Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 79, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 December 1919 — WHITE MAN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WHITE MAN

By George Agnew Chamberlain

Author of "Home,” “Through Stained Glass,” “Mm Bogardus.” etc.

nuiiiiiiiiiiiuiii*****'**'**'*******'”'****' 1 "* Oopyrl<ht, I*lo, The Bobba-MerrlU Company Ft SYNOPSIS. CHAPTER I.—Andrea Pellor, handsome Bter of Tzird Pellor, Impecunious srat, is doomed to marry an illltbut wealthy middle-aged diamond owner. She disconsolately wanders her hdtel in South Africa and dlsl an aviator about to fly from the beach. Impulsively, of course imagining (that the trip will be merely a pleasant excursion, and a welcome relief from thoughts of her Impending loveless marriage, she begs to be taken for a flight, although she does not know him. He somewhat unwillingly agrees, and they •tart. CHAPTER ll.—When she realises her .unknown aviator is not golag back Anti rea in desperation tries to choke him jwlth one of her stockings. He thwarts her and they sail on Into the very heart of Africa. Landing in an Immense craal, •Andrea finds the natives all bow in worship to her mysterious companion. She is given a slave boy, “Bathtub," and the iWhlte Man sets about building a hut for 'her. CHAPTER lll.—Andrea Is given a glimpse of the home which Is to be hers, and wonders at its completeness. White Man invites her to dinner that evening, and in spite of the fact that he has refused to take her back to civilisation Andrea accepts his Invitation, but he continues deaf to her pleading that he restore her to her friends. CHAPTER IV.—Andrea Is awakened from sound sleep next morning by loud pounding on her doorway and is told to prepare for a day’s hunt with White Man. She thoroughly enjoys the exciting trip and begins to understand more of he "host’s" character and the reason for his apparently ruthless slaughtering of animals. He Is providing for the force of blacks he employs and who look to him for sustenance.

-•All right,” said Andrea with a quick shrug of one shoulder. “But you’ve known lots of women, haven’t you?” “You exaggerate,” he answered, smiling. “I’ve met lots of women.” “Pshaw!" said Andrea. “That’s another old crock of a shibboleth. Some men know lots about women—a jolly height too much.” “That’s different from knowing women,” said M’sungo quietly. “It’s no shibboleth, that old belief. Woman, to man, is an eternal voyage of discovery—a land of valleys and peaks, of lights and shadows, of storm and aching peace. Continents and oceans are lost in her untraveled heart, and When she throws wide her arms, the Way is open to Heaven and Hell.” “I’m going to bed,” murmured Andrea, and stole away. * It was just as well for Andrea that she had gone early to bed, for at five O’clock of the next morning a rock was hurled at her door that almost burst it in. “Didn't that get her?” yelled M’sungo’s voice from half across the kraal. “No, Master,” answered Bathtub. “Missis sleep plenty hard, same like pickanin.” She slipped on her bathrobe, opened the door and put out her head. “Were you calling me?” she asked with early morning dignity. “Not exactly,” answered the white man in the same tone. “Breakfast in twenty minutes; bath when you come home.” He turned to gjrve orders to a group of his captains. Andrea was instantly thrilled to the new adventure. She called to Bathtub to bring her washstand and water and rubbed one bare foot against the other tn impatience until he was out of the way; then she dressed feverishly and ran out.

In ten minutes they had breakfasted; in five more they were off. A long line of blacks preceded them, behind came M’sungo’s gunbearer, water boys, Bathtub, a carrier or two, and an ancient donkey half hidden under an enormous cowboy saddle. “What a funny looking old donkey 1” remarked Andrea. “What’s he for?” “For you, when you get tired," answered M’sungo. “Really! For me?” said Andrea. "What’s his name?” M’sungo threw back his head and laughed softly. “Why,” he said, "I never thought I’d have to tell any one when I named him. We call him Marguerite. I named him after a friend of mine.” “Was she as ugly as all that?” “Oh, no. She’s about the prettiest woman I ever knew, but she was just Hire him inside. Try to head him off Bome time.” “The best way to bead off a woman,” mused Andrea, “is to marry her.” “That’s so,” agreed M’sungo promptly, “but friendship has limits.” They were necessarily walking In single file on the narrow path and was behind him. She looked quizzically at his back and wished she /could see his face Instead. But her 'attention was soon drawn to other things. They had come to the fringe iof the forest Spaced from two to throe hundred yards apart and set well /out from the shadow of the trees were mysterious piles of something or other that shone straw-gold under the mornInykun. At the first of the heaps M’sungo /•topped. “This,” he said, kicking at Lithe silky colls, “18 the greatest sub'■titute tor hemp and sisal that the

world has yet produced, 'me war nas made it worth—well, not quite Its weight in gold, unless you measure It .by sheer profits on the cost of production. It Is nothing but the bark of the temba trees which make up the bulk of all the forests in this region, prepared by hand on a process of my own.” Andrea looked at the endless piles of fiber, tons and tons of it, stretching away like the poets In a prairie fence. “And you say this is a secret f she asked incredulously He smiled. “It is so far," he answered. “But if you knew all the facts you wouldn't find it so wonderful. In the first place this spot Is cut off on nearly all sides by waterless wilderness. In the only direction that isn't true, which is straight down the river, there is a wild sone that In four hundred years has never been pacified by the European dominance of the province. Those unsubdued tribes have been my friends In times past and are my allies today. No white man but myself, has ever crossed their boundaries and lived; consequently they can tell no tales to my harm. Do you begin to see?" Andrea nodded. “Then at the coast,” he continued, “just wltlfin the mouth of the river, I have a blind In the way of a sisal plantation. That gives the excuse for a steamer with machinery, say, to come In without arousing suspicion.” “So you are a profiteer on the way to making a war fortune,” commented Andrea. He flushed more deeply than she had yet seen him. “If you stay here long enough,” he said stoutly, “you may understand.” He turned from her and plunged at right angles into the forest. She followed him into the chill air under the great trees. All too soon Andrea came out with him into a wide clearing which, simultaneously with their arrival, began to ring to the blows of many axes. Through all its length it swarmed with blacks at work; some felling trees, some stripping them of bark, others gathering it, and still others stacking the bared wood and cleaning up the general litter according to the most approved rules of modern forestry.

They walked up the wide swath of the clearing slowly, with many stops on the part of M’sungo to encourage, direct or criticize. They passed beyond the ringing of the axes into a region pungent with the smell of burning greenwood. Along one side, the side away from the fringe of the forest, was a long line of smoke spirals. He waved at them. “D’ you see what they’re doing? Our axes ran out, so here we’re felling in the old native way with a ring of fire at the foot of each doomed tree.” By eight o’clock the sun was at its full strength and Andrea was thankful indeed for her pith helmet; by ten she was thinking that noontime would never come. M’sungo was too engrossed with his work to notice her. She kept on, riding her nerve, until she felt that in another moment she must topple over; then she laid a quivering hand on his arm. He turned quickly, looked at her face gone white in spite of the heat and cursed himself aloud. He led her through the fringe of the forest to the deep shade at its open edge, made her lie down and showed her that a helmet, right side up on the ground, makes an excellent pillow. ‘Tm off. Promise you won’t be lonely, for it will be hours before I get back.” Andrea’s lower lip trembled. “Aren’t you coming for lunch?” He looked down at her and shook his head. “There may come days of picnics, youngster, but they’re a long way off.” “Please come back,” she Insisted. He met her eyes with a hardened gaze. “There’s not a woman living,” he said slowly, “that will let a man work when she’s around —if she can help it.”

“You’re thinking of people in love,” said Andrea to start an argument and gain time. “Of course I was,” said the man on the instant. “Can’t you let me work?” “Beast,” said Andrea and rolled over on her side, one moist hand for a pillow in place of the hard helmet. She did not watch him go, she did not see Bathtub and another boy arrive with table, chair and lunch basket, all In a single small load, for before It happened she was fan away In the land of Nod. When stfe awoke she was sorry, for awake the hot hours passed on laggard feet. At midday she ate; then she tried to read, but by four in the afternoon she was desperate for something to do. She determined to sleep again, and just as she was dozing off a whisper came to her—one of those carefully measured whispers that reach the Intended ear and go no farther. “Missis!” i She turned. “What is it?” she asked. “Gashly! Missis,” breathed Bathtub, and the agony in his appeal to her to go slow was so eloquent that she caught the spirit, if not the meaning of'the word. She raised her head ever so carefully and looked out over the plain. “Oh!” she murmured. A quarter of a mile away a band of sable were grazing, and in a moment she could tell that they were feeding directly toward her. “Oh 1” she breathed again, “oh, you beauties!” Closer and closer grazed the herd, stepping daintily from tuft to tuft of fodder. Their black and white faces, the sweep of their drching horns, their brown bodies that glistened in the sun as though they had been groomed, their nervous flicking bobbed tails, their incredibly slim legs, combined all. the attributes of fascination-—

bekuty, vigor, strength, motion—and filled the eyes of the watchers to overflowing. ' .... In the van of the herd stepped a mighty bull, his tiny hoofs lltlng high as though he boasted that his weight was really nothing. Straight toward the forest and Andrea he led his little army until presently she could smell the stable odor of their bodies. Her heart was beating like a trip hammer. She tried to hold her breath. Her bosom rose and fell in a fluttering undulation. The bull looked up and saw her. His horns went back and

he squatted, hesitating on the brink of the mighty spring of fright. In his eyes was a gleam unbelievably wicked. Then the crack of a rifle, the thud of a bullet in flesh, a body hurled Into the air by the death-throe and falling in a heap, legs doubled up, neck outstretched, blood gurgling from nostrils and mouth I Andrea buried her face in her lap, trying to blot out the sight from her eyes, and sobbed as though her heart were breaking. She did not hear the wild cry of Bathtub, nor see his crazy gyrations about the prostrate brute,, but when the white man spoke het mind leaped to meet the justification in his words, without which she felt she could never have looked upon his face again. “Stop your crying,” he said sharply. “When a sable bull gets as close as that, there’s no telling which way he’s going to go.” (TO BE CONTINUED.)

In His Eyes Was a Gleam Unbelievably Wicked.