The Human Zero. The Science Fiction Stories of Erle Stanley Gardner

Is “Rain Magic” fact or fiction? I wish I knew.

Some of it is fiction, I know, because I invented connecting incidents and wove them into the yarn. It’s the rest of it that haunts me. At the time I thought it was just a wild lie of an old desert rat. And then I came to believe it was true.

Anyhow, here are the facts, and the reader can judge for himself.

About six months ago I went stale on Western stories. My characters became fuzzy in my mind; my descriptions lacked that intangible something that makes a story pack a punch. I knew I had to get out and gather new material.

So I got a camp wagon. It’s a truck containing a complete living outfit — bed, bath, hot and cold water, radio, writing desk, closet, stove, et cetera. I struck out into the trackless desert, following old, abandoned roads, sometimes making my own roads. I was writing as l went, meeting old prospectors, putting them on paper, getting steeped in the desert environment.

February 13 found me at a little spring in the middle of barren desert. As far as I knew there wasn’t a soul within miles.

Then I heard steps, the sound of a voice. I got up from my typewriter, went to the door. There was an old prospector getting water at the spring. But he wasn’t the typical desert rat. I am always interested in character classification, and the man puzzled me. I came to the conclusion he’d been a sailor.

So I got out, shook hands, and passed the time of day. He was interested in my camp wagon, and l took him in, sat him down, and smoked for a spell. Then l asked him if he hadn’t been a sailor.

I can still see the queer pucker that came into his eyes as he nodded.

Now sailors are pretty much inclined to stay with the water. One doesn’t often find a typical sailor in the desert. So I asked him why he’d come into the desert.

He explained that he had to get away from rain. When it rained he got the sleeping sickness.

That sounded like a story, so I made it a point to draw him out. It came, a bit at a time, starting with the Sahara dust that painted the rigging of the ship after the storm, and winding up with the sleeping sickness that came back whenever he smelled the damp of rain-soaked vegetation.

I thought it was one gosh-awful lie, but it was a gripping, entertaining lie, and l thought I could use it. I put it up to him as a business proposition, and within a few minutes held in my possession a document which read in part as follows:

After that I set about taking complete notes of his story. I still thought it was a lie, an awful lie.

Like all stories of real life in the raw it lacked certain connecting incidents. There was no balance to it. It seemed disconnected in places.

Because l intended to make a pure fiction story out of it, I didn’t hesitate to fill in these connections. I tried to give it a sweep of unified action, and I took some liberties with the facts as he had given them to me. Yet, in the main, l kept his highlights, and I was faithful to the backgrounds as he had described them.

Because he had just recovered from a recurrence of the sleeping sickness, I started the story as it would have been told to a man who had stumbled onto the sleeping form in the desert. It was a story that “wrote itself.” The words just poured from my fingertips to the typewriter. But I was writing it as fiction, and I considered it as such.

Not all of what he told me went into the story. There was some that dealt with intimate matters one doesn’t print. There was some that dealt with tribal customs, markings of different tribes, et cetera, et cetera. In fact, I rather avoided some of these definite facts. Because I felt the whole thing was fiction, I was rather careful to keep from setting down definite data, using only such as seemed necessary.

Then, after the story had been written and mailed, after l had returned to headquarters, I chanced to get some books dealing with the locality covered in the story, telling of tribal characteristics, racial markings, et cetera.

To my surprise, l found that every fact given me by the old prospector was true. I became convinced that his story was, at least, founded on fact.

And so I consider “Rain Magic” the most remarkable story l ever had anything to do with. I’m sorry I colored it up with fiction of my own invention. I wish I’d left it as it was, regardless of lack of connective incident and consistent motivation.

Somewhere in the shifting sands of the California desert is an old prospector, hiding from the rain, digging for gold, cherishing lost memories. His sun-puckered eyes have seen sights that few men have seen. His life has been a tragedy so weird, so bizarre that it challenges credulity. Yet of him it can be said, “He has lived.”

— Erle Stanley Gardner

Chapter 1 Through the Breakers

No, no... no more coffee. Thanks. Been asleep, eh? Well, don’t look so worried about it. Mighty nice of you to wake me up. What day is it?

Thursday, eh? I’ve been asleep two days then — oh, it is? Then it’s been nine days. That’s more like it. It was the rain, you see. I tried to get back to my tent, but the storm came up too fast. It’s the smell of the damp green things in a rain. The doctors tell me it’s auto-hypnosis. They’re wrong. M’Gamba told me I’d always be that way when I smelled the jungle smell. It’s the sleeping sickness in my veins. That’s why I came to the desert. It doesn’t rain out here more than once or twice a year.

When it does rain the jungle smells come back and the sleeping sickness gets me. Funny how my memory comes back after those long sleeps. It was the drugged bread, king-kee they called it; but the language ain’t never been written down. Sort of a graduated monkey talk it was.

It’s hot here, come over in the shadow of this Joshuay palm. That’s better.

Ever been to sea? No? Then you won’t understand.

It was down off the coast of Africa. Anything can happen off the coast of Africa. After the storms, the Sahara dust comes and paints the rigging white. Yes, sir, three hundred miles out to sea I’ve seen it. And for a hundred miles you can get the smell of the jungles. When the wind’s right.

It was an awful gale. You don’t see ’em like it very often. We tried to let go the deckload of lumber, but the chains jammed. The Dutchmen took to the riggin’ jabberin’ prayers. They were a weak-kneed lot. It was the Irishman that stayed with it. He was a cursin’ devil.

He got busy with an ax. The load had listed and we was heeled over to port. The Dutchmen in the riggin’ prayin’, an’ the Irishman down on the lumber cursin’. A wave took him over and then another wave washed him back again. I see it with my own eyes. He didn’t give up. He just cursed harder than ever. And he got the chains loose, too. The deckload slid off and she righted.

But it was heavy weather and it got worse. The sky was just a mass of whirlin’ wind and the water came over until she didn’t get rid of one wave before the next bunch of green water was on top of her.

The rudder carried away. I thought everything was gone, but she lived through it. We got blown in, almost on top of the shore. When the gale died we could see it. There was a species of palm stickin’ up against the sky, tall trees they were, and below ’em was a solid mass of green stuff, and it stunk. The whole thing was decayin’ an’ steamin’ just like the inside of a rotten, damp log.

The old man was a bad one. It was a hell ship an’ no mistake. I’d been shanghaied, an’ I wanted back. Thirty pound I had in my pocket when I felt the drink rockin’ my head. I knew then, but it was too late. The last I remembered was the grinnin’ face of the tout smilin’ at me through a blue haze.

The grub was rotten. The old man was a devil when he was sober, an’ worse when he was drunk. The Irish mate cursed all the time, cursed and worked. Between ’em they drove the men, drove us like sheep.

The moon was half full. After the storm the waves were rollin’ in on a good sea breeze. There wasn’t any whitecaps. The wind just piled the water up until the breakers stood fourteen feet high before they curled an’ raced up the beach.

But the breakers didn’t look so bad from the deck of the ship. Not in the light of the half moon they didn’t. We’d been at work on the rudder an’ there was a raft over the side. I was on watch, an’ the old man was drunk, awful drunk. I don’t know when the idea came to me, but it seemed to have always been there. It just popped out in front when it got a chance.

I was halfway down the rope before I really knew what I was doin’. My bare feet hit the raft an’ my sailor knife was workin’ on the rope before I had a chance to even think things over.

But I had a chance on the road in, riding the breakers. I had a chance even as soon as the rope was cut. The old man came and stood on the rail, lookin’ at the weather, too drunk to know what he was looking at, but cockin’ his bleary eye at the sky outa habit.

He’d have seen me, drunk as he was, if he’d looked down, but he didn’t. If he’d caught me then I’d have been flayed alive. He’d have sobered up just special for the occasion.

I drifted away from him. The moon was on the other side of the hull, leavin’ it just a big, black blotch o’ shadow, ripplin’ on the water, heavin’ up into the sky. Then I drifted out of the shadow and into golden water. The moon showed over the top of the boat, an’ the sharks got busy.

I’d heard they never struck at a man while he was strugglin’. Maybe it’s true. I kept movin’, hands and feet goin’. The raft was only an inch or two outa water, an’ it was narrow. The sharks cut through the water like hissin’ shadows. I was afraid one of ’em would grab a hand or a foot an’ drag me down, but they didn’t. I could keep the rest of me outa the water, but not my hands an’ feet. I had to paddle with ’em to get into shore before the wind and tide changed. I sure didn’t want to be left floatin’ around there with no sail, nor food; nothin’ but sharks.

From the ship the breakers looked easy an’ lazylike. When I got in closer I saw they were monsters. They’d rise up an’ blot out all the land, even the tops of the high trees. Just before they’d break they’d send streamers of spray, high up in the heavens. Then they’d come down with a crash.

But I couldn’t turn back. The sharks and the wind and the tide were all against me, and the old man would have killed me.

I rode in on a couple of breakers, and then the third one broke behind me. The raft an’ me, maybe the sharks all got mixed up together. My feet struck the sand, but they wouldn’t stay there.

The strong undertow was cuttin’ the sand out from under me. I could feel it racin’ along over my toes, an’ then I started back an’ down.

The undertow sucked me under another wave, somethin’ alive brushed against my back, an’ then tons o’ water came down over me. That time I was on the bottom an’ I rolled along with sand an’ water bein’ pumped into my innards. I thought it was the end, but there was a lull in the big ones, an’ a couple o’ little ones came an’ rolled me up on the beach.

I was more dead than alive. The water had made me groggy, an’ I was sore from the pummelin’ I’d got. I staggered up the strip of sand an’ into the jungle.

A little ways back was a cave, an’ into the cave I flopped. The water oozed out of my insides like from a soaked sponge. My lungs an’ stomach an’ ears were all full. I tried to get over a log an’ let ’er drain out, but I was too weak. I felt everything turnin’ black to me.

The next thing I knew it was gettin’ dawn an’ shadowy shapes were flittin’ around. I thought they was black angels an’ they were goin’ to smother me. They stunk with a musty smell, an’ they settled all over me.

Then I could feel the blood runnin’ over my skin. It got a little lighter, an’ I could see. I was in a bat cave an’ the bats were comin’ back. They’d found me an’ were settin’ on me in clouds, suckin’ blood.

I tried to fight ’em off, but it was like fightin’ a fog. Sometimes I’d hit ’em, but they’d just sail through the air, an’ I couldn’t hurt ’em. All the time, they was flutterin’ their wings an’ lookin’ for a chance to get more blood.

I’d got the weight of ’em off, though, an’ I staggered out of the cave. They followed me for a ways; but when I got out to where it was gettin’ light they went back in the cave. It gets light quick down there in the tropics, an’ the light hurt their eyes.

I rolled into the sand an’ went to sleep.

When I woke up I heard marchin’ feet. It sounded like an army. They was comin’ regular like, slow, unhurried, deliberate. It made the chills come up my spine just to hear the boom, boom, boom of those feet.

I crawled deeper into the sand under the shadows of the overhangin’ green stuff. Naked men an’ women filed out onto the beach.

I watched ’em.

Chocolate-colored they were, an’ they talked a funny, squeaky talk. I found afterward some of the words was Fanti and some was a graduated monkey talk. Fanti ain’t never been written down.

It’s one of the Tshi languages. The Ashantis an’ the Fantis an’ one or two other tribes speak branches o’ the same lingo. But these people spoke part Fanti an’ part graduated monkey talk.

An’ among ’em was a monkey-man. He was a funny guy. There was coarse hair all over him, an’ he had a stub of a tail. His big toes weren’t set like mine, but they was twisted like a foot thumb.

No, I didn’t notice the toes at the time. I found that out later, while he was sittin’ on a limb gettin’ ready to shoot a poisoned arrow at me. I thought every minute was my last, an’ then was when I noticed the way his foot thumbs wrapped around the limb. Funny how a man will notice little things when he’s near death.

Anyway, this tribe came down an’ marched into the water, men, women, an’ children. They washed themselves up to the hips, sort of formal, like it was a ceremony. The rest of them they didn’t get water on at all. They came out an’ rubbed sort of an oil on their arms, chests, an’ faces.

Chapter 2 Life or Death

Finally they all went away, all except a woman an’ a little kid. The woman was lookin’ for somethin’ in the water — fish, maybe. The kid was on a rock about eight feet away, a little shaver he was, an’ he had a funny pot-belly. I looked at him an’ I looked at her.

I was sick an’ I was hungry, an’ I was bleedin’ from the bats. The smell of the jungle was in my lungs, so I couldn’t tell whether the air was full of jungle or whether I was breathin’ in jungle stuff with just a little air. It’s a queer sensation. Unless you’ve been through it you wouldn’t understand.

Well, I felt it was everything or nothin’. The woman couldn’t kill me, an’ the kid couldn’t. An’ I had to make myself known an’ get somethin’ to eat.

I straightened out of the sand.

“Hello,” said I.

The kid was squattin’ on his haunches. He didn’t seem to jump. He just flew through the air an’ he sailed right onto his mother’s back. His hands clung to her shoulders an’ his head pressed tight against her skin, the eyes rollin’ at me, but the head never movin’.

The mother made three jumps right up the sand, an’ then she sailed into the air an’ caught the branch of a tree. The green stuff was so thick that I lost sight of ’em both right there. I could hear a lot of jabberin’ monkey talk in the trees, an’ then I heard the squeaky voice of the woman talkin’ back to the monkeys. I could tell the way she was goin’ by the jabber of monkey talk.

No, I can’t remember words of monkey talk. I never got so I could talk to the monkeys. But the people did. I am goin’ to tell you about that. I’m explainin’ about the sleepin’ sickness, an’ about how the memories come back to me after I’ve been asleep.

Maybe they’re dreams, but maybe they ain’t. If they’re dreams, how comes it that when I got to Cape Coast Castle I couldn’t remember where I’d been? They brought me in there on stretchers, an’ nobody knows how far they’d brought me. They left me in the dead o’ night. But the next mornin’ there were the tracks, an’ they were tracks like nobody there had ever seen before.

There’s strange things in Africa, an’ this was when I was a young blood, remember that. I was an upstandin’ youngster, too. I’d tackle anything, even the west coast of Africa on a raft, an’ the Fanti warriors; but I’m comin’ to that directly.

Well, the woman ran away, an’ the monkeys came. They stuck around on the trees an’ jabbered monkey talk at me. I wished I’d been like the woman an’ could have talked to ’em. But the monkeys ain’t got so many words. There’s a lot of it that’s just tone stuff. It was the ants that could speak, but they rubbed feelers together.

Oh, yes, there was ants, great, woolly ants two inches long, ants that built houses out of sticks. They built ’em thirty feet high, an’ some of the sticks was half an inch round an’ six or eight inches long. They had the ants guardin’ the gold ledge, an’ nobody except Kk-Kk, the feeder, an’ the goldsmith could come near there.

The goldsmith was nothin’ but a slave, anyway. They’d captured him from a slaver that went ashore. The others died of the fever, but the natives gave the goldsmith some medicine that cured him. After that he couldn’t get sick. They could have done the same by me, too, but the monkey-man was my enemy. He wanted Kk-Kk for himself.

Finally I heard the tramp of feet again, an’ the warriors of the tribe came out. They had spears an’ little bows with long arrows. The arrows were as thin as a pencil. They didn’t look like they’d hurt anything, but there was a funny color on the points, a sort of shimmering something.

I found out afterward that was where they’d coated ’em with poison an’ baked the poison into the wood. One scratch with an arrow like that an’ a man or beast would die. But it didn’t hurt the flesh none for eatin’. Either of man or beast it didn’t. They ate ’em both.

I saw it was up to me to make a speech. The men all looked serious an’ dignified. That is, they all did except the monkey-man. He capered around on the outside. His balance didn’t seem good on his two feet, so he’d stoop over an’ use the backs of his knuckles to steady himself. He could hitch along over the ground like the wind. His arms were long, long an’ hairy, an’ the inside of his palms was all wrinkled, thick an’ black.

Anyhow, I made a speech.

I told ’em that I was awful tough, an’ that I was thin, an’ maybe the bat bites had poisoned me, so I wouldn’t advise ’em to cook me. I told ’em I was a friend an’ I didn’t come to bother ’em, but to get away from the big ship that was layin’ offshore.

I thought they understood me, because some of ’em was lookin’ at the ship. But I found out afterward they didn’t. They’d seen the ship, an’ they’d seen me, an’ they saw the dried salt water on my clothes, an’ they figgered it out for themselves.

I finished with my speech. I didn’t expect ’em to clap their hands, because they had spears an’ bows, but I thought maybe they’d smile. They was a funny bunch, all gathered around there in a circle, grave an’ naked like. An’ they all had three scars on each side of their cheek bones. It made ’em look tough.

Then the monkey-man gave a sort of a leap an’ lit in the trees, an’ the monkeys came around and jabbered, an’ he jabbered, an’ somehow I thought he was tellin’ the monkeys about me. Maybe he was. I never got to know the monkey talk.

An’ then from the jungle behind me I heard a girl’s voice, an’ it was speakin’ good English.

“Be silent and I shall speak to my father,” she said.

You can imagine how I felt hearin’ an English voice from the jungle that way, an’ knowin’ it was a girl’s voice. But I knew she wasn’t a white woman. I could tell that by the sound of the voice, sort of the way the tongue didn’t click against the roof of the mouth, but the lips made the speech soft like.

An’ then there was a lot of squeaky talk from the jungles back of me.

There was silence after that talk, an’ then I heard the girl’s voice again.

“They’ve gone for the goldsmith. He’ll talk to you.”

I didn’t see who had gone, an’ I didn’t know who the goldsmith was. I turned around an’ tried to see into the jungle, but all I could see was leaves, trunks, an’ vine stems. There was a wispy blue vapor that settled all around an’ overhead the air was white way way up, white with Sahara dust. But down low the jungle odor hung around the ground. Around me the circle stood naked an’ silent. Not a man moved.

Who was the goldsmith? — I wondered. Who was the girl?

Then I heard steps behind me an’ the jungle parted. I smelled somethin’ burnin’. It wasn’t tobacco, not the kind we have, but it was a sort of a tobacco flavor.

A man came out into the circle, smokin’ a pipe.

“How are yuh?” he says, an’ sticks forward a hand.

He was a white man, part white anyway, an’ he had on some funny clothes. They were made of skins, but they were cut like a tailor would cut ’em. He even had a skin hat with a stiff brim. He’d made the stiff brim out of green skin with the hair rubbed off.

He was smokin’ a clay pipe, an’ there was a vacant look in his eyes, a blank somethin’ like a man who didn’t have feelin’s any more, but was just a man-machine.

I shook hands with him.

“Are they goin’ to eat me?” I asks.

He smoked awhile before he spoke, an’ then he takes the pipe out of his mouth an’ nods his head.

“Sure,” he says.

It wasn’t encouragin’.

“Have hope,” came the voice from the jungle, the voice of the girl. She seemed to be standin’ close, close an’ keepin’ in one place, but I couldn’t see her.

I talked to the man with the pipe. I made him a speech. He turned around and talked to the circle of men, an’ they didn’t say anything.

Finally an old man grunted, an’ like the grunt was an order they all squatted down on their haunches, all of ’em facin’ me.

Then the girl in the jungle made squeaky noises. The old man seemed to be listenin’ to her. The others didn’t listen to anything. They were just starin’ at me, an’ the expression on all of the faces was the same. It was sort of a curiosity, but it wasn’t a curiosity to see what I looked like. I felt it was a curiosity to see what I’d taste like.

Then the goldsmith rubbed some more brown leaf into the pipe, right on top of the coals of the other pipefull.

“The girl is claimin’ you as a slave,” he says.

“Who is the girl?” I asked him.

“Kk-Kk,” he says, an’ I didn’t know whether he was givin’ me a name or warnin’ me to keep quiet.

Well, I figured I’d rather be a slave than a meal, so I kept quiet.

Then the monkey-man in the tree began to jabber.

They didn’t look up at him, but I could see they were listenin’. When he got done the girl squeaked some more words.

Then the monkey-man made some more talk, and the girl talked. The fellow with the pipe smoked an’ blew the smoke out of his nose. His eyes were weary an’ puckered. He was an odd fellow.

Finally the old man that had grunted an’ made ’em squat, gave another grunt. They all stood up.

This is the show-down, I says to myself. It’s either bein’ a white slave or bein’ a meat loaf.

The old man looked at me an’ blinked. Then he sucked his lips into his mouth until his face was all puckered into wrinkles. He blinked his lidless eyes some more an’ then grunted twice. Then all the men marched off. I could hear their feet boomin’ along the hard ground in the jungle, on a path that had been beaten down hard by millions of bare feet. I found out afterward that same path had been used for over a hundred years, an’ the king made a law it had to be traveled every day. That was the only way they could keep the ground hard.

I guess I’m a meal, I thought to myself. I figgered the goldsmith would have told me if I had been goin’ to be a slave. But he’d moved off with the rest, an’ he hadn’t said a word.

The monkey-man kept talkin’ to the bunch. He didn’t walk along the path, but he moved through the trees, keepin’ up in the branches, right over the heads of the others, an’ talkin’ all the time, an’ his words didn’t seem happy words. I sort of felt he was scoldin’ like a monkey that’s watchin’ yuh eat a coconut.

But the old man grunted at him, an’ he shut up like a clam. He was mad, though. I could tell that because he set off through the trees, tearin’ after a couple of monkeys. An’ he pretty nearly caught ’em. They sounded like a whirlwind, tearin’ through the branches. Then the sounds got fainter, an’ finally everything was still.

I looked around. There was nobody in sight. I was there, on the fringe of beach, right near the edge of the jungle, and everything was still an’ silent.

Then there came a rustlin’ of the jungle stuff an’ she came out.

She had on a skirt of grass stuff, an’ her eyes were funny. You know how a monkey’s eyes are? They’re round. They don’t squint up any at the corners. An’ they’re sort of moist an’ glistening on the surface. It’s a kind of a liquid expression.

Her eyes were like that.

For the rest she was like the others. Her skin was dusky, but not black, an’ it was smooth. It was like a piece of chocolate silk.

“I’m Kk-Kk, the daughter of Yik-Yik, and the keeper of the gold ledge,” she said. “I have learned to speak the language of the goldsmith. You, too, speak the same language. You are my slave.”

“Thank God I ain’t a meal,” I said. That was before the doctor guys discovered these here calories in food; but right then I didn’t feel like a half a good-sized calorie, much less a fit meal for a native warrior.

“You will be my slave,” she said, “but if you pay skins to my father you can buy your freedom, and then you will be a warrior.”

“I ain’t never been a slave to a woman,” I told her, me bein’ one of the kind that had always kept from being led to the altar, “but I’d rather be a slave to you than to that old man on the boat out yonder.”

There was something half shy about her, and yet something proud and dignified.

“I have promised my father my share of the next hunt in order to purchase you from the tribe,” she went on.

“Thanks,” I told her, knowin’ it was up to me to say somethin’, but sort of wonderin’ whether a free, white man should thank a woman who had made a slave, outa him.

“Come,” she said, an’ turned away.

I had more of a chance to study her back. She was lithe, graceful, and she was a well-turned lass. There was a set to her head, a funny little twist of her shoulders when she walked that showed she was royalty and knowed it. Funny how people get that little touch of class no matter where they are or what stock. Just as soon as they get royal blood in ’em they get it. I’ve seen ’em everywhere.

I followed her into the jungle, down under the branches where there wasn’t sunlight any more; but the day was just filled with green light.

Finally we came through the jungle an’ into a big clearin’. There were huts around the clearin’ an’ a big fire. The people of the tribe were here, goin’ about their business in knots of two an’ three just like nothin’ had happened. I was a member of the tribe now, the slave of Kk-Kk.

Most of the women stared, an’ the kids scampered away when they seen me look toward ’em; but that was all. The men took me for granted.

Chapter 3 Guardians of Gold

The girl took me to a hut. In one corner was a frame of wood with animal skins stretched over it. There were all kinds of skins. Some of ’em I knew, more of ’em I didn’t.

She squeaked out some words an’ then there was some more jabberin’ in a quaverin’ voice, an’ an old woman came an’ brought me fruits.

I squatted down on my heels the way the natives did, an’ tried to eat the fruit. My stomach was still pretty full of salt water an’ sand, but the fruit tasted good. Then they gave me a half a coconut shell filled with some sort of creamy liquid that had bubbles comin’ up in it. It tasted sort of sour, but it had a lot of authority. Ten minutes after I drank it I felt my neck snap back. It was the delayed kick, an’ it was like the hind leg of a mule.

“Come,” says the jane, an’ led the way again out into the openin’.

I followed her, across the openin’ into the jungle, along a path, past the shore of a lagoon, and up into a little canon. Here the trees were thicker than ever except on the walls of the canon itself. There’d been a few dirt slides in that canon, an’ in one or two places the rock had been stripped bare. After a ways it was all rock.

An’ then we came to somethin’ that made my eyes stick out. There was a ledge o’ rock an’ a vein o’ quartz in it. The vein was just shot with gold, an’ in the center it was almost pure gold. The quartz was crumbly, an’ there were pieces of it scattered around on the ground. The foliage had been cleared away, an’ the ground was hard. There was a fire goin’ near the ledge an’ some clay crucibles were there. Then there was a great bellows affair made out of thick, oiled leather. It was a big thing, but all the air came out of a little piece of hollow wood in the front.

I picked up one of the pieces of quartz. The rock could be crumbled between the fingers, an’ it left the gold in my hand. The gold was just like it showed in the rock, spreadin’ out to form sort of a tree. There must have been fifty dollars’ worth in the piece o’ rock that I crumbled up in my fingers.

I moved my hands around fast an’ managed to slip the gold in my tom shirt. The girl was watchin’ me with those funny, liquid eyes of hers, but she didn’t say a word.

There was a great big pile of small sticks between me an’ the ledge of gold. I figured it was kindlin’ wood that they kept for the fire. But finally my eyes got loose from the ledge of gold an’ what should I see but the sticks movin’. I looked again, an’ then I saw somethin’ else.

It was a big ant heap made outa sticks an’ sawdust. Some of those sticks were eight or ten inches long and half an inch around. And the whole place was swarming with ants. They had their heads stickin’ out of the little holes between the sticks.

They must be big ants, I thought; but I was interested in that gold ledge. There must have been millions of dollars in it. I took a couple of steps toward it, an’ then the ant heap just swarmed with life.

They were big ants covered with sort of a white wool and they came out of there like somebody had given ’em an order.

The girl shrieked somethin’ in a high-pitched voice, but I didn’t know whether it was at me or the ants.

The ants swarmed into two columns of maybe eight or ten abreast in each column, an’ they started for me, swingin’ out in a big circle as though one was goin’ to come on one side, an’ one on the other.

An’ then they stopped. The girl ran forward an’ put her arms on my shoulders an’ started caressin’ me, pattin’ my hair, cooin’ soft noises in my ears.

I thought maybe she’d gone cuckoo, an’ I looked into her eyes, but they weren’t lookin’ at me, they were lookin’ at the ants, an’ they were wide with fear.

An’ the ants were lookin’ at her. I could see their big eyes gazin’ steadylike at her. Then somethin’ else must have been said to ’em, although I did not hear anything. But all at once, just like an army presentin’ arms in response to an order, they threw up their long feelers an’ waved ’em gently back an’ forth. Then the girl took me by the arm an’ moved me away.

“I should have told you,” she said, “never to go past the line of that path. The ants guard the yellow metal, and when one comes nearer than that they attack. There is no escape from those ants. I took you to them so you could help me with the feed. Now we will feed them.”

That all sounded sorta cuckoo to me, but the whole business was cuckoo anyway.

“Look here,” I tells this jane. “I’m willin’ to be the slave of a chief’s daughter — for a while. But I ain’t goin’ to be slave to no ant hill.”

“That is not expected,” she said. “It is an honor to assist in feeding the ants, a sacred right. You only assist me. Never again must you come so near to the ants.”

I did a lot of thinkin’. I wasn’t hankerin’ to come into an argument with those ants, but I was figurin’ to take a closer slant at that gold ledge.

She took me away into the jungle where there was a pile of fruit dryin’ in the sun. It was a funny sort of fruit, an’ smelled sweet, like orange blossoms, only there was more of a honey smell to it.

“Take your arms full,” she said.

Well, it was my first experience bein’ a slave, but I couldn’t see as it was much different from bein’ a sailor, only the work was easier.

I scooped up both arms full of the stuff. The smell made me a little dizzy at first, but I soon got used to it. The girl picked up some, too, an’ she led the way back to the ant pile.

She had me put my load down an’ showed me how to arrange it in a long semicircle. I could see the ants watchin’ from out of the holes in the ant pile, but they did not do anything except watch.

Finally the girl made a queer clicking sound with her tongue an’ teeth an’ the ants commenced to boil out again. This time they made for the fruit, an’ they went in order, just like a bunch of swell passengers on one of the big ocean liners. Some of ’em seemed to hold first meal ticket while the others remained on guard. Then there must have been some signal from the ants, because the girl didn’t say a word, but all of the first bunch of ants fell back an’ stood guard, an’ the second bunch of ants moved forward.

They repeated that a couple of times. I watched ’em, too fascinated to say a word.

After a while I heard steps, an’ the old goldsmith came along, puffin’ his pipe regular, a puff for every two steps. He reminded me of a freight engine, boilin’ along on a down grade, hittin’ her up regular.

He didn’t say a word to me, nor to the ants, but the ants heard him comin’ an’ they all formed into two lanes with their feelers wavin’ an’ the goldsmith walked down between those lanes an’ up to the gold ledge. There he stuck some more wood on the fire, raked away some ashes, an’ pawed out a bed of coals.

Then I saw he had a hammer an’ a piece of metal that looked like a reddish iron. He pulled a skin away an’ I saw lots of lumps an’ stringers of pure gold. It was a yellow, frosty-lookin’ sort of gold, and it was so pure it glistened.

He picked up some of the pieces an’ commenced to hammer ’em into ornaments.

“What do yuh do with that stuff?” I asked the girl, wavin’ my hand careless like so she wouldn’t think I was much interested.

“We trade it to the Fanti tribes,” she said. “It is of no use, too soft to make weapons, too heavy for arrow points; but they use it to wear around their fingers and ankles. They give us many skins for it, and sometimes they try to capture our territory and take the entire ledge. If I had my way we would stop making the ornaments. Our people do not like the metal, and never use it. Having it here just makes trouble for us, and the Fantis are fierce people. They are killing off our entire tribe.”

I nodded as wise as a dozen owls on a limb.

“Yeah,” I told her, “the stuff always makes trouble. Seems to me it’d be better to get rid of it.”

The old goldsmith raised his head, twisted his pipe in his mouth and screwed his rheumy eyes at me. For a minute or two he acted like he was goin’ to say somethin’, an’ then he went back to his work.

It was a close call. Right then I knew I’d been goin’ too fast. But I had my eye on that ledge o’ gold.

I guess it was a Fanti that saved my life; if it hadn’t been for seein’ him, the ants would have got me sure. Those ants looked pretty fierce when I saw ’em boilin’ out in military formation, but by the time it came dark they didn’t seem so much.

I got to thinkin’ things over. Bein’ a slave wasn’t near so bad as it might be, an’ one of these days I was goin’ to get away in the jungle an’ work down to a port. All I needed was to have about ninety pounds o’ pure gold on my back when I went out an’ I wouldn’t be workin’ as a sailor no more.

Sittin’ there in the warm night, while the other folks had all rolled into their huts, I got to thinkin’ things over. As a slave, I wasn’t given a hut. I could sleep out. If the animals got bad I could either build up the fire or climb a tree. But there was fifty or sixty other slaves, mostly captured warriors of other tribes, an’ it wasn’t so bad.

There was a place in the jungle where the hills formed a bottleneck, an’ there the tribe kept sentries so the Fantis couldn’t get in, an’ so the slaves couldn’t get out. Gettin’ through the jungle where there wasn’t a trail was plain impossible.

I picked up a lot of this from the girl, an’ a lot from usin’ my eyes.

Night time the ants didn’t see so much, an’ the gold seemed a lot more. I wondered how I could work it, an’ then a scheme hit me. I’d go out an’ make a quick run for the ledge, chop off a few chunks o’ quartz, an’ then beat it back quick. I’d be in an’ out before the ants could come boilin’ out of their thirty-foot ant hill. It seemed a cinch.

I sneaked away an’ managed to find my way down the trail to the gold ledge. It was dark in the jungle. The stars were all misty, an’ a squall was workin’ somewheres out to sea. I could hear the thunder of the surf an’ smell the smells of the jungle. There wasn’t any noise outside of the poundin’ surf.

I’d taken my shoes off when I dropped onto the raft, an’ they’d got lost while I was rollin’ around in the water, so I was barefoot. The ground had been beaten hard by millions of bare feet, an’ so I made no noise. The hard part was tellin’ just when I got to the gold ledge, because I didn’t want to steer a wrong course an’ fetch up against the ant heap.

I needn’t have worried. I smelled the faint smell o’ smoke, an’ then a pile o’ coals gleamed red against the black of the jungle night. It was the coals of the goldsmith’s fire. I chuckled to myself. What a simple bunch o’ people this tribe was!

An’ then, all of a sudden, I knew someone else was there in the jungle. It was that funny feelin’ that a man can’t describe. It wasn’t a sound, because there wasn’t any sound. It wasn’t anything I could see, because it was as dark as the inside of a pocket. But it was somethin’ that just made my hair bristle.

I slipped back from the path and into the dark of the jungle. Six feet from the trail an’ I was hidden as well as though I’d been buried.

I got my eye up against a crack in the leaves an’ watched the coals of the camp fire, tryin’ to see if anything moved.

All of a sudden those coals just blotted out. I thought maybe a leaf or a vine had got in front of my eyes, but there wasn’t. It was just somethin’ movin’ between me an’ the fire. An’ then it stepped to one side, an’ I saw it, a black man, naked, rushin’ into the cliff of gold. He worked fast, that boy. The light from the coals showed me just a blur of black motion as he chipped rocks from the ledge.

Then he turned and sprinted out.

I chuckled to myself. The boy had got my system. It was a cinch, nothin’ to it.

An’ then there came a yell of pain. The black man began to do a devil’s dance, wavin’ his hands and legs. He’d got right in front of me, within ten feet he was, an’ I could just make him out when he moved.

From the ground there came a faint whisperin’ noise, an’ then I could sense things crawlin’. I felt my blood turn to lukewarm water as I thought of the danger I was in. If those ants found me there—

I was afraid to move, an’ I was afraid to stand still.

But the black boy solved the problem for me. He made for a tree, climbin’ up a creeper like a monkey. Up in the tree, I could hear his hands goin’ as he tried to brush the ants off. And he kept up a low, moanin’ noise, sort of a chatter of agony.

I couldn’t tell whether the ants were leavin’ him alone or whether they were watchin’ the bottom of the tree, waitin’ for him.

But the creeper that he’d climbed up stretched against the starlit sky almost in front of my nose. I could see it faintly outlined against the stars. And then I noticed that it was ripplin’ and swayin’. For a minute I couldn’t make it out. Then I saw that those ants were swarmin’ up the tree.

That was the end. The moanin’ became a yellin’, an’ then things began to thud to the ground. That must be the gold rock the fellow had packed away with him, probably in a skin bag slung over his shoulder.

Then the sounds quit. Everything was silent. But I sensed the jungle was full of activity, a horrid activity that made me want to vomit. I could smell somethin’ that must have been blood, an’ there was a drip-drip from the tree branches.

Then the coals flickered up an’ I could see a little more. The ground was black, swarmin’. The ants were goin’ back and forth, up an’ down the creepers, up into the tree.

Finally somethin’ fell to the ground. It couldn’t have been a man, because it was too small, hardly bigger than a hunk o’ deer meat; but the firelight flickered on it, an’ I could see that the heap was all of a quiver. An’ it kept gettin’ smaller an’ smaller. Then I knew. The ants were finishin’ their work.

I held my hands to my eyes, but I couldn’t shut out the sight. If I’d moved I was afraid the ants would turn to me. I hadn’t been across the deadline, but would the ants know it? I shuddered and turned sick.

After a while I looked out again. The ground was bare. All of the ants were back in their pile of sticks. The last of the firelight flickered on a bunch o’ white bones. Near by was the gleam of yellow metal — gold from the rocks the Fanti had stolen.

Sick, I went back along the trail, back to the camp, not tellin’ anybody where I’d been or what I’d seen. I still wanted that gold, but I didn’t want it the way I’d figured I did.

I didn’t sleep much. They gave me a tanned skin for a bed and that was all. It was up to me to make myself comfortable on the ground. The ground was hard, but my bunk on the ship had been hard. It was the memory of that little black heap that kept gettin’ smaller an’ smaller that tortured my mind.

I lived through the night, an’ I lived through the days that followed; but I saw a lot that a white man shouldn’t see. After all, I guess we think too much of life. Life didn’t mean so much to those people, an’ they didn’t feel it was so blamed precious.

And I worked out a cinch scheme for the gold ledge. As the slave of Kk-Kk I had to assist her in feedin’ the ants. Every night I had to bring up some of the fruit. Kk-Kk wouldn’t let me feed it to ’em. It was the custom of the tribe that only the daughter of the chief could feed the ants. But I got close enough to find out a lot.

Those ants were trained. Kk-Kk could walk among ’em an’ they took no notice of her. She was the one who fed ’em. The old goldsmith could walk through ’em whenever he wanted to, an’ they didn’t pay any attention to him. They’d been trained that way. But nobody else could cross the deadline. Let any one else come closer than that an’ they’d swarm out an’ get started with their sickenin’ business. Once they’d started there was no gettin’ away.

I saw ’em at work a couple of times in the next week. They always managed to get behind the man at the gold ledge. Then they closed in on him. No matter how fast he ran they’d swarm up his legs as he went through ’em. Enough would get on him so he couldn’t go far, an’ there was always a solid formation of two-inch ants swarmin’ behind, ready to finish the work.

But they fed ’em only one meal a day, in the afternoon. I got to figgerin’ what would happen if there should be two feeders. They couldn’t tell which was the official feeder, an’ they’d been trained to let the official feeder go to the gold ledge.

I knew where they kept the pile of dried fruits that the ants liked so well. An’ I started goin’ out to the ant pile just before daybreak an’ givin’ ’em a breakfast. I’d take out a little of the fruit so there wouldn’t be any crumbs left by the time the goldsmith came to work.

At first I could see the ants were suspicious, but they ate the fruit. There was one long, woolly fellow that seemed to be the big boss, an’ he reported to a glossy-backed ant that was a king or queen or somethin’. I got to be good friends with the boss. He’d come an’ eat outa my hand. Then he’d go back an’ wave his feelers at the king or queen, whichever it was, an’ finally, the old boy, or old girl, got so it was all right. There was nothin’ to it. I was jake a million, one of the regular guys. I could tell by a hundred little things, the way they waved their feelers, the way they came for the food. Oh, I got to know ’em pretty well.

All of this time Kk-Kk was teachin’ me things about the life an’ customs of the tribe. I could see she was friendly. She’d had to learn the language of the goldsmith, so that if anything should happen to him she could educate another one as soon as the tribe captured him.

For the tribe I didn’t have no particular love. You should have seen ’em in some of their devil-devil dances, or seen ’em in the full moon when they gave a banquet to their cousins, the monkeys. Nope, I figured that anything I could do to the tribe was somethin’ well done. But for Kk-Kk I had different feelin’s, an’ I could see that she had different feelin’s for me.

An’ all this time the monkey-man was jealous. He was in love with Kk-Kk, an’ he wanted to buy her. In that country the woman didn’t have anything to say about who she married, or whether she was wife No. 1 or No. 50. A man got his wives by buyin’ ’em, and he could have as many as he could buy an’ keep.

After a coupla weeks I commenced taking the gold. At first I just got closer an’ closer to the deadline. I can yet feel the cold sweat there was on me the first time I crossed it. But the ants figgered I was a regular guy, part of the gang. They never said a word. Finally, I walked right up to the ledge, watchin’ the ground behind me like a hawk. Then I scooped out some o’ the crumbly quartz and worked the gold out of it. After that it was easy.

I didn’t take much at any one time, because I didn’t want the goldsmith to miss anything. I wasn’t any hog. Ninety pounds I wanted, an’ ninety pounds was all I was goin’ to take, but I wasn’t a fool. I was goin’ to take it a little at a time.

Chapter 4 A Fanti Raid

Then came the night of the big fight.

I was asleep, wrapped up in my skin robes, not because of the cold, because the nights are warm an’ steamy down there, but to keep out as much of the damp as I could, an’ to shut out the night insects that liked my soft, white skin.

There came a yell from a sentry up the pass, an’ then a lot o’ whoopin’ an’ then all hell broke loose.

There was a little moon, an’ by the light o’ that moon I could see things happenin’.

Our warriors came boilin’ outa their huts. One thing, they didn’t have to dress. All a guy had to do was grab a spear an’ shield, or climb up a tree with a bow an’ arrow, an’ that was all there was to it. He was dressed an’ ready for business.

They evidently had the thing all rehearsed, ’cause some of ’em guarded the trail with spears, an’ used thick shields to ward off the poisoned arrows, an’ others swarmed up in the trees an’ shot little poisoned arrows into the thick of the mass of men that were runnin’ down the trail.

It was a funny fight. There wasn’t any bangin’ of firearms, but there was a lot o’ yellin’, an’ in between yells could be heard the whispers of the arrows as they flitted through the night.

After a while I could see that our men were gettin’ the worst of it. I was just a slave, an’ when a fight started the women watched the slaves to see they didn’t make a break for liberty, or start attackin’ our boys from the rear.

Maybe I’d like to escape plenty, but I wanted to do it my own way, an’ stickin’ a spear in the back o’ one of our boys didn’t seem the way to do it. Then again, I wouldn’t be any better off after I had escaped. My white skin would make trouble for me with the others. I wasn’t the same as the other slaves, most of whom were Fantis anyway. They could make a break an’ be among friends. If I made a hop I’d be outa the fryin’ pan an’ in the fire.

But I wasn’t used to bein’ a spectator on the side lines when there was fight goin’ on. So I took a look at the situation.

When the alarm came in, the fire watchers had piled a lot of fagots on the big blaze, an’ all the fight was goin’ on by what light came from the fire. The fagots had burned off in the center an’ there was a lot of flaming ends, fire on one side, stick on the other.

I whispers a few words to Kk-Kk, an’ then we charged the fire, pickin’ out the sticks, whirlin’ ’em an’ throwin’ ’em into the mass o’ savages that was borin’ into our men.

She’d said somethin’ to the slaves, an’ they was all lined up, throwin’ sticks too. They wasn’t throwin’ as wholeheartedly as Kk-Kk an’ me was; but they was throwin’ em, an’ together we managed to keep the air full of brands.

It was a weird sight, those burnin’ embers whirlin’ an’ spiralin’ through the air, over the heads of our boys, an’ plumb into the middle o’ the Fanti outfit.

I seen that I’d missed a bet at that, though, because we was really tearin’ the fire to pieces, an’ it was goin’ to get dark in a few minutes with the blaze all bein’ thrown into the air that way.

One of our warriors had collected himself a poisoned arrow, an’ he was sprawled out, shield an’ spear lyin’ aside of him. The arrows were whisperin’ around pretty lively, an’ I seen a couple of our slave fellows crumple up in a heap. That shield looked good to me, an’ while I was reachin’ for it, I got to wonderin’ why not take the spear too. There wasn’t anybody to tell me not to, so I grabbed ’em both, an’ then I charged into the melee.

Them savages fought more or less silent after the first rush. There was plenty of yells, but they were individual, isolated yells, not no steady war cries. I’d picked a good time to strut my stuff, because there was more or less of a lull when I started my charge.

My clothes had been torn off my back. What few rags remained I’d thrown away, wantin’ to get like the natives as fast as possible. My skin was still white, although it had tanned up a bit, but there wasn’t any mistakin’ me.

Our boys had got accustomed to the idea of a white man bein’ a slave, an’ they hadn’t run into the white men like the Fanti outfit had. Those Fantis had probably had a little white meat on their bill o’ fare for a change o’ diet; an’ some expedition or other had come along an’ mopped up on ’em. Anyhow, the idea of a white man as a fightin’ machine had registered good an’ strong with ’em.

There’s somethin’ funny about a native. They can say all they want to, but his fears are the big part of him, no matter how brave he gets. Those whirlin’ brands o’ fire wasn’t makin’ ’em feel any too good, an’ then when I come chargin’ down on ’em hell bent for election it was too much.

They wavered for a second, then gave a lot of yells on their own an’ started pell-mell down the trail, each one tryin’ to walk all over the heels of the boy in front.

Funny thing about a bunch of men once turnin’ tail to a fight. When they do it they get into a panic. It ain’t fear like one man or two men would feel fear. It’s a panic, a blind somethin’ that keeps ’em from thinkin’ or feelin’. All they want to do is to run. There ain’t any fight left in ’em.

It was awful what our crowd done to those boys. As soon as they started to run, the laddies with the spears started making corpses. An’ I was right in the lead o’ our bunch. Don’t ask me how I got them. I don’t know. I only know I was yellin’ an’ chargin’, when the whole Fanti outfit turned tail, an’ there I was, playin’ pig-stickin’ with the backs of a lot o’ runnin’ Fanti warriors for targets.

We gave up the chase after a while. We’d done enough damage, an’ there was a chance o’ trouble runnin’ too far into the jungle. The crowd ahead might organize an’ turn on us, an’ we’d got pretty well strung out along the jungle trail.

I herded the boys back, an’ there was a regular road o’ Fanti dead between us an’ where the main part o’ the battle had taken place.

Well, they called a big powwow around the camp fire after that. I seen Kk-Kk talkin’ to her old man, Yik-Yik, an’ I guess she was pretty proud of her slave. Anyhow, Yik-Yik sucked his lips into his mouth like he did when he was thinkin’, an’ then he called to me.

He got me in a ring o’ warriors before the fire, an’ he made a great speech. Then he handed me a bloody spear and shield, an’ daubed my chest with some sort of paint, an’ painted a coupla rings around my eyes, an’ put three stripes o’ paint on my cheeks.

Then all the warriors started jumpin’ around the fire, stampin’ their feet, wailin’ some sort of a weird chant. Every few steps they’d all slam their feet down on the hard ground in unison, an’ the leaves on the trees rattled with their stamping. It was a wild night.

Kk-Kk was interpreter. She told me they were givin’ me my liberty an’ adoptin’ me into the tribe as a great warrior. It was not right that such a mighty fighter should be the slave of a woman, she told me.

Well, there’s somethin’ funny about women the world over. They all talk peace an’ cooin’ dove stuff, but they all like to see a son-of-a-gun of a good scrap. Kk-Kk’s eyes were soft an’ glowin’ with pride, an’ I could see she was as proud of me as though she’d been my mother or sweetheart or somethin’.

An’ seein’ that look in her eyes did somethin’ to me. I’d been gettin’ sorta sweet on Kk-Kk without knowin’ it. She was a pretty enough lass for all her chocolate color. An’ she was a square shooter. She’d stuck up for me from the first, an’ if it hadn’t been for her I’d have been a meal instead of a slave. It was only natural that I should get to like her more an’ more. Then, when I’d got used to the native ideas an’ all that, she got to lookin’ pretty good to me.

Anyhow, there I was in love with her — yes, an’ I’m still in love with her. Maybe I did go native. What of it? There’s worse things, an’ Kk-Kk was a square shooter. I don’t care what color her skin was. An’ remember that she was the daughter of a king. There was royal blood in her veins, an’ that makes a difference, race, or color or what not.

Anyhow, like it or not, I was in love with her, an’ I still am.

Oh, I know I’m an old man now. Kk-Kk is awful old now if she’s livin’, because those natives get old quickly, an’ I ain’t no spring chicken myself. But I love her just the same.

Well, a white man is funny about his women. He ain’t got no patience. When he falls in love he falls strong, an’ he wants his girl. I didn’t have patience like the monkey-man had. I couldn’t wait around. I went to Kk-Kk the next day an’ told her about it.

It was at the ant meal time when we was packin’ fruit to ’em. I was still helpin’ her even if I wasn’t a slave any more. I did it because I wanted to.

Well, I told her; her eyes got all shiny, an’ she dropped the dried fruit in a heap an’ threw her arms around my neck, an’ she cried a bit, an’ made soft noises in the graduated monkey talk that is the real language of the tribe. Bein’ all excited that way, she forgot the language of the goldsmith an’ went back to the talk of her folks.

The ants came an’ got the fruit, an’ they crawled all over our feet eatin’ it. If she hadn’t been so happy, an’ if I hadn’t been so much in love we’d both have realized what it meant, the ants crawlin’ over us that way an’ not offerin’ to bite me, or actin’ hostile at all. It showed that I’d been makin’ friends with ’em on the side.

Well, after a while she broke away, an’ then she did some more cryin’ an’ explained that she was the daughter of the chief. The man that married her would be the chief of the tribe some day. That is, he’d be the husband of the tribe’s queen.

Now in that tribe the men bought their wives. The man who married Kk-Kk was the man who’d buy her hand from her old man. But, bein’ as she was the daughter of the chief, an’ the future queen of the tribe, it’d take more wealth to buy her hand than any single man in the tribe could muster.

She told me how many skins an’ how many hogs an’ how much dried meat an’ how many bows an’ arrows an’ spears, an’ how many pounds of the native tobacco an’ all that would be required.

I didn’t pay much attention to the long list of stuff she rattled off. I had over sixty pounds of pure gold cached then, an’ I felt like a millionaire.

After all, what was all this native stuff compared with what I had? I was a rich man for a common, ordinary sailor boy. I could take that gold right then an’ walk into any of the world’s market places an’ buy what I wanted. Yes, an’ there’s even been cases of women of the higher muck-a-mucks sellin’ themselves or their daughters in marriage for less than sixty pounds of pure gold.

Well, I laughed at Kk-Kk an’ told her not to worry. I’d buy her hand from the old man. I didn’t worry about the price. I was a sailor lad, an’ I had the hot blood of youth in my veins, an’ I was in love with Kk-Kk, an’ she was standin’ there with her eyes all limpid an’ misty an’ her arms around my neck, an’ I had sixty pounds of pure gold. What more could a man want?

An’ then I heard a noise an’ looked up.

There was the monkey-man, squattin’ on the branch of a tree an’ lookin’ at us, and his lips were workin’ back an’ forth from his teeth. He wasn’t sayin’ a word, but his lips worked up an’ down, an’ every time they’d work, his teeth showed through.

I stiffened a bit, although it wasn’t that I was afraid. Right then I felt that I could lick all the monkey-men in the world, either one at a time or all together.

Kk-Kk was frightened. I could feel the shivers runnin’ up an’ down her arms, an’ she made little scared noises with her lips.

But the monkey-man didn’t say anything. When he saw that we knew he was watchin’, he reached up his great arms, caught the branch of a tree above him, swung off into space, caught another limb with his great feet, an’ swirled off into the forest. All that was left was the twilight an’ the chatterin’ of a bunch of monkeys, an’ the whimperin’ noises Kk-Kk was makin’.

I patted the girl on the shoulder. Let the monkey-man storm around through the treetops. A lot of good that would do him. He wasn’t in a position to buy the hand of Kk-Kk, an’ he wasn’t likely to be in the position. I had a big chunk of pure gold stored up. I didn’t think it’d be any trick at all to complete the purchase.

By next day, though, I knew I was up against a funny problem. I had all the gold I could carry, but gold wasn’t any good. I had enough of it to purchase a whole tannery full of choice skins, but I couldn’t trade the gold for skins. The tribe I was with didn’t care anything for the gold except as somethin’ to trade to the Fanti boys. An’ all the tradin’ was done by the chief. The tribal custom prohibited the others from doin’ any tradin’, even from havin’ any of the gold.

I commenced to see it wasn’t as simple as I’d thought it was goin’ to be.

An’ all the while I got more an’ more in love with Kk-Kk. She was just the sort of a woman a real adventurin’ man wants. She’d keep her head in any emergency. She was strong an’ tender. There wasn’t an ache nor a pain in her system. When she moved she walked like it wasn’t any effort at all. If the trees looked easier than the trail she’d swing up in them an’ go from branch to branch, light as a feather driftin’ down wind.

I’m tellin’ you she was strong as an ox an’ as graceful as a panther. A woman like that’d go with a man anywhere. An’ she was sweet an’ tender. When she thought I was blue for the white race an’ home an’ all that, she’d draw my head down against her breast an’ croon to me as soft an’ low as the wind sighin’ through the tops of the jungle trees.

I wanted to take her away with me. Any one could see the tribe was doomed. The very gold that gave them their tradin’ power was their curse. The Fantis desired that gold. They might get beat in one battle, might get beat in a thousand, but as long as the ledge was there, there’d be invaders fightin’ to get possession of it.

It’d be only a question of time until the tribe was wiped out, defeated, captured, an’ the women turned into slaves. They couldn’t stand the climate in the interior. Four or five miles back from the ocean was their limit. The Fantis wanted that gold ledge. Every so often there’d be a battle, an’ when it was over there’d be dead an’ wounded. There was always plenty more of the enemy, but there was a few less of our boys after every fight.

If I could get away an’ take Kk-Kk with me, an’ a pack load of gold, what I could carry an’ what Kk-Kk could carry, we’d be fixed for life. We could go out into the cities an’ hold up our heads with any of ’em.

But I knew I was goin’ to have trouble gettin’ Kk-Kk to see things that way. I might get her to leave with me, but she’d been brought up with the idea that her obligation to the tribe was sacred. She wouldn’t take any of the gold. You see she hadn’t ever had to deal with money, an’ she did what she thought was right, not what she thought would make the most money for her.

While I was thinkin’ things over, the monkey-man comes swingin’ into the council an’ tells ’em he’s goin’ to buy the hand of Kk-Kk at the next full moon. That was all he said. He wouldn’t tell ’em where he was goin’ to get the stuff or anything.

But it was enough to get me worried. An’ it bothered Kk-Kk.

There was lots o’ wild rumors goin’ along in those days. There was a report that the Ashantis an’ the Fantis were gettin’ together for a joint attack. They was determined to get that gold ledge.

I tried to get Kk-Kk to advise the tribe to leave the thing. Without that gold they’d be safe from attack, an’ the gold didn’t mean so much to ’em anyhow.

But they were just like the rest of the nations, if a man could compare a savage tribe with a nation. They wanted their gold, even when it wasn’t doin’ the rank an’ file of ’em any good. They were goin’ to fight for it, lay down their lives for it if they had to, an’ all the time only the ruler had any right to use the gold to trade with.

They knew they could have peace by goin’ away. They must have seen they couldn’t last long stayin’ there. Every battle left ’em a little weaker. But no, they must stay an’ die for their ledge of gold, an’ they didn’t even know the value of it. It’s funny about gold that way.

There was another rumor goin’ around that made me do a lot of thinkin’, an’ that was of a white man that was camped a couple of days’ march away. He had a big outfit with him, an’ he was shootin’ big game an’ prospectin’ around in general.

A wild idea got into my head that if I could sneak away an’ get to him with fifty or sixty pounds of gold I could trade it for mirrors, guns, blankets an’ what not that would look like a million dollars to the old chief. Then I could buy Kk-Kk an’ maybe I could talk her into goin’ away with me.

I really had enough gold, but I was gettin’ a little hoggish. I wanted more. The love of a woman like Kk-Kk had ought to make a man richer than the richest king in the world, but I was a white man, an’ I’d been taught to worship gold along with God.

In fact, I’d only had that God worship idea taught me on Sundays when I was a kid. On week days the god was gold. My folks had been rated as bein’ pretty religious as common folks go. But even they hadn’t tried to carry religion past Sunday. Gold was the god six days of the week, an’ I’d been brought up with the white man’s idea.

So I had to get me a little more gold. I wanted it so I could go to the white man’s camp with all the gold I could carry an’ still have as much left behind, hidden in the ground, waitin’ for me to come back.

The next mornin’ I decided to take a chance an’ scoop out a big lot o’ quartz. I got out with the food for the ants all right; I hadn’t even thought about trouble with them for a long while. They’d quit bein’ one of my worries. I walked over to the ledge and dug into the quartz.

An’ then somethin’ funny struck me. It was a feelin’ like somethin’ was borin’ into my back. I whirled around an’ there was the monkey-man sittin’ on a limb, watchin’ me.

He was up in a tree, squatted on the limb, his hands holdin’ a bow with one of them poison arrows on the string an’ it was then I noticed the way his toes came around the under side of the limb an’ held him firm. Funny how a fellow’ll notice things like that when he’s figurin’ he has an appointment in eternity right away.

Chapter 5 The Monkey-Man

I stared into the monkey-man’s eyes, an’ he stared back. I’d read somewhere that a white man always has the advantage over the other races because there’s some kind of a racial inferiority that the other fellows develop in a pinch.

Maybe it’s true, an’ maybe it ain’t. I only know I stared at the monkey-man, an’ he fidgeted his fingers around on the bow string.

I was caught red-handed. One of those poison arrows would almost drop me in my tracks. I wouldn’t have a chance to get outside of the deadline.

It looked like curtains for me. Then a funny thing happened. I thought at the time it was because of my starin’ eyes an’ the racial inferiority an’ what not. Now I know the real reason. But the monkey-man lowered the bow, blinked his eyes a couple of times, just like a monkey puzzlin’ over a new idea, an’ then he reached up one of those long paws, grabbed a branch overhead, swung up into the higher trees, an’ was off.

It looked like he’d gone to get some witnesses, an’ it was up to me to bury my gold an’ be snappy about it. I could see the ants were finishin’ up the last of the feed I’d given ’em, an’ I wouldn’t have to be afraid of some of that bein’ left.

I took the gold an’ sprinted for the place where I kept it hid. I buried the new batch with the other, an’ then strolled back to the clearin’, tryin’ to look innocent.

I felt a big weight on my chest. Somehow I felt the monkey-man was goin’ to get me. If he could make his charges stick I was sure due to be a meal before night.

But the funny part of it was he didn’t make any charges. He wasn’t even there at all. Funny. I walked around an’ passed the few words of the language I’d picked up with some of the warriors, an’ then I saw Kk-Kk.

It was sort of a lazy life, livin’ there that way. The tradin’ power of the gold ornaments gave the tribe the bulge on things. They didn’t have to work so awful hard. Funny, too, they didn’t savvy rightly about the gold. They thought it wasn’t the metal, but the way the goldsmith worked it up into rings an’ bracelets an’ such like, that made it valuable. Gold as such they couldn’t understand.

Anyhow, the warriors didn’t have anything to do except a little huntin’ once in a while. The women did all of the real work, an’ there wasn’t much of that.

Kk-Kk an’ me walked down to the beach an’ I watched the green surf thunderin’ in. Her arm was nestled around me an’ her head was up against my shoulder. I felt a possessory sort of feelin’ like I owned the whole world. I patted her head an’ told her there wasn’t anything to be afraid of, that I was goin’ to make good on buyin’ her an’ that I’d boost any price the monkey-man was able to raise.

She felt curious, but when she seen I didn’t want to answer questions she let things go without talkin’. She was a wonderful girl, the kind that any man could be proud of, particularly a rough, seafarin’ man that had sailed all the seas of the world an’ knocked about in all sorts of weather.

I broke away from her when the sun was well up. I knew she’d go down to the ocean with the tribe for her bath.

That was my chance. I raced into the jungle to the place where I’d left my gold.

All that a man could pack away was gone. There wasn’t over twenty pounds left. The ground had been dug up an’ the gold rooted up. It was there in the sun, glistenin’ soft an’ yellow against the green of the jungle an’ the rich brown of the earth.

For a minute my heart made a flip-flop, an’ then I knew. The monkey-man hadn’t given the alarm at all. He’d come to know somethin’ of the power of the gold, an’ when he saw me feedin’ the ants an’ helpin’ myself at the gold ledge he realized I must have a bunch of it cached away. That had been why he hadn’t shot me with a poisoned arrow. He’d swung up out of sight in the high tree an’ waited for me to lead him to the place where I’d buried the gold. With his trainin’ in slippin’ through the branches of the trees there hadn’t been anything to it. He followed me as easy as a bird could flit through the branches.

Now he’d taken all the gold he could carry. He’d been in a hurry. He hadn’t stopped to bury the rest some place else, even, or to cover it over with earth. Why? There was only one answer. He’d made a bluff about buyin’ Kk-Kk from her old man, an’ he wanted to make good. He’d heard about the white man an’ his camp, an’ he’d got the same idea I’d had, an’ he’d got a head start on me.

I had a skin pouch with a couple of straps goin’ over the shoulders. I loaded the gold that was left in it an’ made my start. I knew there’d be trouble gettin’ past the sentries at the bottleneck, but I couldn’t wait for night. The monkey-man could slip through in the trees. I’d have to rely on bluff and nerve.

It wasn’t gettin’ past ’em that was the hard part. It was carry in’ the gold out. As a warrior, I was entitled to go out in the jungle to hunt, to come an’ go as I pleased. It was what was in that skin pouch that would make the trouble.

Then I got another idea. There’d been a kill the day before of some little sort of an antelope that ran around the jungle. I knew where some of the meat was. The gold didn’t amount to much in size, an’ I raced over an’ stuffed some animal meat on the top of it. It was sink or swim, an’ I couldn’t wait to fix up any fancy plan.

I grabbed a spear an’ a shield an’ started down the path. The sentries flashed their white teeth at me an’ blinked their round eyes. Then one of ’em noticed the pack on my back an’ he flopped his spear down while he came over to investigate.

I didn’t act like I was the least bit frightened. I even opened the sack myself, an’ I made a lot of motions. I pointed to the sun, an’ I swung my hand up an’ down four times tellin’ ’em that I’d be away four days. Then I pointed to the meat an’ to my mouth, explainin’ that it was for food.

I threw in a little comic stuff an’ had ’em laughin’. They laughed easy, those jungle men who were so blamed ignorant they didn’t know the power of gold.

It was a cinch. I was on my way, headin’ into hostile territory, knowin’ that the Fantis were in the country an’ that I’d be a fine meal for ’em. It’s a funny sensation, figgerin’ that you’re only valuable for the meat you can be made into, estimatin’ your calory value on the hoof.

Anyhow, the thing had been started an’ I had to see it through. After I got into the country where the white men went, the color of my skin would protect me from the tribes. The white man gets respect from the blacks. He kills a lot of blacks to do it, but he gets results.

It was the first few miles that had me worried. I had to go through the Eso country an’ into the Nitchwa country, an’ I was in a hurry. I couldn’t go slow an’ cautious like, an’ I couldn’t take to the trees like the monkey-man could.

The first day I almost got caught. A bunch of Fanti warriors came down the trail. I swung off to one side, workin’ my way into the thickest of the jungle, an’ hidin’ in the shadows. I thought sure I was caught, because those boys have eyes that can see in the dark. But I got by.

The second day I didn’t see a soul. I was gettin’ in a more open, rollin’ country, an’ I only had a general idea where I was goin’. There was a hill that stood up pretty well over the rest of the country, an’ I got up on that an’ climbed a tree.

Just at dusk I see ’em, hundreds of fires twinklin’ through the dusk like little stars. I figgered that’d be the camp of the white man.

It ain’t healthy to go through the jungle at night. There are too many animals who have picked up the habits of man an’ figger that turn-about is fair play. They relish the flesh of a man, more particularly a white man, as a delicacy.

We don’t think nothin’ o’ stalkin’ a nice buck an’ having our mouth water an’ think how tasty he’s goin’ to be broiled over a bed o’ coals. But if the buck turns around an’ starts stalkin’ us an’ lickin’ his chops over how nice we’re goin’ to taste it’s a different affair altogether.

I know, because for two hours I worked through the country with eyes glarin’ out of the jungle all around, an’ soft steps failin’ into the trail behind me. They were animals, stalkin’ along behind, a little afraid of the white man smell, hesitatin’ a bit about closin’ the gap an’ makin’ a supper outa me, but feelin’ their mouths water at the thought.

Yes, sir, I know how it feels to be hunted by somethin’ that’s just figgerin’ how nice you’re goin’ to taste after he’s got his paws on you.

Well, finally I came to the camp of the white man. I could see him sittin’ there, all bearded an’ tanned. He was wearin’ white clothes an’ sittin’ before a fire with a lot o’ native servants waitin’ around with food an’ drink an’ what not.

I walked up to him, pretty well all in, an’ motioned to my mouth. I’d been so used to talkin’ to the natives that way that for a moment I forgot that this man talked my language.

Then I told him. “I come to trade,” I says, an’ dumped out the gold on the ground.

He went up outa the canvas chair like he’d been shot.

“Another one!” he yelled. “An’ this one’s white!”

Then he clapped his hands, an’ black men came runnin’ up an’ grabbed me.

“Where did yuh get it? Where is it? Is there any more? How long will it take to get there?” he yells at me, his face all purple, with the veins standin’ out an’ the eyes bulgin’.

I’d forgotten how excited white men got at the sight of gold.

“Gold! Gold!” he goes on. “The country must be lousy with gold! There was a big ape hanging around camp this morning. He seemed a higher species of ape, almost human. I stalked him and shot him for a specimen. Can you imagine my surprise when I found that he was carrying a skin filled with gold?

“And this is the same gold. I’d recognize it anywhere. Come, my good man, come and tell me if you have ever seen a similar creature to this great ape. I have preserved him in alcohol and intend to carry him intact to the British Museum.”

I could feel myself turnin’ sorta sick at the idea, but there was nothin’ for it. He was draggin’ me along to a big vat. There was the monkey-man, a bullet hole in his back — in his back, mind you. He hadn’t even shot him from the front, but had sneaked around to the rear. The “specimen” was floatin’ around in the alcohol.

I turned away.

“Tell me, tell me,” pleads the guy, “do you know him? Your gold comes from the same source. Perhaps you have seen others of the same species.

“After I shot him I was overcome with remorse because he might have showed me the way to the gold deposit if I had merely captured him. But I shot before I knew of the gold.”

I did some rapid thinkin’. If this bird thought I knew where the gold came from he’d force me to show him, or perhaps he’d kill me an’ stick me in alcohol. So I looked sad.

“No, I don’t know,” I tells him. “I saw this man-monkey carryin’ a skin full of somethin’ heavy. I followed along until he set down the sack an’ went to sleep. Then I sneaked up, seen it was gold, an’ figgered a monkey-man didn’t have no use for gold.”

He nods his head. “Quite right, my friend. Quite right. A monkey can have no use for gold. And how about yourself? You possibly have no use for it. At any rate you admit it was part of the gold that belonged to the monkey, so you should restore it to the original pile, and I will take charge of it.”

I seen this bird was one of the kind that want everything for nothin’ an’ insist that a guy mustn’t hold out on ’em.

I told him that I’m only too glad to oblige, but I want some calicos an’ some mirrors an’ blankets an’ a gun an’ some ammunition, an’ some huntin’ knives an’ beads. After that he can have the gold.

We dickered for a while, an’ finally I dusted out, takin’ two porters with me, frightened to death but loaded down with junk. I was carryin’ the rifle, an’ I was watchin’ my back trail. The old boy might figure I was a specimen.

I got back all right. We had one brush with the Fanti outfit, but the roar of the gun made ’em take to the tall timber. I had the porters lay the junk down about two miles from the place where our tribe was camped, an’ I sneaked it up to the bottleneck myself, carryin’ three loads of it. Then I came on up to the sentries, shook hands, walked past an’ got a couple of warriors to help me with the plunder.

Kk-Kk was there, all dolled up in all her finery, paradin’ around the village. That’s a custom they got from the Fantis. When a girl’s offered for sale in marriage she decks herself out with everything the family’s got an’ parades around the village. That’s a notice to bidders.

I knew Kk-Kk was doin’ it for me. She had to comply with the customs of the tribe, but she figgered I was the only bird that could make the grade an’ she trusted to my resourcefulness to bring home the bacon.

Chapter 6 African Justice

My stuff was a riot. When I had the fellows spread it out on the ground the boys’ eyes stuck out until their foreheads bulged. Most of ’em had never seen the trade goods of the white man. They’d been kept pretty well isolated with the hostile Fanti outfit hemmin’ ’em in by land an’ the open ocean thunderin’ on the beach.

The knives made the hit. The warriors were hunters enough to appreciate a keen-edged bit of shiny steel. The blankets didn’t take very well, neither did the calico, but the knives, the mirrors, an’ the beads were drawin’ cards that couldn’t be beat.

Old Yik-Yik screwed up his eyes an’ sucked in his mouth, the way he had when he was thinkin’, an’ then he jabbers out a bunch of graduated monkey talk. The goldsmith was there an’ he blinks his rheumy eyes an’ sticks out his hand.

“The old bird says you’ve bought the girl,” he tells me.

I could feel my heart do a flip-flop. It was all matter-of-fact to them, the buyin’ of a wife, even if she did happen to be the future queen of the tribe. But to me there was only one Kk-Kk in the world, an’ now she was to be mine. The only man that knew my secret was the monkey-man, an’ he was floatin’ around in a vat of alcohol. I could settle down in the tribe an’ be happy the rest of my life.

But, in spite of it all, I was feelin’ off color. My head felt light. When I’d turn it quick it seemed to keep right on goin’ for a couple of revolutions. An’ my feet felt funny, as though they wasn’t settin’ firm on the ground.

But what of it? Wasn’t I goin’ to marry Kk-Kk? What was a little biliousness more or less?

An’ then there was a bunch o’ yellin’. I looked up an’ seen a couple of the sentries bringin’ in a captive. Another meal, I thought to myself, wonderin’ if maybe he’d be in time to furnish the spread at the weddin’ feast.

I looked again, an’ then my mouth got all dry an’ fuzzy.

It was one of the porters that had carried out my stuff. Probably he had sneaked back to try an’ find the gold, or else some of the hunters had caught him. In either event my hash was cooked. When he told ’em what I’d traded to the white man—

I strained my ears. Some of our crowd talked Fanti, an’ maybe the porter talked it. He did. I heard ’em jabberin’ away, an’ the porter pointed at me an’ at the stuff on the ground. ,

I stole a look at Yik-Yik. His eyes was as hard as a couple of glass beads, an’ his lips was all sucked in until his mouth was just a network of puckered wrinkles.

He spits out some words an’ a circle forms around me. The goldsmith was still there an’ he kept right on actin’ as interpreter, but I didn’t need to follow half what he said.

An’ then, all of a sudden, I stiffened up to real attention. It seemed the old man was accusin’ Kk-Kk o’ betrayin’ the tribe.

For a minute or two I thought he’d gone clean cuckoo, an’ then I seen just how it looked to him. Kk-Kk was in love with me. The monkey-man, who she didn’t like, had threatened to buy her. There was a white man in the country. What was more likely than that she’d slipped me out d bunch of gold?

I tried to tell ’em, but they would not listen. Kk-Kk looked all white around the gills for a minute, an’ then she walked over to my side.

“We shall meet death together,” she said, dignified as a queen had ought to be. But I wasn’t goin’ to stand for it.

I tried to tell ’em about how I had the ants trained. I volunteered to show ’em, I tried to get ’em to feed me to the ants. But they wouldn’t listen to me. Kk-Kk was the only one they’d listen to, an’ she wouldn’t say a word. She wanted to die with me.

Then was when I knew I was sick. The whole ground started reelin’ around, an’ I felt so drowsy I could hardly hold my eyes open. My head was burnin’ an’ throbbin’ an’ it seemed as though the damp odors of the jungle was soaked all through my blood an’ was smotherin’ me under a blanket of jungle mist.

Their voices sounded farther an’ farther away.

I heard the goldsmith tellin’ me the sentence the chief was pronouncin’. He had to lean up against my ear an’ shout to make me understand.

It seemed they had a funny bread made out of some berries an’ roots. When a fellow ate it he lost his memory.

The old king had decided not to kill us, but to feed us this bread an’ banish us from the tribe.

Since we’d committed the crime against the tribe because we wanted to marry, it seemed like proper justice for the old boy to feed us king-kee, the bread of forgetfulness, so we wouldn’t ever remember about the other.

It was a horrible punishment. If I hadn’t been comin’ down sick I’d have made a break an’ forced ’em to kill me, or turned loose with the rifle an’ seen if I couldn’t have escaped with Kk-Kk.

But I was a sick man. I felt ’em stuffin’ somethin’ in my mouth, an’ I swallowed mechanically an’ cried for water.

Then I remember seein’ Kk-Kk’s eyes, all misty an’ floatin’ with tears, bendin’ over me. Then I sank into a sleep or stupor. Everything snuffed out like a candle goin’ out.

Lord knows how much later I began to come to. I was in Cape Coast Castle. They told me some natives had brought me on a stretcher, sat me down before the door of the buildin’ where they kept the medicines, an’ gone away. It had been done at night. They found me there the next mornin’ sick with the sleepin’ sickness.

When I woke up I couldn’t tell ’em who I was, where I’d been, or how I got there. I only knew I wanted somethin’ an’ couldn’t tell what it was.

A boat came in, an’ they shipped me on her. The surgeon aboard got interested in my case. Every time it rained I’d sleep. There was somethin’ in the smell of dampness in the air.

He treated me like I’d been a king, an’ took me to Boston. There was some German doctor there that had specialized on tropical fevers. They had me there for six months studyin’ my case.

The doctor told me I was victim of what he called autohypnosis. He said I went to sleep when it rained because I thought of sleep when it rained.

I told him it was the fever in my blood comin’ out when it got damp, but he just shook his head an’ said auto-hypnosis, whatever that might mean.

He tried for six months to get me over it, an’ then he gave it up as a bad job.

He said for me to come to California or Arizona an’ get out in the desert, where it only rained once or twice a year, an’ to always be in my tent when it rained.

I followed his advice. For fifty years now I’ve been livin’ out here in the desert.

Every time it rains an’ I smell the damp air, it acts on me like the jungle smells when I had the sleepin’ sickness, an’ I go to sleep. Sometimes I fall asleep and don’t waken for two weeks at a stretch.

But it’s funny about me. Now that I’m gettin’ old, my memory’s comin’ back to me. Particularly after I wake up, I can recall everything like I’ve just told it to you.

Of course I’m an old man now, nothin’ but a bum of a desert rat, out here scratchin’ around in the sand an’ sagebrush for a few colors of gold. I got me a placer staked out over there at the base of that hill.

Ain’t it funny that I have to spend my life lookin’ for gold, when it was grabbin’ the gold in big chunks that made all my troubles? Oh, well, it’s all in a lifetime.

Of course I’m too old to be thinkin’ of such things now. But I get awful lonesome for Kk-Kk. I can see her round, liquid eyes shinin’ at me whenever I wake up from one of these long sleeps. I wonder if she’s got her memory comin’ back, now that she’s gettin’ old — an’ I wonder if she ever thinks of me—

Yes, sir. Thankee, sir. Another cup of that coffee will go kinda good. When a man’s been asleep for eight or nine days he wakes up sorta slow. I’ll drink this coffee an’ then I’ll be headin’ over toward my placer claim.

I’m sorry I bothered you folks, but that rain came up mighty sudden, an’ the first thing I knew I was soakin’ wet an’ sleepy, smellin’ the damp smell of the earth an’ the desert stuff. I crawled in this bunch of Joshuay palms, an’ that’s the last I remember until you came along an’ poured the hot coffee down me.

No, thanks, I don’t believe I’ll stay any longer.

My tent’s fixed up mighty comfortable over there, an’ when I wake up this way it seems like I’ve been with Kk-Kk in a dream world. I like to think about my lost sweetheart.

So long, boys. Thanks for the coffee.