The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-11-01

BUsEMAN.
 The advance was more rapid now, for Binu Charley placed the captive bushman in front of him and made him clear the runway of traps. Once, at sharp turn where mans shoul- der would unavoidably brush against a screen of leaves. the bushman dis played great caution as he spread the leaves aside and exposed the head of 8 sharp pointed spear, so set that the casual passerby would receive at the Yeast 8 nasty scratch.
 The sun sinking behind lofty west ern peak brought on an early but lin- gering twilight, and the expedition plodded on through the evil forest the place of mystery and fear, of death swift and silent and horrible. of brutish appetite and degraded in- stinct, of human life that still wallow- ed in the primeval slime. of savagery degenerate and abysmal.
 They turned aside from the runway at place indicated by Binu Charley and came to an immense banyan tree half an acre in extent that made in the innermost heart of the jungle a denser jungle of its own. From out of its black depths came the voice of a man singing in a cracked eerie voice.
 ''My word, that big fella marster he no dier'
 The singing stopped. and the voice, faint and weak, called out a hello Joan answered, and then the voice ex- plained:
 "rm not wandering. was just sing ing to keep my spirits up. Have you got anything to eat?"
 Tudor. having pulled through the fever and started to mend, was still frightfully weak and very much starv- ed So badly swollen was he from mosquito bites that his face was un- recognizable. Joan had her own oint- ments along and she prefaced their application by fomenting his swollen Ieatures with hot clothes. Sheldon. with an eye to the camp and the preparations for the night. looked on and felt the bangs of jealousy at ev- cry contact of her hands with Tudor's race and body. Somehow. engaged in their healing ministrations, they no longer seemed to him boys hands.
 The mornings action had been set tied the night before. Tudor was to stay behind in his banyan refuge and gather strength while the expedition proceeded. On the far chance that they might rescue even one solitary survivor of Tudor's party. Joan was fixed in her determination to push on. With Tudor. Adamu Adam and Arahu were to stop as guards.
 Binu Charley led the way, by proxy. however, for by means of the poison ed spear he drove the captive bush man ahead. They plodded on, pant ing and sweating in the humid, stag nant air. They were immersed In a sea of wanton. prodigal vegetation.
 Caught by surprise fifteen feet in tho air above the path in the forks of a many branched tree, a bushman dropped like a shadow, naked as on his natal morn. It was hard for them to realize that it was a man, for he seemed weird jungle sprite, a goblin of the forest. Only Binu Charley was not perturbed. He flung his poisoned spear over the head of the captive at the Hitting form. 1t was a mighty cast, well intended, but the shadow, leaping, received the spear harmlessly between the legs and, tripping upon it, was flung sprawling. Before he could get away Binu Charley was upon him, clutching him by his snow white hair. He was only young man and a dandy at that, his face black ened with charcoal. his hair whitened with wood ashes. with the freshly severed tail of a wild pig thrust through bis perforated nose and two more thrust through his ears. His only other ornament was a necklace of human finger bones. At sight of their other prisoner he chattered in a high querulous falsetto, with pucker- ed brows and troubled, wild animal eyes. He was disposed of along the middle of the line, one of the Poonga- Poonga men leading him at the end of length of bark rope.
 "Close up he stop" Binu Charley