Tarzan and the Lion-Man

White considered O'Grady's question. 'If we were not too greatly delayed by the trucks, we could make it in two days,' he decided finally.

'And how long would it take us to reach the location we're headed for if we have to go back and go around the Bansuto country?' continued O'Grady.

'We couldn't do it under two weeks,' replied the major. 'We'd be lucky if we made it in that time. We'd have to go way to the south through a beastly rough country.'

'The studio's put a lot of money into this already,' said O'Grady, 'and we haven't got much of anything to show for it. We'd like to get onto location as quick as possible. Don't you suppose you could persuade Kwamudi to go on? If we turn back, we'll have those beggars on our neck for a day at least. If we go ahead, it will only mean one extra day of them. Offer Kwamudi's bunch extra pay if they'll stick—it'll be a whole lot cheaper for us than wastin' another two weeks.'

'Will Mr. Orman authorize the bonus?' asked White.

'He'll do whatever I tell him, or I'll punch his fool head,' O'Grady assured him.

Orman had sunk back Into his camp chair and was staring at the ground. He made no comment.

'Very well,' said White. 'I'll see what I can do. I'll talk to Kwamudi over at my tent, if you'll send one of the boys after him.'

White walked over to his tent, and O'Grady sent a black boy to summon the headman; then he turned to Orman. 'Go to bed, Tom,' he ordered, 'and lay off that hootch.'

Without a word, Orman got up and went into his tent.

'You put the kibosh on him all right, Pat,' remarked Noice, with a grin. 'How do you get away with it?'

O'Grady did not reply. His eyes were wandering over the camp, and there was a troubled expression on his usually smiling face. He noted the air of constraint, the tenseness, as though all were waiting for something to happen, they knew not what.

He saw his messenger overhaul Kwamudi and the headman turn back toward White's tent. He saw the natives silently making their little cooking fires. They did not sing or laugh, and when they spoke they spoke in whispers.

The Arabs were squatting in the muk'aad of the sheykh's beyt. They were a dour lot at best; and their appearance was little different tonight than ordinarily, yet he sensed a difference.

Even the whites spoke in lower tones than usual and there was less chaffing. And from all the groups constant glances were cast toward the surrounding forest.

Presently he saw Kwamudi leave White and return to his fellows; then O'Grady walked over to where the Englishman was sitting in a camp chair, puffing on a squat briar. 'What luck?' he asked.

'The bonus got him,' replied White. 'They will go on, but on one other condition.'

'What is that?'

'His men are not to be whipped.'

'That's fair enough,' said O'Grady.

'But how are you going to prevent it?'

'For one thing, I'll throw the whip away; for another, I'll tell Orman we'll all quit him if he doesn't lay off. I can't understand him; he never was like this before. I've worked with him a lot during the last five years.'

'Too much liquor,' said White; 'it's finally got him.'

'He'll be all right when we get on location and get to work. He's been worrying too much. Once we get through this Bansuto country everything'll be jake.'

'We're not through it yet, Pat. They'll get some more of us tomorrow and some more the next day. I don't know how the natives will stand it. It's a bad business. We really ought to turn around and go back. It would be better to lose two weeks time than to lose everything, as we may easily do if the natives quit us. You know we couldn't move through this country without them.'

'We'll pull through somehow,' O'Grady assured him. 'We always do. Well, I'm goin' to turn in. Good-night, Major.'

The brief equatorial twilight had ushered in the night. The moon had not risen. The forest was blotted out by a pall of darkness. The universe had shrunk to a few tiny earth fires surrounded by the huddled forms of men and, far above, a few stars.

Obroski paused in front of the girls' tent and scratched on the flap. 'Who is it?' demanded Naomi Madison from within.

'It's me, Stanley.'

She bade him enter; and he came in to find her lying on her cot beneath a mosquito bar, a lantern burning on a box beside her.

'Well,' she said peevishly, 'it's a wonder any one came. I might lie here and die for all any one cares.'

'I'd have come sooner, but I thought of course Orman was here.'

'He's probably in his tent soused.'

'Yes, he is. When I found that out I came right over.'

'I shouldn't think you'd be afraid of him. I shouldn't think you'd be afraid of anything.' She gazed admiringly on Ms splendid physique, his handsome face.

'Me afraid of that big stiff!' he scoffed. 'I'm not afraid of anything, but you said yourself that we ought not to let Orman know about—about you and me.'

'No,' she acquiesced thoughtfully, 'that wouldn't be so good. He's got a nasty temper, and there's lots of things a director can do if he gets sore.'

'In a picture like this he could get a guy killed and make it look like an accident,' said Obroski.

She nodded. 'Yes. I saw it done once. The director and the leading man were both stuck on the same girl. The director had the wrong command given to a trained elephant.'

Obroski looked uncomfortable. 'Do you suppose there's any chance of his coming over?'

'Not now. He'll be dead to the world till morning.'

'Where's Rhonda?'

'Oh, she's probably playing contract with Bill West and Baine and old man Marcus. She'd play contract and let me lie here and die all alone.'

'Is she all right?'

'What do you mean, all right?'

'She wouldn't tell Orman about us—about my being over here—would she?'

'No, she wouldn't do that—she ain't that kind.'

Obroski breathed a sigh of relief. 'She knows about us, don't she?'

'She ain't very bright; but she ain't a fool, either. The only trouble with Rhonda is, she's got it in her head she can act since she doubled for me while I was down with the fever. Some one handed her some applesauce, and now she thinks she's some pumpkins. She had the nerve to tell me that I'd get credit for what she did. Believe me, she won't get past the cutting room when I get back to Hollywood —not if I know my groceries and Milt Smith.'

'There couldn't anybody act like you, Naomi,' said Obroski. 'Why, before I ever dreamed I'd be in pictures I used to go see everything you were in. I got an album full of your pictures I cut out of movie magazines and newspapers. And now to think that I'm playin' in the same company with you, and that'—he lowered his voice —'you love me! You do love me, don't you?'

'Of course I do.'

'Then I don't see why you have to act so sweet on Orman.'

'I got to be diplomatic—I got to think of my career.'

'Well, sometimes you act like you were in love with him,' he said, petulantly.

'That answer to a bootlegger's dream! Say, if he wasn't a big director I couldn't see him with a hundred-inch telescope.'

In the far distance a wailing scream echoed through the blackness of the night, a lion rumbled forth a thunderous answer, the hideous, mocking voice of a hyena joined the chorus.

The girl shuddered. 'God! I'd give a million dollars to be back in Hollywood.'

'They sound like lost souls out there in the night,' whispered Obroski.