Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 83, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 January 1920 — Page 7

WWDXrtHDAY, JANUARY 14, IMO

WHITE MAN

By George Agnew Chamberlain

« Author of •Home." “Through Stained Clmi." “J»hn Bonrdu»," etc.

f SYNOP3IS. CHAPTER L—Andrea Pellor, handsome daughter of lx>rd Pellor, impecunious aristocrat. Is doomed to marry an Illiterate but wealthy mfdale-agea diamond mlns owner. She. disconsolately , wanders from her hotel in South Africa and discovers 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 start. v CHAPTER IL—When she realizes her unknown aviator Is not going back Andrea In desperation tries to choke him with 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 tq worship to her mysterious companion. She is given a slave boy, "Bathtub," and the White 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 civilization 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 fold 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 bls apparently ruthless slaughtering of animals. He Is providing for the force of blacks he employs and who look to him for sustenance. CHAPTER V.—Andrea, worrying over her deplorable lack of change of clothing, is surprised and deligffted when a trunk, loaded with everything in the way s of clothing dear to the feminine heart, is dropped at her doorway by stalwart natives and she Is told by white Man that they are hers. White Man by a skillful shot saves her from the attack of a sable bull and she Is fast becoming reconciled to her fate after eight days in the craal.

He started to nail her to the traditions of her sex but something truly pleading In the tone of her voice made him turn boldly to the personal, after I all, and however much we may jeer at it, the ultimate measure of sincerity. "I will,” he said. “If ever Pm bent on plundering the heart of a woman, I’ll travel the highroad of surrender in the company of ravage and love. I’ll give and still give and with each giving will grow the heaped mountain of my demands. You see it, don’t you? That’s justifiable plunder.” Andrea’s cheeks flushed, her eyes were dreamy with new thoughts and old emotions. While the supply of the vast larder and the supervision of the fiber camp formed the major part of M’sungo’s untiring industry they were by no means the total of his affairs. Watching him, Andrea soon learned why he never lunched. He hadn’t the time; too many things pressed to his attention. He was a governor on no mean scale and during the midday rest hour he would pass from group to group settling all those disputes which could be determined without recourse to legal argument. In this manner he sifted to a miniiflum the cases to come before the solemn conclave of chiefs. On the first occasion that Andrea witnessed this tribal ceremony which occurred monthly at a certain stage of the moon, she began by feeling huffed but, lacking an audience for her inood, soon gave it up for one of scornful amusement which, in turn, surrendered to an Interest that almost amounted to awe. The day in question began with the curt information from M’sungo, who Speared carefully groomed and, for the first time in her experience, dressed in punctilious mufti, that she would have to amuse herself for twelve hours without his aid. Mystified, she awaited developments, and they came—rapidly. Under the great acacia was placed a table and behind it a camp armchair. To the right and left of this throne of justice stood in a crescent fourteen other seats of varying dignity—chairs, petroleum cases, kerosene tins and an Inverted bucket—for every native king, be he monarch of but one village, has.the right to sit in the presence of authority, whatever its grade. The white man took the armchair and Immediately, to the rumble of a dozen tom-toms, a horde of natives —all men —swarmed into the beaten court of the craal. Those natives who lacked the royal hall-mark were squatting on their heels in a vast mass of serrated and concentric circles of which the innermost left an open space whose periphery was determined by the exact circumference of the wide-spreading branches of the tree. Andrea coughed softly but M’sungo did not look up—in fact, nobody looked up. It was exactly as though she were not. She slipped to the trunk of a tree and leaned on one hand placed against It. 1 Somehow It seemed an only friend In "an empty world. The preliminary palaver was a matter of tnuch leisurely ,ceremony, guttural pronouncements, grunts, pauses, more monologues, repeated grunts;

but, once it was over, M’sungo settled back with a sigh and started dispens-

Dispensing Justice With a Breathless Rush.

ing justice with a breathless rush that reminded one of the manner in which he dispatched game. It seemed to Andrea that he never waited to hear more than the statement of the offense whep he would immedlately,pronouncs sentence. “Twenty lashes; next! Thirty lashes; next 1 Twelve lashes; ne±t,” at the rate of about a case for every two minutes. Nine times out of ten the victhn would smile sheepishly and withdraw; in the tenth case there would come a look of sullen wonder into the culprit’s face, whereupon the white man would promptly call a halt and demand more evidence. Such cases were then allotted half an hour<and even an hour each, and without exception resulted in the acquittal of the prisoner at the bar, Andrea was suddenly aware of M’sungo’s voice indubitably addressed to her though he kept his eyes to the front and spoke in a toneless monologue as if he were communing with himself. “Behold! Psychology on the job,” he said. “Watch their faces. Every native that knows his sentence to be just, takes ft with*an apologetic smile; if he looks sullen, the chances are a hundred to one that he’s innocent. I’ve never gone wrong. They think I’m a wonder. Next!” One case alone that day was apparently interminably. When at last it was completed M’sungo dropped his eyes for the first time and sat for a long while with bowed head; then he drew erect, looked the prisoner in the eye and spoke three words. A gray hue .crepES into the black’s face as he turned away. “I have surrendered him to the justice of his tribe,” murmured M’sungo. “Poor devif!” And Andrea knew that she had witnessed the precursor to an inevitable sentence of death.

That night M’sungo was too tired to talk and excused himself Immediately after dinner. Andrea read until her eyes ached and then went to bed wondering if she were feeling only slighted or if existence were actually beocoming Monotonous. She shrank from the latter admission for she knew that, once made, it would shatter the longest run of sheer peace of spirit which she had experienced in her short but much bored life. She need pot have worried. When she stepped out early next morning dressed for the field in compliance with a message from M’sungo to put on her roughest and toughest she was so excited that even the memory of her doubt was blotted from her mind. Something was in the air of the craal that could be felt rather than heard, the sort of something that one could Imagine possessing a hive just before It begaii to hum.

M’sungo was already sitting under the dining tree engaged in a diminutive palaver witli three wizened blaqfcs who squatted on the ground squinting up at him and speaking in turn in answer to his patient questioning. Around them but at a respectful distance were gathered various members of the camp’s personal staff. On the faces of the wizened three and also on M’sungo’s was the same’ look of fanatical exaltation, the look that proclaims any group of diverse men brothers at heart. “What Is it?” asked Andrea, breathless from hurrying. “Elephant,” replied M’sungo. He drew a chair to hj# side. “Sit down,” he said softly as one whose mind is half-narcotized and fearful of losing the dream, “Watch and listen, for these men bring great tidings.” He smiled almost like a boy. One of the wizened produced a thin wand, about twenty inches in length, freshly broken at one,end. He passed it to his companions; who stared at it as though they saw it for the first instead of the hundredth time, fingered it, gurgled over it and finally gravely M’sungo. He went through more or less the same pjocess and returned it to the man who first produced it with what was apparently a Blighting remark. The man glanced up with a pained look on his face, arose, laid the wand

THE TWICE-A-WEEK DEMOCRAI

on the ground as a measure and with laborious fingers began to trace a mighty oval. M’sungo leaned across the table and gaxed with fascinated eye; Andrea, watching him, could see the pulse throbbing at his temples. He was a new M’sungo, somebody young, approachable, lovable, an eager boy. She leaned close to his shoulder. “Please. White Man,” she murmured, “please tell me.” - ■ Without turning he put one hand out and grasped her wrist as though to still her. “The little man,” he< explained, “is drawing the spoor of a mighty beast. Look at it and learn it by beat t, for it will be a photograph." ■ Having completed the circumference of his oval, the native was making various tracings on Its face, dividing it as with a maze of tracks. When he had apparently finished, he sank on his heels and gazed critically at his handiwork. “Watch,” said M’sungo? "Before he gets up, he’ll put in some mark, some distinctive feature that distinguishes this spoor from all others.” No- sooner had he spoken than the black leaned forward and with a sure touch deepened two of the cracks till they formed a long narrow V mnnlng diagonally half across the oval. That done he turned abruptly from his drawing. Joined his comrades, turped

KANE DEWS 11 Great Quantities Of Food Seized~~ IREGUIATORY FOOD i TH® POWER IS NEEDED ID CHEEK GOUGERS - IU UIIL.UII that he intended to. P M CT L. Problem, ' ,higher prices than those listed Handicapped by?Cobke'« , Re- Administrator to Reorganize Wartime Fair-Price Board/He Says, 284,i50 pounds of cottes, whjWß J J - 7 < *nd in Birmingham 100 'ATTORNEY’S OUTYTOSTOPj I “* ' Profiteering, says heinz; Ay yPrpsoeutbr Answer Questions Concern* Penn , v ivania. in an interview with ing Action In Other.Citiee rfXX I' • ■ ■ ■— , An bis power to indwell Withthe housewives ’tillto reorganize Clamoring for .direct, vigorous act;# / ’ b < ,ardß ’' M requczted against tlie food gougers, whom X attorney genbfal. hold responsible for'the undernoui/7//-, „ XSEwfiiKM his opinion, that inCnt of their children, Francis 11 fl (If f////// nb/i .boards will be se<!Kane, United States district attd I * upon the high coat declared yesterday Ue KNBJyMrxlhftt it regts with th® check profiteering.' r / / I t 0 as,utn ’ regulatory • Mr. Kane complained he A I/. ’"XX .dak 9 J /fl/ entire system, of food bly handicaped by the refuay. C j 1 Cooke, formerly food , refusal of Jay Cooke. Philadelphia, toXeorganiz/ .Vdniinistrator fur Pblla-fair-price board. That/VV [Illi!1 It flt ' •V<» J Vcturn to this city from of publicity, Ought to/■ r, J waMtlll// r n? /«nd reorganize tho fair profiteers, he said. / !S'/ Mr lle,nx expressed < But Howard Mr Cook® may yet ba tor -for Penney 1 vaniaE| assuine that burden. Mr. Kane on that point^n^r Cooke, in a talk over the Siew* with the Public wire last night said ha urgh last night iu his determination not to Although,he was making duties as .food admiobhave, fair- price boards rie • ivri 1 1 that would War f, Ovtr> B<y , Cooke thorities from J? w „ u ove r.” said Mr. Cookt. ittorte/ T* that the Lever ,food-X»ntrol It 1/1111 ob ot tooi administrator, prove to be effective in cases ofrMk~2\.*. /fl/rf! 71 ] F —L— that office during tba Ing as distinct from' situation may bo an reiterated that it would-be .extAWfVft hllf . r rßn '» difficult to prove-violations. in* R t Mr. Kane acknowledges that J-h. JI Are inordinately hiW Ignoring > J Lk S bo a price of meats,. regarding which ,RobeHs|S|nMß|^ t f/ 7 SW* A—« .. .H c ~o la 'h® l , wouia 0 • M>-Simmers, agent of the,State find Dairy Department and government IV.V. — aw-rrt AlinnrAlAU food-and. drug Inspector, has given him *MsaaßSßSgKßcag!iaißSW V* lcef - INP| ATFD CURRrNCf a miss of evidence, he aaid; th»g * the|i l price* of oreenjvegetables arejterrible. k< pail st. <■ Breflu 1 almost aB B 14 A ► i B Untwi B n theory T AST season’s suit still holds together and we can half- ■mtioo r f£ sole our shoes. And you can still buy a big generous Lieit. tin of the jolliest old pipe tobacco that ever came down the pike, without mortgaging the old homestead. Hooray! fc iddfc two clasM flow?. TB , _ B asaumpSaAUI Good old Kentucky is still growing Velvets honest fra- ■ o l X D t’ak« grant leaf. We’re still ageing Velvet in the wood.. Velvet’s Just 38 smooth and mellow ancJ mild 38 ft ever was - T he &quality’s there and the quantity’s there just the same. Ku/m Jem, tooß Bf gold and sultß B fe - Take the “cost” out of the “high post of living” and what Stb do you get? Why, “high living” of course. Well, sir, that’s . ttw?re J what Velvet does. K rggz wen ■ riopinion B B dollar ” Shitl It S 1356 VelVGt J°® SayS: x K [over 1 ?!; EH a ®®» tbiflwß ' * “Anybody can* tell you how much Velvet costs. But only K».” ,few yo’ old pipe can tell you how much Velvet is worth. ” fbacVu rU&’i _ , , . . you can I There * goodneM knows how Bmylhere. Mrs. B many pipe loads in every tin I Tbirty-aB of Velvet. Or if you want the - "beanufiH mildest cigarette ever—there’s »colder that, IB 45 big ones in every tin. K govern, go wherß Bb coat at Seema toB Hiesday by prices a»Bt a.D .ba;; nmnD i. .nojf Jfi JiuU j O3 a o.u , / -B . ahbually._.sre. still subject tsi Vwk that 1 know oL " ||tyßlJoo_ftgfl, i lirmHiV.mnltrV tho" <n*«l ■ tyirirrpl

his back on M’sungo and unstopperlng • cartridge case, proceeded to take snuff 1 . M’sungo straightened with a long quivering sigh, “it is well,” he said in dialect. “We wile go.” The three wizened men nodded their heads many times* and grunted. With no further gunbearers, water boys, trackers and Marguerite’s attendant scattered to their various preparations, hindered by excited women and children. The camp hummed. Bathtub slapped breakfast on the table and then stood on one foot, then on the other in impatience. On the faces of all was the same half-smile, the same look of suppressed but mighty anticipation. % M’sungo ate a few mouthfuls but they seemed to choke him. He pushed back his plate, stuffed his pipe full and lit It. His eyes played over Andrea’s face and fired hers with their own brilliance. When he spoke every word thrilled her as though this Wonderful morning were surcharged with an emotional, current sensitive to every £ound and movement. “Andrea Pellor,” he said with a happy twinkle of,mock solemnity In his glance, “you are about to be initiated Into the mysteries of the major guild of many centuries, the closest corporation of snort in the world: in three

words, the society or eiepuant nuniers. You will probably witness death and I hope and pray it will be the death of the hunted, but fdt the comfort of your soft heart let me tell you that today we go forth not to slaughter but to battle.” He turned his eyes from her face and continued in a more serious etrain: “The hunting of elephant is a sciencA It is a crescendo of delicately balanced factors that starts from two distant points and beginning on a cool foundation of mutual respect passes upward through stages of intelligence against intelligence, caution for caution, perseverance on the heels of endurance, until it meets on the high plane of naked courage and sweeps to Its tragic climax of whitehot battle and death.” His eyes came back to hers frankly. “Like all the great sciences," he continued, “It has used the Ilves of valiant men for stepping-stones so that we who go out today are backed by the age-long sacrifice of a noble company. Looking back only to the days of black powder and the four-bore rifle we are mere pygmies, but pygmies carried high on the crest of an ancient tradition. It’s because we have an accumulation of knowledge to lean upon that I’m willing to take you with me today if you’ll promise to sur-

render yourself to me, to do just exactly what I tell you and no more and no less.” Eyes wide and Intent, cheeks flushed and lips parted, Andrea was too e»to speak. She threw out both bands toward him In a gesture of abandon and with an imploring gravity that made her look as though she were giving herself into bls keeping not for • day but for all time. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Charles scnieman, living 4 mllaa northwest of Rensselaer, will have a big general sale Feb. 19, also closing out bls pure-bred herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle and 80 head of pure-bred Duroc hogs, including 30 bred sows and gilts. 131

General Auctioneer I am experienced in the Auction business, having conducted some of the largest sales In the county with success. I am a judge of values and will make an honest effort to 1 get the high dollar. Write or wire for terms and dates at my expense. J. R. Brandenburg Phone 100-11 Francesville, Ind.

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