Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1941-01-23
CHAPTER vI-Continued

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Mary asked one of the young men
for Jarambo; but he shook his head,
not looking at her. If George had
not filed her thoughts, excluding all
else, she must have seen tautness
in these young men, as though they
were waiting, listening. But she
thought only of her husband; and
when in midafternoon he opened his
eyes and looked at her, she spoke
in a quick tenderness, close beside
him.
"Quiet, my DEAR" she said.
you're all right. We're safe. Qui-
ct. Rest, my dear"
He stared past her, stared straight
up at the thatch above them. She
thought he did not know he spoke.
He said: "They were angry because
no canoes met them. They smashed
their boat against the rocks getting
ashore, and that made them more
angry. One was red-headed man
with red beard and red hair all
over his chest They all had guns.
l told them we didn't want them
here, and the red-headed man put
his hand against me and pushed me
over backward. One of the others
shot me before I could get up" He
looked at her with deep shame at
his own weakness. 81 tainted, Mary,
like woman"
"You couldn't do anything against
their guns, George. Now rest, dear"
His eyes closed. "Like wom-
an" he muttered again, and sighed,
and slept
In the morning George was strong
er, able to sit up with Mary to sup
port him, her arms around him, his
shoulders leaning against her breast.
The young men were gone when she
woke; but later they returned, and
Mary saw a red CLEAN in their
eyes, and their eyes would not meet
hers. She wondered, and her heart
began to beat hard with sort of
premonition, but she was not afraid
of what would happen. She thought
that in some strange way she was
terrified by something already past;
but she decided this was merely the
reaction from her alarm of yester-
day, now eased, and put the fear
aside.
"What has happened?" she asked.
His eyes fiickered with something
curiously like dismay; and he looked
at his companion, then at Mary
again, without replying. She insist
ed: SIS the ship still there?"
She realized that he was confused
by some strange sense of guilt; and
her pulse pounded in her wrist. She
looked back at George. He was
asleep, SO for the moment he no
longer needed her. She said firmly
to the young men:
''Take me to Jarambo. Or bring
Jarambo to me-"
After moment, one of them
turned and darted off through the
forest. The other spoke, bidding her
come. Presently ahead of her she
heard call 60 down the mountain,
summoning Jarambo.
Soon Jarambo spoke at her elbow
and she turned.
The old man met her eyes and
waited. She had never. been afraid
of him, but she was afraid of ia
rambo now. There was that in his
eyes she had never seen there,
blaze like leaping fire, drunk
fury, a reckless intoxication. But
this was not the drunkenness of rum.
Nevertheless he was drunk with
something. She looked at him in
tently; and suddenly her head rose
She said:
"Jarambo, tell me-"
He said, under his breath: Long
time we were men,"
She waited.
He spoke explicitly, from the be-
ginning. When the schooner an
chored, Georges insistence kept the
canoes ashore; but presently a boat
put off from the vessel with three
white men in it. Those white men
did not know the landing place, and
they went toward the beach, but
they saw that the surf there was
impracticable, so they came along
the shore and they shouted, and
some of the children went out of
the jungle to the landing place, and
then some of the girls. When the
white men saw the girls they tried
to land, and their boat was broken
against the ledge; but they climbed
ashore. They were angry because of
the loss of the boat, and when
George came down the path and
spoke to them, one of the men