor of a past era of mining successes, was about the ablest prospector who ever washed a dish between Daru and the Mambare. "Do me a kindness, Bassett, will you?" I said. "Don't mention to anyone any-one ashore just where It was that you picked us up." "Right. You not coming?" "No fear." "Miss Treacher coming?" "I don't" Silently Jinny's head appeared above the coaming, cutting off my words. She stepped out on deck. There was still some light left ; I could see that she had found Bassett's store of clothing cloth-ing and looted it ruthlessly. A cummerbund cum-merbund of dark-blue silk circled the waist of her my trousers ; she had white socks on, and a silk tie about her neck. I looked at her in amazement, as she swung lightly down into the boat, avoiding my eyes (she had not looked at me, or spoken to me, since we came aboard). I saw her go ashore with Bassett, disappear among the tents. Before 1 had time to grow more than a little impatient, the boat was back again, and the launch under way. What had Jinny been saying, doing, out there in the camp? Why had she been so anxious to go ashore, and why, now that she had returned, was she still keeping .hidden, avoiding sight or sound of me? Bassett was sitting on the cabin roof, a whitish blur in the dark. I edged up to him and asked him point-blank point-blank "Did you anyone say anything ashore ?" He knew what I meant. He did not look up, or turn his face, but he answered an-swered Immediately, in Bassett's own crisp, precise way "I saw Spicer. I asked him whPt the delay was ; asked if I could assist in any way. He said no; it was al) right ; they had stopped because he wished to buy sago ; they'd be off tomorrow at daylight. I got back to the boat then. Miss Treacher," he spoke carefully, seeming to weigh his words even more than usual "Miss Treacher stayed behind for a while; I waited for her." . "Was she " I stopped; it was difficult diffi-cult to phrase. "There appeared," said Bassett pr clsely. "to be something in the natur of a friendly understanding between her and Mr. Spicer. I gathered an impression that she was pointing out to hlra something In connection with the course of the Romlliy river." On purred the launch ; the stars felt away right and left from her wake. Going forward, where I could be more or less alone, I sat on deck, and digested di-gested as best I could this unwelcome news. It did not help matters, or make me more hopeful, that I heard, once In a way, a sound like some one, down below, trying to stifle bit ter weeping. (TO BE CONTINUED) CHAPTER VIII Continued 15 Wen If Jinny had not spoiled It for me, I had had a fair chance of tearing tear-ing the heart out of Grace's secret, sweethearts notwithstanding. I might have a chance yet. At all events, I would not give up while a shred of hope remained. On that resolution, I went to sleep. Next morning there was fine music, when the carriers got to work clearing and felling the timber we wanted for rafts. Jinny stood beside me on the river bank, tall and thin and motionless motion-less as one of the long palms that grew In the sheltered verge of the bush. Her beautiful, hungry face, with Its avid eyes, was fixed oil the sliding Romlliy river. The sound of the carriers' clearing had shifted farther away; hack, hack, went the axes, dully, muffled by dlstunce. There was a pause; through It arose, exultantly, ex-ultantly, the voice of a Mambore cannibal can-nibal singing the death song of the tree. . . . Followed a rending crash, and shouts In chorus. There la something In the fall of a great tree that lets things loose; things that have nothing to do (on the surface) with trees. Genevieve Treacher had been one woman in the Instant before that crash. In the Instant after, she was another another an-other of the many Jinnies, to know all of whom would have needed great part of any man's days; would have beeen worth It . . . perhaps. . . . She swung round from the river; she faced me, tall as I, filled, as I, with the fires and forces of youth ; strong, supple, as a tigress, brave as a tigress, a woman made for the wilds, if ever one was so made. "I'm not askln' marriage, Phil Amory," she said. "I'm askin' I'm askln' Just a hut down somewhere at the mouth of the river, and me waitin' for you to come back, since you won't have me on the trip. And I'll stick to you and follow you " She fought for breath. "You pulled me away from the sharks," she said. "You sent your trip to blazes and never cared. You're the first real man I've ever ever Phil, will you leave me in that hut when you go?" She was as modest, almost virginal, In her self-betrayal as any girl. I don't know how, but In that moment I recognized a truth that, so far, had not come my way. I realized how such a woman as Jinny may regenerate regen-erate herself; I realized, with a wrench of soul and body painful beyond be-yond all telling, that I, and no other, was the man to help her to It. But between us stood the wrath of Pla, my white rose, my star, Pia who some day, God willing, should pass the ivory gate of dreams with me, into a paradise of which I was unworthy, which, nevertheless, I could not give up, if the salvation of a hundred Jinnies stood In the way. If there had never been a Pla. . . . Jinny, like many flame-haired, flame-spirited flame-spirited women, was ever-so-little clairvoyant. She read my thought. "Phil strlte, Phil," she said. "Is It because of me goln' gay, same as you yourself have gone, I'll lay that you won't? Because, if that's all " I couldn't answer her. I put my hands on her wide, thin shoulders ; her face was on a level with ray own, and I kissed it. "You're the best girl In all the world, and I love you, Jinny," Jin-ny," I said. Unerringly, she read my meaning through my words. "I'm the best girl but one?" she said. , To deny Pia was to trample on the cross of my faith. "Yes," I answered, feeling as If 1 had struck her. . "Then, If there hadnt been any Miss Laurlers In the world, It'd 'a been all right with you and me?" I could not answer her. There was no need. She flung me away with a suddenness and strength that all but sent me down among the trampled palm leaves by the river side. She was transformed. Instantly, into a hag of the streets. As she might look in twenty years' time, battered, destroyed, so she looked now, In one awful moment mo-ment of prophecy. She gave a scream that reminded me of the screams of torn horses during the war, and ran wildly down the bank of the river. I don't know where she thought she was going maybe to a spot further on, where the current swept, deep and oily, past a high corner of the bank where, If she had leaped, the alligators alli-gators would have had her before I or any other, could have done anything any-thing to help but she was, in another moment, checked, as I was checked In my pursuit, by the amazing, unexpected unex-pected sight of a government launch on a lower reach of the river, rapidly heading towards myself and Jinny. They stopped as soon as they saw us, and slung out a dinghy. I saw Bassett was in charge. The launch was drifting with the current ; Bassett Bas-sett secured her by a cable passed round a tree, before he came up to j me and to Jinny, who was standing white, staring, but more or less self-t self-t possessed, a little distance away. "Well," he said, with a certain forced cheerfulness, "so you've saved me half my trip ; that's very obliging of you." "May one ask," I demanded, "what the blazes the government Is doing up here?" "You can ask without the blazes. The government has business anywhere. any-where. We've been sent up to save this young lady from being carried off by cannibals like th ttf' i" ft picture "I'm Not Askin' Marriage, Phil Amory," She Said. ! again I calculated that the government govern-ment would owe me so much for doing its work at my own cost. Half a day for contingencies. Two days to get through my four days' cut in the bush. . . . Eight days in all from now ought to see me should see me, if I were alive once more at the point where I had turned back. If there was no one ahead of me "I suppose," I said to the waiting Bassett, "that you didn't see any sign of another party on the river." Bassett was busy lighting a cigarette. cig-arette. "You suppose wrong then," he said, his head bent over his hands. "There's a prospecting and exploring party down at the river mouth at this minute." min-ute." He did not look at me as he spoke. Bassett was is a little gentleman. gen-tleman. "How soon can we get .away?" was my reply. "As soon as you can chuck your carriers car-riers on board, and get you and this lady on." He kicked me, slyly, and I replied, as intended, with an Introduction to Jinny. "I'm sorry to offer you such rough accommodation, Miss Treacher," he apologized, fixing her with his grave ministerial stare. "Eut you are fairly lucky to be alive this minute, which I suppose Is some compensation." "Do you?" said Jinny. "I don't," and turned her back on him. I could only tap my forehead, and nod significantly sig-nificantly at Bassett. "The bush," I explained, as he moved a little away. It was explanation enough, for anyone any-one who saw less clearly through a |
