The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-10-12
CHAPTER I.

SOMETHING TO BE DONE.
 TT D was a very sick white man.
 He rode pickaback .on a
 woolly headed, black skinned
 savage the lobes of whose ears had been pierced and stretched until one had torn out, while the other carried a circular block of carved wood three inches in diameter. The torn ear had been pierced again, but this time not so ambitiously, for the whole accommodated no more than short clay pipe. The man-horse was greasy and dirty and naked save for an ex- ceedingly narrow and dirty loin cloth, but the white man clung to him close ly and desperately. At times from weakness his head dropped and rested on the wo0lly pate. At other times he lifted his head and stared with swim ming eyes at the cocoanut palms that reeled and swung in the shimmering heat. He was clad in a thin under shirt and a strip of cotton cloth that wrapped about his waist and descend ed to his knees. On his head was a battered Stetson, known to the trade as "Baden-Powell." About his mid dle was strapped belt, which carried a large calibered automatic pistol and several spare clips, loaded and ready for quick work.
 The rear was brought up by a black boy of fourteen or fifteen, who carried medicine bottles, pail of hot water, and various other hospital appurte- nances. They passed out of the com pound through a small wicker gate, and went on under the blazing sun, winding about among new planted CO., coanuts that threw no shade. There was not q breath of wind, and the superheated, stagnant air was heavy with pestflence. From the direction they were going arose a wild clamor, as of lost souls wailing and of men in torment. A long, low shed showed ahead, grass walled and grass matched, and it was from here that the noise proceeded. There were shrieks and screams, some unmistak- ably of grief, others unmistakably of uncomfortable pain. AS the, white man drew Jser he could hear a low and continuous moaning and grooming. He s.luddered at the thought of entering, and for a moment was quite certain that he was going to faint. For that most dreaded of Solomon island scourges. dysentery, had struck Der ande plantation, and he was all alone to cope with it. Also, he was afflicted himself.
 By stopping close, still on man-back, he managed to pass through the low doorway. He took a small bottle from his follower and sniffed strong am- monia to clear his senses for the ordeal. Then he shouted Shut upv' end the clamor stilled. A raised plat form of forest slabs, six feet wide, with slight pitch. extended the full length of the shed. Alongside of it was a yard wide runway. Stretched on the platform, side by side and crowded close. lay a score of blacks. That they were low in the order of human life was apparent at glance. They were maneaters. Their faces were asymmetrical, bestial; their bodies were ugly and apelike. They wore nose rings of clam shell and turtle shell, and from the ends of their noses, which were also pierced, pro- jected horns of beads strung on stiff wire. Their ears were pierced and distended to accommodate wooden sssss .Au sucks, pipes, and ell r,snrs-- of barbaric ornaments. Their faces and bodies were tattooed or scared in hideous designs. In their sickness they wore no clothing, not even loin clouts, though they retained their shell armlets, their bead necklaces and their leather belts, between which and the skin were thrust naked knives. The bodies of many were covered with hor- rible sores. Swarms of f1ies rose and