"Been looking for you. I've run across something I wouldn't tell just
anyone. But I've heard of you, that you are on the level. Here in
Korea, you're known already."
I still didn't step back and swing the door wide. But he had aroused my
curiosity as well as my natural desire to acquire things. I had made two
fortunes and lost both in mining ventures. My present not small income
came from an emerald mine in the Andes. It had been a very dirty and
very sick Indio who had led me to that emerald mine. You never know!
"I'm pretty busy, could you give me some idea...." I hedged. It doesn't
do to seem too anxious or eager in any business deal. Too, the sight of
his burly figure, even without the nightmare face, was not exactly
reassuring. That bulge under the native quilted coat, I knew was nothing
but a gun too big for even his bulges to conceal completely. But a man
needed a gun, here. Especially if he had something valuable, such as the
whereabouts of gold.
He grinned, and the white, even teeth, and the wrinkles around his eyes
took away the sense of impending catastrophe brought by those crossed
eyes. I stepped back then, and he walked in. I sat down at my desk. He
sat down across from me, and fumbled in one pocket. He lay on the desk
an object in wrappings of dirty rags. These he peeled off slowly, his
eyes seeming to dart here and there, never looking where they should. As
he peeled, he talked:
"I just landed off a ship from Fusan, up-coast. Y' ever been in Fusan?"
I shook my head, watching his fingers work at the knots of the strings
around his mysterious object.
"Korea is a funny place. As long as people have been living here, you'd
think it would be settled. But it isn't! There're immense forests, great
mountains, where no man has gone, places no one enters. They're so dumb
they don't even have compasses; they get lost! Think my compass is
magic, wonder how I know where to go next, and not get lost.
Superstitious, scared to go into the great, dark, damp forests. Scared
of the mountains no one has ever climbed. That kind of country is a
prospector's meat!"
I nodded. He had the wrappings off, and I leaned forward, a little
breathless at the beauty of the thing in his hand. A curiously wrought
little statuette about eight inches high, of gold. It was set with real
emeralds, for eyes. About the neck and waist of the exquisite female
figure were inset jewels, simulating girdle and necklace. A little
golden woman goddess! It was very finely wrought, and what surprised me,
it was not oriental, not any style of art I could place. Yet it was
alien and ancient. I reached for it. He let me take it in my hands, and
as I touched it, an electric tingle of surprise, a thrill of utter
delight, ran up my arm, as if the image contained a strong little soul
intent upon enslaving me with admiration.
"Potent little female, isn't she?"
His crossed eyes were on mine with that queer stare of the cross-eyed. I
could make nothing of the facial expressions of this man. He would have
been disturbing to play poker against. I would have said he was afraid
of that little figure! Afraid, yet very much attached to it. I set it
down and he wrapped it up again.
"Strange thing! Tell me about it."
"You know we split Korea with Russia, after the war. I thought I'd take
a look around. I have done quite a bit of that. It wasn't hard. Up near
the Russian line I found something."
He stopped, looked at me. Whether, he was trying to gauge my credulity
or my depth, I don't know.
"You're young. You're not yet thirty, Keele; you've got time left to
enjoy a fortune such as I'm letting you in on. And I saw such women
among these unknown people as no man would believe. I spent a lot of
time spying on them."
I figured he was lying about the women to get me to help him finance the
trip. But just the same, the hint of unknown and unspoiled beauty of
some hidden, weirdly alien tribe of people aroused my curiosity--the old
lure of the Savage Princess from kid days, I guess. I hadn't had a real
vacation in years--and what would I enjoy more than a jaunt through
untouched forests? Toward what didn't matter as long as the hunting was
good. And it sounded good!
"Unknown people, virgin forest, beautiful women and plenty of gold.
Sounds too good to be true!"
He squinted at me, bared his fine teeth. He leaned forward, almost
whispered trying to impress me:
"The people who made that statue are still there. It isn't ancient--they
still make them!"
Now I knew he was lying, but still I was hooked. I had to know! For that
statue was an infinite evidence of a refinement of art culture rare on
earth! If such a race still remained untouched by white man's modern
rot--I could pick up a fortune in art objects. I wasn't too dumb to know
what they'd bring in New York. I nodded, and he went on.
"I found a cache of valuable gold, jewels, and other things. Things I
can't understand. I could be better educated, Mr. Keele. That's why I've
come to you. I want some help."
I leaned back. If he found gold, he should have the wherewithal to get
in there and back without my help. So he was lying. I determined to find
out why, and just what the lie was.
"Go ahead," was all I said. Give a liar enough rope and he'll trip
himself.
But he didn't! He didn't ask for money! He only wanted me for advice,
for the names of experienced men of the kind he needed, to help him go
back there. Men willing to fight if needed. Or else he was too clever.
At the end he had me. I was committed to supervising and accompanying
that expedition. Or was it the wise emerald eyes of the little golden
Goddess that trapped me? I didn't know, then.
Finally I got it out of him. He hadn't brought back the gold. He had to
cross bandit territory, and he didn't have to tell me why he didn't
carry his fortune with only his own rifle to guard it.
I picked two well-known men who were available just then. Hank Polter
had led more than one hunting party through country I wouldn't have
picked--and come out safe. He knew what a gun was for, and when to use
it. And that's the most important part of handling a gun, knowing _when_
you have to shoot, and then doing it first. The man that shoots before
he has to is going to get you into more trouble than he can get you out
of.
Lean and tough, he knew the ropes. Around thirty, just under six feet,
not bad looking, he was making the most of Seoul's wide-open hot spots.
Nearly broke, he jumped at our offer.
Seoul is the capital of Korea, in case you don't know. Everyone did
pretty much as they pleased, for there were few restrictions from the
so-recently installed government. There are a number of gold mines
around Seoul, which was why I was there. Like the cross-eyed Jake Barto,
I knew that something would turn up worth owning where governments have
changed three times in as many years.
Frans Nolti, the other hunter we hired, was more of a fortune hunter,
by appearance, than one who knew his way in the jungles of the world.
Handsome in his Italian way, he was suave, apparently well educated,
very quick in his movements. He gave the impression of extreme
cleverness, of intellect held in reserve behind a facade of worldliness,
of light clever talk.
Both of them knew their Orient, far better than I. Which was one reason
I wanted them.
Barto had at first wanted a large party, at least a score of "white" men
of the western school, able to fight and smart enough to know how. But I
had talked him out of it.
"You see, Jake, with two like these, we can travel fast. If there's
treachery, if they aren't satisfied with the cut we're offering, why
it's two against two--you and I have an even chance. With a larger
party, we might pick up some scoundrels who will try to murder us and
make off with the treasure. Providing we _get_ the treasure!"
Jake eyed me, in that maddeningly unreadable cross-eyed expression of
cold ferocity which the scars gave his ugly face. We had agreed on
one-third each, the other two to split the other third between them. I
was footing the bills, Jake was nearly broke. He had found the stuff,
and tried to hold out for half, me a quarter, the other two to split a
quarter. I said nothing doing.
"No, Jake, this first trip, it's got to be this way. If it's like you
say it is, there'll be more. What we can carry won't be all the value.
There'll be more to be gotten out of that ruin than the stuff you found.
You'll have the money to do it, after this, and it's your find. We'll be
out, after this one trip."
We sailed up the east coast of Korea from Fusan to the village of
Leshin. By native cart from there to the ancient half-ruined city of
Musan. That's close to the Manchurian border. There we hired eight
diminutive Korean ponies and four men to "go along" as Barto put it, for
they didn't want to go, and didn't appear like men of much use for
anything but guides. And Barto knew the way. But I didn't want to be
wandering around without any native interpreters, without contact of any
kind possible with the people we might encounter. None of them had been
more than a few miles into the wilderness. They were sad looking men
when we started northward. But Koreans manage to look pretty sad much of
the time. With their history, that's easy to understand.
Something about the burly, ugly Barto's behavior began to worry me. He
didn't know where he was going. He had told a lie, but just what the lie
was I couldn't figure out. I watched him covertly. Whenever we came to
the end of a march, instead of sighting his landmarks, making sure of
his bearings--he would go off by himself. Next day, he would know
exactly where he wanted to go--but sometimes the "way" would be across
an impassable gorge, a rapids, or straight into a cliff.
One night, the fourth day and well into the wilderness, we were moving
up a broad valley through a forest of larch. I sighted a deer, and
called a halt while I stalked it. I got it, and came back ahead of the
rest, who were cutting up the deer. I moved quietly in the woods--it's a
good habit. I came upon Barto, and he was oblivious of me. He had the
little golden girl in his hands, talking to it.
"Now, tell me the way, girl, tell me the way." Then he held the girl
loosely in his hand, as I watched, it gave me an eerie feeling to see
the little figure turn, its outstretched hand pointing northward like a
compass. Was Jake Barto a madman? Or _did_ the little figure act as a
compass? If so, why did Barto have to rely on the pointing figure's hand
for directions? If he didn't get that figure from the place we were
heading, where did he get it? How did he know there was anything of
value in the place we were headed for?
These questions tormented me, for I could not ask them without revealing
to Jake that I knew he was lying. And that meant a showdown. I might
have to kill him. Still, I had to get the truth out of him, or let a
madman lead us on and on into an untracked wilderness, if that is what
he was.
For several days we did not see a sign of life, after that deer.
The forest became denser at every mile, with more and more swamps and
surface water. Time after time our ponies mired and had to be lifted out
of the mud. Lush ferns and rank grass made walking dangerous. The trees
were interlaced with draping festoons of gray "Spanish moss," forming a
canopy overhead which let through only a gloomy half-light. No sounds
broke the stillness except the half-awed calls of the men. No birds, not
even a squirrel. Then it began to rain.
That drizzle continued for a week! The men became frightened at the
gloomy stillness and exhausted by the strenuous work of keeping the
ponies moving.
Then in the night my four Koreans deserted. They didn't take any ponies,
just what grub they could pack. We all felt better off without them, but
I often wonder if they ever found their way out of that morass.
The next day there came a break. We sighted a majestic mountain about
two days' march ahead. It looked like a gloomy cloud that had settled to
earth for a moment's rest. But no cloud ever managed to look so rocky,
so windswept, or so welcome. And no patch of blue sky ever looked so
good as that sky above the mountain, swept clean of the rain curtain by
the updraft.
Jake seemed to recognize that mountain, gave an audible sigh of relief
when we sighted it. My suspicions quieted.
We went hunting that day. It was the first dry camp in a long time, the
first signs of game; we needed a rest. As usual, Barto stayed at camp to
guard the ponies and camp equipment.
We were on the trail of a bear when we saw a strange object in the sky.
It looked like a doughnut or a saucer, and it settled to the earth on
the far side of the great white mountain at whose foot we had made camp.
It seemed only an hour's walk to a point where we could overlook the
landing place of the strange object, and Hank and Frans pushed ahead,
curious and a little frightened. I had read in the American newspapers
the accounts of "disk ships" and knew they would not be able to get
close to it, and I wanted to watch Hank. I let them get out of sight,
then turned back to camp. Quietly, I was nearing our camp, when the
scream of a woman in pain came to me!
It was the answer to all my apprehensions about the ugly Barto, a sudden
materialization of the vague distrust I had felt all along! I broke into
a run, crashing through the young, white birches and larches, to the
clearing.
A chuckle reached me, a gloating heavy laugh of triumph.
Barto had the girl prone, one arm bent near to breaking, her knees
caught beneath his weight. I caught him by the shoulders, heaved
backward, sent him sprawling across the young grass. He sat up, glared
for an instant, then went for his gun. Before it came out of the
holster, my foot caught him beside the jaw. He was too big for any
other method I might have chosen to be effective. The kick stretched him
unconscious; my heel had struck the button.
I turned, to see the girl disappearing among the brush. She had darted
away instantly she was free. That she would bring her people down on us
I had no doubt. I did doubt their ability to hurt us. Unless she
belonged to a band of Manchurian bandits hanging out here in the
wilderness, they would not have arms. In the case she was of the
bandits, we might be wiped out in our sleep.
I bent over Jake, hoping I had not broken his neck. He looked as though
he would be out for some time. I picked up his heavy .45, shoved it in
my belt. I wished Hank and Frans would return soon. The four of us might
be able to handle her people.