| Show S gold CHAPTER VII continued 14 go easy I 1 told her were going to have a real picnic trip down the river no hurry everything pleasant theres 1 here 8 nothing to cry about and noth lg ing to get in a paddy about im going to talk to the carriers take any ra rugs 0 you want out of my swag while stifle 11 im m away I 1 left her alone sitting there a for lorn slim figure in the new sun of bf the adry adny that was to have begun my march to victory all the great bush was awake and getting to its business of the day it caro care that my abbl eions were wrecked and my plans of yours years thrown into the romilly river I 1 had find new neter questioned tor for an instant the necessity laid upon me to take jinny safely bark back to save her from the consequent es of her folly at any cost but I 1 could not pret pretend erid to myself bol however vever much I 1 might pretend to her ber that I 1 was glad it meant the using up of my stores the going hack back to darn to refit losing the carriers was possible they might desert as soon as they saw the sea and I 1 should have to recruit oer again weeks of delay months maybe and all the time all the time I 1 A thought struck me hard I 1 was re packing some of the hoys boys loads when this idea came to me all the time I 1 said to myself all the time somebody else would be getting aay I 1 think I 1 enn can agree alib jinny in calling him a swine I 1 found her walting waiting by the baggage she had token taken a shirt and a pair of trousers out of my swag and dressed li himself hiT self in them throwing away her rags she had smoothed tier her hair with my comb and washed tier her face nith what I 1 inferred to be the last of our drinking water no matter I 1 could send a boy or two to fetch more from the bottom of the gorge what stint was time now the queerest mixture of kindliness and anger filled my heart when 1 I looked at her after all if what I 1 sus ported was true she was scarce at fill all to blame after all she had risked her life was ready to go on risking it lust just tor for the doubtful blessing of my society was it a crime no ko by all the gods no matter what it had bad cost me yet the way to the romilly river was easier than it had bad been coining up ap we got there in two days clays and camped to make rafts since no canoes were now cow available and on the first of the nights of our camp jinny and 1 I came to an explanation CHAPTER VIII we were seated upon the platform of jinnys jinnis tent fly which had been mine 1 I slept with the carriers now she sat with her legs legi crossed playing an improvised baijo and mimicking ft y the sound with closed lips very clev erly if one had felt disposed for such cleverness I 1 was not so disposed feell feeling ng indeed a good deal more like going down to the romilly Ito milly and drown ing myself in it than listening to revue tricks but I 1 respected the pluck that set the improvised banjo to a seeming twanging somehow she influenced me drove the dark mood away somehow by and by bj she had bad me laughing and the great dark about us pressed less heavily the world narrowed suddenly to a cosy small tent with a lantern anil and a pretty girl lighting it up almost equally we had had little talk on the way down from the hills but now with a day or two of waiting before us while rafts were made it seemed to me that I 1 owed her something she thought me hard unkind I 1 want to be a churl it about jinny I 1 asked her as she ended her play the tor for want me to go out and buy you a pair of silk stockings she inu laughed bed stretched out her shapely dancers leg disguised in my khaki trousers 1 I dont want anything off you she elie said suddenly grave at least not anything want to give me this side ot of the grave ive made up tip my mind to tell you yon all about everything all about my comin along after you I 1 mean well wall the beginning of it was that day when you yon talked to me on thursday island and said no woman go exploring that put me in a bit of a paddy because of course I 1 believe it and 1 I dont either cither well let that go I 1 cut tn in a trifle wearily I 1 knew I 1 should never succeed in making jinny see the truth well I 1 was waa feeling pretty bad about it after you went and it just cume came into my head I 1 dono how that id get a bont boat and run ron over to the other side arid and see like how bow things were going on with you and your trip of course sir richard Fans liaw lie he was waa deanin ine anin to go co and get whatever it was before you and spicer he be was backing him up id got that much out of 0 the old boy while we was friends lie because vause of course he be wanted to make love to me and I 1 and when they will tell and then the u I 1 found that you ou you there at all at da P ahat what was the place daru ye yes J seems YOU I 1 gone to port fort by after all phil W that fair awful about sir richard drowned 6 did no one ever find eclus S arell you know anything bout ando and rn do site run on with out waiting 8 for when I 1 card gone an there answer I 1 WAI wall hla I 1 WM was that by Be beadrick adrice illustrations by enrin 91 1111 yen copyright by hughes massie co sercios snake headed I 1 bit you yon tm im tellin you all the truth phil I 1 wont want you to go because I 1 knew she would be there and I 1 thought let her get safe married led to yr sir richard kichard and be all right because ashes the milk find inter ater kind that wont ever think of another man again that 8 what I 1 thought so when I 1 heard gone there and he be was dead are you going to marry tier her it burst forth like a cry it if I 1 had bad been angry alth tier her for her slighting voids about ilia I 1 was not augere angered now jinny my dear child who do you think would lime june me for their daughter im as likely to marry miss bliss laurier as you are to marry one of the kings king sons I 1 answered her slie site went sent strut straight lit to the heart of that sophistry yes but it if you was to find something up at Tata tata that was worth fortunes and ald millions 11 1 I am quite sure if I 1 had a million milion tomorrow mrs laurier would riot not like me any the better yes but I 1 thought to myself she would let me marry her daughter she hates the type I 1 represent all wise women hate 4 A 1 7 11 T somehow she influenced me drove drova the dark mood away it its antisocial anti social still it if I 1 were a bolshevik from leningrad with a million in my pocket shed swallow her hatred hand over the girl curse her and all like her this went sent through my mind in a second while jinny was going on 1 I anywhere to stay at daru mrs maidstone Mald stone she give me a bed spicer salcer he was there I 1 know spicer he used to be on the halls years ago but lie he any good at that so he got a job as gent lemans gentleman to sir richard well spicer he said to me why dont you up and after him when he starts hell be back here to get his boys which Is waiting for him says he and then hell be off by the romilly river and it if you take a canoe along the coast says he ill put you up op to all the tricks he says and catch him up before he can get out of the bush country where hell have to cut his way he says and show him he says what you can do after all and who knows he be says now ive told you everything phil amory and more than you want to know so it if kindly leave my little wooden hut to me ill go bye bye leave my little wooden hut for me she parodied shrilly the black forest about us sounded to her high singing I 1 had thanked her and left her and I 1 was alone alone with myself and the knowledge of my wrecked ambitions things on the whole looked worse than I 1 had supposed them to be jinny did not know everything so far as she was aware spicer had been the moving spirit in the plot to stop me and bring roe me back but I 1 guessed the hand of sir richard fanshaw in the mattei if the plan were his it was a good plan fully organized and one might expect developments from it yet yel it 11 was as certain as anything could reasonably be that a rival expedition tion was even now on its way one hope only I 1 had my aly road vaa not the road of the dead miner grace I 1 had used my my knowledge of the coun conn try to beat out a new track iv ill I 1 were right and I 1 was all but sure of that the new way would cut down risk time expense above all enable me to get to Tata TRtat tata ata faster than any one else could faster it might be than any rival trip that had started already I 1 give up all hope hopa of that even dow cow under the hanging hurricane lamp I 1 drew forth my copy of graces last notes written on the day when famine and sickness drove him to turn back with his task still undone grace was wag lending an exploring trip financed by the moneyed partner who wished to solve one of the many unsolved problems of the new guinea back country and incidentally place his somewhat undistinguished name upon the map to cross from the romilly Itom llly to the fly bad been his ambition there was and still ls Is a big unknown area in those parts and jackson had been bitten by the desire most natural as I 1 saw it of finding out ahat kind and who might be in the ur ut traveled space I 1 sat on the end of the sleeping platform under the lamp and pored upon my copy of the words he had written in the bitterest hour of his life january 5 no sago in sight stores very low jackson anxious to turn back at once after dispute agreed one day more boys weak rebellious bel lious dysentery threatening january 6 today at four we turned back urged jackson attempt further travel but he declares himself unfit insists immediate return one carrier died today three in very poor peor condition natives appeared on distant ridge war danced no attack deeply regret necessity return then the passage that gave significance to the whole added hastily in III pencil as it if some reserve some impulse of prudence had suddenly broken down whole formation suggests gold it if so BO have struck biggest jewelers shop ever known jewelers shop a phrase current among papuan miners means a pocket or series of pockets of extreme richness january 9 covered about five miles hard going carriers very weak feet badly cut jackson somewhat better much aluch regret to say jackson killed by natives today evidently belonging to same Tata tata tribe that had threatened us when stopping in stream bed for lunch shower of spears suddenly thrown from dense bush one went through jackson I 1 fired into bush and ordered carriers to do same heard one or two shouts but on entering bush later nothing to be ba seen attended to jackson best I 1 could he did not live three minutes seems to have been hit in heart burled buried him eight feet deep piled boulders on top resumed march reached creek I 1 had bad named jackson about five camped store dysentery among carriers two in bad way the record continued brief and hard relating deaths of carriers further attacks by natives terrible straits for lack of food and lack of water the finding at last of a small patch of sa sao sago O that enabled them to secure enough food for a last rush back to the romilly river grace had written little after that the fever that ended his life some weeks later was burning out his strength day by day and he be was barely able to reach the coast alle all e there at a little trading station he died leaving his gear with the trader and 1 I coming along some while after had bought the stuff for a song graces diary interest the trader who had bad native blood and could barely read and write I 1 was as sure as anyone could be that my eyes were the first to rest upon it 1 I had been absolutely sure till the day I 1 met jinny on thursday island that the very word Tata tata was unknown to any save myself that the suggestion ane possibility ot of immense treasure contained between the lines of graces diary was my secret alone I 1 now that I 1 had passed the trading station again ascended the river no sherlock holmes was needed to tell me how the secret had got out that story was contained in one sentence grace had written to his girl ile he had no doubt hoped to get better get back to her lie ile had done exactly as I 1 had done with pla pia as sir richard fanshaw had done with jinny told his girl his secrets and graces girl had gone eone out in an influenza epidemic not long after but before that she had in her turn told some one who was probably her lover might have been her lover all alou along rans fanshaw baw TO BE BB CONTINUED |
