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James Francis Dwyer
JAMES FRANCIS DWYER (1874-1952) was an Australian writer. Born in Camden Park, New South Wales, Dwyer worked as a postal assistant until he was convicted in a scheme to make fraudulent postal orders and sentenced to seven years imprisonment in 1899. In prison, Dwyer began writing, and with the help of another inmate and a prison guard, had his work published in The Bulletin. After completing his sentence, he relocated to London and then New York, where he established a successful career as a writer of short stories and novels. Dwyer later moved to France, where he wrote his autobiography, Leg-Irons on Wings, in 1949. Dwyer wrote over 1,000 short stories during his career, and was the first Australian-born person to become a millionaire from writing. —Wikipedia
Short Stories, 10 October 1940,
with "Gunmen Versus Leopard Men"
Three Chicago Gunmen, and a Girl, Turn Up in Darkest Africa
WHEN I first pieced together the extraordinary bits of information concerning the four wanderers from Chicago I thought of sending a cablegram to J. Edgar Hoover, chief of the G-men. I felt certain that Hoover and his men would be intensely interested in the amazing narrative, and I believed that it was my duty as a citizen to put before them all the facts that I had discovered. Two reasons upset this patriotic resolve. Firstly there was the matter of expense. I was, at the moment when the complete story of the quartet came into my possession, a temporary resident of Conakry, the capital of French Guinea, and cables from there to the United States are very costly.
Of course I could have made the cablegram short, knowing well how clever the G-men are, but here the second reason blocked my good intention. Reportorial pride held me. I did sketch out a cold, bald message reading: "Bull Hannen, Slit-ear Louis, and Gyp the Greek rubbed out; Chicago Kate reformed," but its verbal paucity irritated me. I tore the cable form into shreds.
After reading this story you will easily understand that I could not force myself to compress all that I had discovered into a message of fourteen words. During long months I had collected at great trouble and expense a mass of colorful detail and I rebelled against a brutal condensation. I told myself that I had an amazing tale that ran up to the stars, and compression was criminal. What if Hoover and his G-men were still wondering as to the whereabouts of the three Chicago gunmen and the girl who had disappeared mysteriously?
They, the G-men, would suffer nothing but mild headaches in waiting for the details, but I would be robbed of the tremendous joy of the raconteur if I sent a niggardly cable.
Then there was Daniel-Frustration-of-the-Devil! I couldn't put his splendid chansons into a mean message. There was that verse concerning Jonah, which to me is a masterpiece:
"Jonah sat in de belly of de whale,
De whale he said: 'Dose Kroo-boys can sail
All roun' Mamba Point an' Cape Mesarabo,
But dere's no Kroo-boys as can do what Ah do!'
So ole Jonah fed dat whale some dates
An' he swam right ober to de United States."
I will, I told myself, as I stalked from the bureau of the Conakry Postes et Télégraphes, write down the full and complete story of Bull Hannen, Slit-ear Louis, Gyp the Greek, and Chicago Kate. Write it down with all the thrills and horrors, then Mr. Hoover and his merry men can read it at their leisure.
AT a certain point in my researches I lunched with the captain of the Padusay, and I asked him if he had any suspicion that the three men were gangsters and the girl a gunman's moll when they came aboard his boat at Brooklyn with tickets for Monrovia, the chief town of the black republic of Liberia. The Padusay is an old trading steamer that makes a yearly trip to West African ports. Incidentally her skipper is one of the finest seamen I have met.
"Well," he said, smiling at my question, "my passengers are ninety per cent missionaries. I bring holy men and holy women out to Africa to wrestle with the heathen and I bring them back to the U.S. when their work is done. You can easily understand that I didn't size up the three men as Bible folk. They looked to me like gangsters on the lam, and the girl wasn't the type that concerned herself about the souls of niggers. But the four had tickets for Monrovia so it was none of my business. Do you know the motto on the great seal of Liberia? Hardly complimentary to the United States, but attractive to a running gunman. It reads: 'Love of Liberty brought us here'."
An incident of the voyage, related by the skipper of the Padusay, clearly proves that the gunmen had heard of the leopard totem before leaving the United States. Whether they had any knowledge of the "Leopard Men," the terrible hommes panthères, I cannot say, but they had evidently heard some garbled story about the golden totem of the playful devils who live in the dark hinterland of Liberia.
It appears that three days out from Brooklyn Slit-ear Louis asked one of the missionaries for the loan of a Bible. Needless to say the holy man hurried to oblige, and, wishing to make an impression on a person he sensed as godless, the missionary loaned a special morocco-bound volume that he was taking out as a gift to a newly converted chief of the Manos tribe.
Alas, the poor missionary's kindness was ill-rewarded. In Slit-ear's cabin the three gunmen started an argument while the Book was lying open at the thirty-second chapter of Exodus, and Bull Hannen clumsily upset half a bottle of rum which practically ruined the volume.
Slit-ear returned the Bible with muttered apologies. The good missionary, restraining his tears, asked the gunman if he had found what he was seeking. Slit-ear confessed that he had and he hadn't, and his answer gives proof of the pitiful ignorance of the three. Gyp the Greek, it seems, had asserted that an animal made entirely of gold was mentioned in the Bible, and the three wished to find out if by any chance it was the animal they were in search of.
"It's a golden calf that's in yore book," said Slit-ear, complainingly. "What we're after is a gold leopard. Bigger'n a calf. We got the dope about the leopard in Chi. It's a totem. Know what a totem is?"
"Why a totem is an emblem taken by savages as a badge or something to worship," answered the missionary.
"Well, that's what this gold leopard is," said Slit-ear. "T'anks for the book. Sorry we mucked it up."
Now the animal totem runs the length and breadth of Africa. Each tribe has its special animal that is supposed to exercise a benevolent influence on the clan in return for satisfactory worship. In the little huts you will find clay and wood models of the tribal beast, but the witch-doctors assert that the splendid golden originals rest in the jungle. There in secret places are the gold baboons, panthers, mandrils, hyenas, okapis, and other beasts, but these are visible only to the eyes of the witch-doctors whose cult protects them against the devastating force emitted by the totem.
THE most wonderful of those totems is that of the Leopard Men, the human devils that inhabit the dank forests of Liberia. It is described as a huge crouching leopard of shining gold with eyes made of enormous emeralds, the light from which blinds all but the inner members of the disgusting cult. The Liberian Government is sensitive about the Leopard Men. The playful devils constitute a governmental skeleton that rattles loudly each time a squad of "Leopards" are rounded up and brought down to the coast for punishment.
Mr. Hoover's men will probably inform me that the gold totem was not the real incentive for the voyage of the four. Bull Hannen, so it appears, was suspected of the brutal murder of "Skinny" Davis of Van Buren; Slit-ear Louis was thought to have taken a leading part in the rubbing out of the Renardi brothers, while Gyp the Greek was eagerly sought in connection with the death of a compatriot in Humboldt Park. Even the dashing, golden-haired Kate was mixed up in a narcotic case.
Anyhow, whatever the cause of the great pilgrimage, totem or troubles, the records of the Republic of Liberia prove that the three gunmen and the girl arrived off Monrovia on the seventeenth of February, 1939.
"Off Monrovia" is the proper way to describe an arrival by steamer. No ship can approach the wharf. Vessels drop anchor beyond Mamba Point, and deft Kroo-men maneuver the surf boats that carry descending passengers over the dangerous bar into still water. West Africa has few harbors of any consequence.
This makeshift landing brought trouble. Chicago Kate was swept off the surf-boat by an unexpected wave and was only saved from drowning by the gallant efforts of two Kroo-boys. The boys believed that they had done a good job, but Kate thought they had needlessly damaged the Loop-bought costume that she had donned to startle Monrovia. When the Kroo-boys demanded extra payment at the wharf she boxed the ears of the nearest.
The life-saver resented the attack. He kicked Kate on the shins with his bare feet, and brought on himself a vicious uppercut from Bull Hannen. A small riot started. Kroo-men rallied to the support of their comrade, and it took the combined efforts of seven colored policemen to rescue the four. They were taken along Waterside through a howling mob of blacks to the Hall of Justice to be questioned.
White Americans carry prestige in the dark republic in spite of that uncomplimentary motto on the great seal. The four Chicagoans were in funds. They put up the necessary guarantee required from all visiting foreigners whose later deportation might be costly to the state; carelessly tossed a few dollars to the black officials and they were free.
An American pioneer of the Firestone company who was in the court that morning described the four to me. His descriptions may or may not tally with those held by the G-men, but they are colorful so I reproduce them here. He said Bull Hannen looked as wicked as a marching army of driver-ants. His dead pan suggested the drawn shade of an undertaking parlor. He wore many diamond rings.
Slit-ear Louis, according to the same keen observer, was a jaundiced-looking devil. Oily-skinned, thin-lipped, cold as a frozen snake. The helix of Louis' right ear had been completely shaved off, but the lobule, extraordinarily large, hung fearfully from the cartilage.
Gyp the Greek was short and tubby. He was dressed in a Palm-beach suit and he irritated the black magistrate by calling him George. Gyp, in the days that followed, seemed to have supplied the humor of the party.
Chicago Kate, according to the Firestone man, was handsome. It seems that she possessed all the physical qualities that appeal to a tired tropic-dweller. She had a rose and milk complexion, large blue eyes, and a red-lipped mouth that was busy making smiles to all and sundry. The Firestone man admitted that one would never mistake her for a sister of charity.
NOW the moment the four left the Hall of Justice they met Daniel-Frus-tration-of-the-Devil.
In lost ports throughout the world there is always a guide of the type of Daniel-Frustration-of-the-Devil waiting patiently for crazy clients. Sometimes the Daniels grow gray with the tryst but they never lose heart. They feel certain that the strange screwy tourist about whom they have dreamed will some day arrive and that they will be chosen as guide and counsellor for the expedition the screwy one has planned. Daniel, the moment his eyes fell upon the three gunmen and the girl, knew that his dream of mad travelers had come true.
Daniel was black, huge, and of immense strength. He thrust the clamoring crowd away from the quartet when they come out on Waterside. The four were his property.
He led them to a small hostelry, arranged for their comfort, then delivered himself of a short speech.
"Ah t'ink you come to Liberia catch 'some big t'ing?" said Daniel.
"You've struck it, bo," growled Bull. "We're after something hot."
"Ah knew," said Daniel. "Ah see it on yo faces. Ah say to mysel' dose white gem'men from America wiv pretty lady hunt somethin' big in ole Liberia. Like ole Balaam hunt de sweet potatoes."
"Who's Balaam?" snarled Slit-ear.
Daniel opened his huge mouth and roared one of his verses.
"Balaam he came out o' ole Mes-o-po-ta-mia
Ridin' a black mule, an' he said: 'Lord, here Ah are!'
An' de Lord said: 'Where yo goin' on dat dere mule?'
An' ole Balaam said back: 'Dey t'ink Ah'se a fool
Cause Ah'm goin' searchin' where de sweet potatoes grow
Back in ole Virginny where Ah came from long ago'."
"We're not searchin' for sweet potatoes," growled Bull.
"Ah know," said Daniel. "You gem'men are searchin' for gold. Nice bright gold."
Daniel's guess surprised the three. They were an untraveled trio. They didn't know that the dream of gold has been the driving force for every African explorer since the days of the Phoenicians set out from Tyre,sacrificing black goats to Melkarth and asking for African gold in return for their sacrifices. They decided to question Daniel about the golden totem of the Leopard Men.
Daniel was a little upset by their questions. Personally he could give scanty information, but, lowering his voice, he spoke of a witch-doctor who lived in the ragged shacks of Krootown who knew a lot.
The witch-doctor had fled the hinterland because working for the Government, he had smelled out an influential Leopard Man and the fellow's relatives had made it too warm for an outback sojourn. If the three desired it, Daniel would make arrangements for an interview with the witch-doctor for that evening.
To Krootown went the three and were introduced to a frightful old wretch wrapped in a gunny-sack. Perhaps Daniel in arranging the interview had whispered of the hopes of the three. It looked that way.
The horrible mummy asserted that he, while practising his profession in the hinterland, had actually seen the gold totem of the Leopard Men. On the sandy floor of the hut he drew a design showing a huge leopard in the act of leaping on its prey, and in gasping whispers he spoke of its grace and beauty.
Seeing that he was making a hit he went into high. Of course it was gold. Yellow, glittering gold. And it had eyes of great green emeralds. Eyes that shone on the darkest nights. Eyes that were so magnetic that villagers walking along the forest paths were attracted by them and foolishly moved toward the eyes where the Leopard Men were waiting to spring on them and devour them.
To the gunmen it was a good story. The dark of Krootown pressed in on them and brought belief. There is no place in the world where the darkness is so dense and obtrusive as the Republic of Liberia.
They had difficulty in following Daniel on their way back to the hotel. They longed for the flares of Michigan Avenue and Dearborn. But there were no golden leopards hying around loose in Chi.
IN the morning they held a consultation and decided on an immediate expedition into the interior. Daniel was to be head guide They would go up the St. Paul's River as far as navigation permitted, them arrange at the villages for bearers who would carry them toward the hinterland. Liberia has no railway, and its sole road extends only fifty miles into the forest region. Beyond that point the white traveler must voyage by hammock and bearers through tracks cut in the riotous jungle.
Monrovia was interested in the preparations made by the three gunmen and the girl. Timidly the black population watched. Of course the four were white Americans, and white Americans did things that were startling and unusual.
Now and then a Liberian called on his courage and whispered a warning. The three gunmen received it with insolence. Bad? Who were bad? The nigger tribes in the hinterland! Huh!
They laughed loudly at the suggestion that they, three gunmen from Chicago, would have any difficulty with a bunch of crazy natives. Monkey-men. Sambos. Tarpots. Hell, these whispering fools didn't know who they were talking to!
They were filled with a desire to brag of their former exploits to these mild Liberians. Hard to control their tongues as they listened to the solicitous remarks of Negroes who made timid warnings about the trip.
"If dese ducks only knew who we are?" muttered Bull.
"Wanter tell 'em?" asked Gyp.
"Fun to frighten them," said Bull.
"Shut yer trap!" snapped Slit-ear. Slit-ear was close-mouthed.
Chicago Kate laughed loudly. "They wouldn't understan' if you did tell 'em," she cried. "Go an bawl it out to 'em. Say 'I'm Bull Hannen who sent fifteen guys to hell an' with me is Slit-ear Louis who rubbed out a round dozen, and'—"
"Smother that!" shouted Slit-ear. "Hell, you don't know if any of these might be an ear for a flatfoot."
"There are real Americans here beside us," cautioned Gyp, "Fellas gettin' rubber."
"Where d'you get rubber?" asked Kate.
"Outer trees, idjut."
One of the real Americans came along at that moment. He watched the preparations for long minutes in silence, then he spoke: "Going far?" he asked.
"Jest two or three blocks an' a scamper down the avenoo," answered Bill.
"So," said the inquirer. "There's a tale going round that you fellows are searching for Leopard Men."
"An' if we are?" countered Bull. "Is it anything to do with you?"
The other laughed. "No," he said, "but if you make a good snatch you might keep me one."
The word "snatch" annoyed Bull. "Scram!" he growled, and the inquisitive one walked away.
The mind of the gunman has been studied by numerous psychologists who have come to the opinion that he is led to prison and often to the electric chair by vanity, ignorance, and retarded development. The three from Chicago had no idea of what they were facing in the forests of Liberia. Their poor weak brains could not visualize the dangers even if their vanity would permit them to do so. They were armed killers who had heard of a golden cache so there was nothing to do but seize the booty.
THERE is a belief amongst the better class Liberians that those emancipated American Negro slaves who were conveyed from the United States to Liberia by philanthropic societies in the years following the first exodus in 1822, might have acted more wisely for their descendants if they stayed at home. The truth is that the Republic of Liberia is a poor thing. Now, after ninety-three years as an independent state, it is a dump. The American-Liberian population is decreasing. Today they number only some twenty-seven thousand against a million and a half of depraved and heathen tribes. Monrovia, the capital is a smelly village of twelve thousand. There are no trams, no railways, no autobusses. Exports are principally coffee, rubber, piassava, palm-oil, and palm kernels.
Possibly the ragged, down-at-heel aspect of the republic gave courage to the three gunmen from Chicago. If the Negroes of the ruling class were a poor lot what must the native tribes be? At moments during the days spent in making purchases for the expedition into the interior they felt that they, if they were inclined, could take over the republic. "Just like Musseliny took over that other nigger joint," said Bull.
"We only want the gold animal," said Slit-ear. "An' the quicker we start the better. How do we know there isn't some other mob after it?"
The thought terrified them. They hurried their final preparations, bullied Daniel and four upcountry Negroes that Daniel had engaged, and on the fifth morning after their arrival in Monrovia, the three and the girl climbed aboard a rackety motor launch that was to convey them twenty miles up the St. Paul's River. Navigation beyond that point was impossible. They had sent word ahead demanding bearers at a native village on the bank, and from that point they would be carried toward the country of the Leopard Men.
The American who had joshed Bull Hannen was in the milling crowd that viewed the departure of the four. "Don't forget," he shouted, as the motorboat moved out into the stream, "if you snatch some nice tame Leopard Men I'd like one."
"Go to hell!" screamed Bull.
"Good-by, Stanley," shouted the other. "Regards to Livingstone. Keep your paw on your rod."
They were on their way and felt elated. Daniel-Frustration-of-the-Devil was beside himself. This was the expedition that had filled his dreams. He sang loudly till they reached the native village where they would stay for the night.
The two huts that were allotted to them were dirty and flea-infested. The one occupied by Chicago Kate lacked a proper door, and, through the transparent strip of matting that acted for the purpose, half the village peeked at her as she made her toilet.
Kate lost her temper and banged the ears of some of the nearly-naked youths who fought for a peephole, but their desire persisted. A golden-haired lady with painted lips, plucked eyebrows, and darkened eyelashes had never before floated into their ken. Even the ancient chief of the village hobbled to the door of the hut to take a peep. In the native villages of Liberia there is no such thing as privacy.
IN the morning the chief assembled bearers that would carry the four whites to the next village. Pedestrianism for whites is impossible in the black republic. The climate is hot and damp, and a promenade of a mile leaves a white exhausted.
On that first morning the quartet from Chicago became acquainted with trees. The surging, close-packed, enveloping trees of Liberia. Noted travelers from all over the world—Sir Harry Johnston, Durrant, Reeve, Lady Dorothy Mills, Sibley and Westermann—have commented on the frightening intrusiveness of the dank forests of the republic. Forests that are aggressive, extraordinarily fecund, obstructive, and fear-producing.
The traveler moves through a green burrow cut in the tree masses, while lianas like living tentacles reach out threateningly. Trees of a curious tropical kind. Great baobabs with bloated trunks and spindley branches, carités, which produce a vegetable oil of theconsistence of butter; the poisonous "teli," or "gre-gre" tree, tamarinds, papaws, huge cotton-trees, and the strange strophanthum, the sap of which is used by the natives for poisoning their spears.
Now the three gunmen and the girl had never been very familiar with trees. They had carelessly noticed their presence in Lincoln Park, Lake Shore Drive, Washington Park, and other open places, but they had taken little interest in them. On car excursions from Chicago to Highland Park and Lake Forest they had casually remarked on the number of trees in the landscape, but those trees of Illinois kept their place, so to speak. They stood graciously at the roadside and waved their branches at successful gunmen and their girls who rushed by in fine big cars. They were well-behaved, apparently thankful for the morsel of ground in which to grow up, but these trees of Liberia were of a different order. They were arboreal gangsters, terrorists; with their creeper adjuncts they combated travelers.
"Hell!" cried Bull Hannen, staring at the masses of green. "These trees give me the willies!"
"Get the nigger to find a good road," ordered Kate.
Daniel shook his head when the command was given to him. There was no open road. The outback was threaded with little tracks like the one they were following, and there was no way in which they could escape the enveloping trees.
"Dey no hurt," said Daniel. He opened his big mouth and roared a verse from the Psalms: "De trees ob de Lord are full ob sap; de cedars ob Lebanon which He hob planted."
Bull unloosed a haymaker which Daniel dodged. Bull's nerves were bad.
At the midday halt Slit-ear brought up the question of attack. When they arrived in the proximity of the golden totem what would be the plan? A plain hold-up that they had dreamed about up to that moment seemed difficult now that they were in the thick forest.
"The old witch doctor said they drag it out on moonlit nights an' dance aroun' it," said Gyp.
"Well, it's an easy lay," commented Bull. "We'll jest chase 'em off an take it. No flatfeet, no G's, nothing."
They became excited as they planned the attack in whispers. The trees were annoying, but they were close to the treasure. A practically unguarded treasure. No police, no wretched radio cars ready to rush to the scene on a whispered word from headquarters, just niggers with old-fashioned spears and clubs. Not a rod amongst them.
Slit-ear thought it might have been a good idea to smuggle in a Tommy-gun. He thought it could have been done with small bribes to officials.
"We don't want one," said Bull. 'They'll run when we jump 'em. Look at the rats."
He pointed contemptuously to the nearly naked bearers who were squatting on their hunkers around a pot of rice which they scooped up with their fingers. Certainly the difficulties in the way of pulling off a job in Liberia seemed infinitesimal when compared with those that one might meet in Chicago. It looked awfully easy. The three and the girl, watching the poor wretches feeding, were possessed of a joint thought. Why hadn't some bright gunman from the United States thought of the plan before it drifted into their minds?
"'Cause," said Bull, "they stick aroun' the home joints. There's big things lyin' loose roun' the world. Fella told me about stuff in Lunnon. In a tower. Crowns an' necklaces an' rings belongin' to queens. He saw it, but he couldn't do anything. He was over there on his own, dodgin' the Feds."
"I'd like the rings and necklaces," murmured Kate
Daniel approached the four and begged leave to speak. They would reach a village in a few hours and Daniel had discovered from the bearers that the chief was an irascible old chap. If he was not approached with politeness the eggs, chickens, and rice which the expedition needed would not be forthcoming.
"But we've got dough!" screamed Bull.
Daniel admitted the fact, but the mere possession of money to pay for the goods was not all.
Daniel had noticed the brusque manner in which the four had said good-by to their hosts of the night previous, so he thought to offer a warning. The village chiefs believed that they were very important and they had to be flattered.
"Get t'hell," said Bull. "Line up the gang an' get goin'."
The four Chicagoans were amused at the suggestion that they should treat with respect a native who ruled over a village composed of two dozen miserable straw-thatched huts inhabited by nearly-nude folk lacking the faintest sign of intelligence.
THE chief of the village came out to meet the caravan. He was a dignified old man, slow of speech. He sat himself upon a wooden chair in the center of the village and he gave orders in a kingly fashion to his people. They were to find huts and food for the four whites and to treat them with all courtesy. Having given the necessary orders for the comfort of his guests and aware that he could not carry on a conversation with them the old gentleman gathered his ragged shirt around his bare legs and dozed off.
The idea came into the head of Gyp. Gyp the humorist who had annoyed the magistrate at Monrovia by calling him "George." He whispered to Bull and Kate. They grinned. Possibly the warning of Daniel as to the manner in which the chief should be treated stopped any objection that they might have made.
Gyp crept behind the old chief's chair, stooped, lit a couple of matches and placed them within an inch of the calloused soles of the ancient.
The soles were tough. They had never known a shoe, so the gunmen and the girl were amazed at the manner in which they withstood the heat. Gyp added two more lucifers to the fire, and giggling foolishly they waited. The naked villagers stood far off, seemingly awed by the actions of the visitors.
The chief moved his feet. He slid his right foot sideways. A match, still burning, became imprisoned between the big toe and its neighbor. He unloosed a yelp of surprise and anger and bounded from his perch. The three gunmen and the girl were convulsed with laughter.
The chief examined his foot, then lifted a wooden whistle that hung upon his chest He blew three short blasts upon it.
There came to the ears of the four whites the shuffling of bare feet on the sunbaked ground. To their surprised eyes the huts vomited men, women and children. It was near dusk, and the unclothed figures looked like phantoms against the background of the encircling forest
Silently, noiselessly, they moved into the green undergrowth, and the undergrowth absorbed them. Like a million green lips it took them. Legs, arms, and weaving bodies. They disappeared. In three minutes the village was deserted, except for the four whites, Daniel, and his serving squad, and the bearers that had carried the hammocks.
Bull gasped, Slit-ear and Gyp the Greek made blasphemous sounds, Chicago Kate was taken with a fit of hysterical laughter.
Bull Hannen demanded an explanation from Daniel. "Ole chief him pretty mad 'cause him get hot foot," said Daniel.
'It was jest a bit o' fun!" roared Bull.
"He no like fun," muttered Daniel. "Him a very seeryus chief."
"How long will he stay in the bushes?" asked Bull.
Daniel shrugged his shoulders. "Too much time," he said sadly. "He no come out till we go."
The three gunmen stared at each other in amazement. There was something particularly eerie in the sudden and silent disappearance of the tribe. It was serpent-like; frightening in its fluidity. And now the Liberian night was rolling down on the party.
A quick search of the huts increased the temper of the Chicagoans. The fleeing villagers, with miraculous swiftness, had gathered up everything edible as they moved. Eggs, meal, chickens, and plantains had gone with them. There was nothing eatable in the village.
Gyp the Greek pulled his gun and made a motion as if to fire into the surrounding undergrowth, but Daniel fell upon his knees in front of the gunman and begged him not to fire. There was, to Daniel, the frightening possibility of a stray bullet hitting the chief. "Dey is all dere roun' us!" cried Daniel.
"Then tell 'em to come out!" snapped Gyp.
Daniel opened his wide mouth and addressed the forest. He spoke in the language of the villagers. He informed the chief that the white visitor meant no harm. It was just a little bit of playfulness on his part and was not intended as an insult to the dignity of the village head. It was a good plea.
No answer came from the forest. Silence, broken only by the scurrying of monkeys. The chief, if he heard, refused to accept the apology.
Daniel's little regiment, helped by the bearers, built fires, and at one of these sat the white quartet. Possibly the first real cold douche of fear fell upon the four that evening.
Liberia—Africa was attacking. A monster green-eyed spider, attracted by the blaze, came and startled Kate. The spider stood up straight on his huge hairy legs and in size and manner was immensely terrifying.
Slit-ear killed him, but Slit-ear in turn was frightened out of his wits by a wandering out-size scorpion that thought to climb up his leg.
Daniel-Frustration-of-the-Devil tried to fight the dreadful silence with song. His bass voice roared through the empty huts and went out over the dark forests.
"Ole Ham, de son o' Noah, wuz a black-man, he
Lived wit' his fam'ly on de Mississippi;
He had nine t'ousand chillen, an' de moment dey wuz born,
Dey caught de catfish an' dey hoed de corn,
Never had a moment to dance or pray
So dey came right ober Africa way."
"Shut yer trap!" roared Bull.
"No, let him sing!" protested Kate. "It chases away the horrors."
So Daniel sang on through the slow-moving hours.
"Ole Ham he fixed a Declaration o' de Liberty,
Jest like George Washington when he cut free,
He made de first President, Mister Joe Roberts was his name,
An' shiploads o' niggers from de United States came,
An' dey ate fried chicken an' danced roun' de baobab tree
'Cause dey'd nebber go back to der Mississippi."
MORNING brought no change in the situation. No sign of the villagers.
Bull Hannen suggested that the hammock bearers of the previous day should continue with them to the next village, but Daniel explained that this was entirely contrary to the carrying laws of the country. Bearers from one village carried their employers only to the next settlement where new bearers took up the work.
Bull said the rule was nonsense. Daniel should inform the sixteen natives that they were to carry on because there were no others to take their place.
Daniel passed on the order, and the effect was surprising. The sixteen glanced at each other, then, with one accord, they fled down the track leading back to their village. Bull fired a shot or two at their bare sterns, but the firing only increased their speed.
"Dey don't like de peoples in de next village," explained Daniel. "Dey say dere is no buryin' groun' dere."
"What difference does that make to them?" asked Slit-ear.
Daniel tried to dodge the question, but Slit-ear pressed for an answer. "Dey don't bury de men dat die," said Daniel.
"What do they do with 'em?"
"Eat 'em. Dey are not de real Leopard Men, but dey is pretty close"
"And are we that near to the golden totem?" asked Gyp.
"Two or three villages," answered Daniel
The gunmen held a consultation. The action of the old chief was unfortunate, but it would not halt them. The four servants could carry the hammock of Chicago Kate while Bull, Slit-ear, and Gyp walked. In the next village they would conduct themselves properly, give little presents to the chief, flatter him, and all would be well. Kate, being told by Daniel that the chief was a young man, offered to put forth all her blandishments.
Gyp the Greek couldn't be restrained from firing a parting shot at the undergrowth as they set out. Gyp hated walking.
Liberia kept up its attack through the hot, clammy morning. Now and then the three gunmen paused and thrust their heads forward in a listening fashion. They were gradually convinced that men from the village they had left were now marching abreast of them, hidden in the green jungle.
"D'ye hear them?" questioned Bull.
"Hell, yes!" cried Gyp.
"Movin' when we move an' stoppin' when we stop!" growled Bull.
"The crimson swines!" shouted Gyp, waving his automatic.
Daniel shook his head. There was no one marching in the surrounding jungle. It was the intense silence that made the whites think so. To prove that the gunmen were wrong, Daniel plunged into the forest. They heard him threshing about in the undergrowth, then he returned to the track to inform them that no person was hidden there.
The gunmen went on. They were suspicious of Daniel. Their straining ears heard the sounds of a marching throng.
In the early afternoon Slit-ear Louis had an adventure. He spotted a baby monkey watching him from an overhanging branch, and with wanton cruelty he shot the animal. Before the little one had dropped to the ground the mother attacked the murderer. With amazing speed she slid down a tough liana and from this she leaped upon the topee-covered head of Slit-ear.
The topee was torn to ribbons in a second. Furious fingers ripped at Slit-ear's face; teeth seized the back of his neck. The mother monkey shrieked her indignation. The gunman dropped his weapon and tried to free himself, but the baby monkey was a beloved infant and the mother was beside herself.
Bull Hannen ended the fight by shooting the mother, but the battle upset the nerves of Slit-ear. It was hours before he recovered. His face was a mass of scratches, and the teeth marks of the mother were deep in his neck.
It was after this incident that they saw what Daniel said was a man from the "Devil Bush." The stranger appeared on the road some three hundred yards in advance of the party. He stood and watched them for a few minutes then disappeared in the undergrowth to the right of the trail. A few minutes later he appeared from the left of the track although the Chicagoans had not seen him cross the track!
He did this again and again, hopping into the road on one side and appearing almost immediately from the other. The gunmen told themselves that there were really two men occupied in the performance, but Daniel was strong in the belief that there was only one actor.
"He hop back but no one see him," said Daniel. "Mighty clever debbil man."
"Well, we've had enough of the show," said Gyp the Greek. "Just watch him hop now."
Gyp took a shot at the bounding figure of the "debbil man." The bullet threw up a spurt of dust quite close to the dancing feet of the unknown, who, although not hit, was immensely startled. He dropped on his hands and knees, stared at the spot where the bullet had ricochetted, then fled at full speed down the green alleyway. In a few minutes he was out of sight.
Daniel was saddened by the happening. He shook his head as the three gangsters and the girl showed their amusement. Daniel saw trouble ahead. Lots of trouble. The four boys chattered fearfully amongst themselves. Liberia was weaving the web of fear.
Hours later they met an army of driver-ants on the march; The driver-ant is more to be feared than lions and tigers. When on the march nothing can stop him. Chicago Kate, interested in the main body of the drivers, was attacked by a scouting squad in the rear. Her screams shattered the silence of the late afternoon. Hurriedly she stripped off shoes and stockings. Daniel, helping her to rid herself of the tormentors, told a story of the wife of a missionary that Daniel was escorting into the bush. The lady, sitting down to lunch, perched herself on the nest of the drivers. Suddenly she unloosed a yell, tore frantically at her clothing till she was completely nude before her horrified husband and the bearers, then she took a header into the Cavally River! Driver-ants can break down all the rules of modesty that were ever made.
ALTHOUGH it was but a walk of seven miles between the two villages it was late afternoon when the four sighted the hut cluster in the clearing. The clammy heat made walking an ordeal.
The village was deserted. Not a single soul was in sight.
There were visible indications that the evacuation had been made within a few minutes of the arrival of the Chicagoans. Fires were still burning, here and there a cooking pot containing meal, possibly too hot to carry, had been left on the family hearth. The blasphemy of the three gunmen was terrifying.
There were certain improvements on the previous night A stream of cold water ran through the village, there were plantains and ground-nuts, while an old rooster who had refused to be evacuated fell a victim to the revolver of Bull. The rooster was hurriedly plucked and roasted. Around a fire the four wrestled with his carcass.
Chicago Kate weakened as the night came down. She thought that Bull Hannen, knowing of several loosely-guarded treasures in different spots round the world might have chosen an easier job.
"Now that tower in Lunnen," said Kate. "I always wanted to go to Lunnen but I never foun' anyone who would take me. An' there's necklaces an' rings there, ain't there, Bull?"
Bull opened his mouth to quell the insubordination of the golden-haired one, but his words were throttled by a Voice. A Voice that came out of the forest. An immense, far-reaching Voice, harsh and terrible. It roared over the deserted village. It swept through the huts, it shook the leaves of the cottonwood trees, it whipped out over the forest and returned with increased vigor.
Daniel shouted an explanation. "De Debbil in de Debbil Bush!" he cried. "He speak. He say, 'Get out quick'!"
"Talkin' to us?" queried Bull.
"Yes," screamed Daniel. "He say big trouble for you to stay along here. Too close to de Bush."
Bull on his feet, gun in hand, swung around in an effort to find out the point from which the Voice came The task was difficult. Magnified by some native-made appliances constructed on the "bull-roarer" principle, it was hard to find the spot from which it emanated.
"Debbil-bush out back o' village," shouted Daniel.
"How far?" questioned Bull.
"Walk fast get there twenty minutes," said Daniel. "Very bad mans there now."
"How come?"
Daniel walked to the fire around which the terrified boys were standing, picked up an object from the ground and carried it back to Bull Hannen. It was a roughly-made iron claw.
Bull turned it over on his palm, Slit-ear and Gyp staring at it in silence. There was something sinister about the thing. Although the three gunmen were, at the moment, entirely ignorant of the uses to which the thing had been put, they felt that when Daniel explained, its history would be a little blood-curdling.
"Claw o' Leopard Man," gasped Daniel. The great Voice from the jungle had ceased for the moment so Daniel's deep whisper made the words thrilling. "De Leopard Man fix one claw to each wrist when he go huntin'. He crawl on his belly like de leopard an' snarl an' yowl like de big cats. He no use his fingers; he use de claws."
Again came the Voice. Threatening, menacing, clamorous. The frightened boys milled around each other as if the Voice had a physical effect upon them, stirring them into motion like an invisible spoon.
It died away in loud rumblings and mutterings, then Bull Hannen turned to the spot where the tip of the rising moon showed, above the green jungle.
"If we're in the territory of these leopard guys who knows whether de thing we want is not out on show?"
"Who knows?" echoed Slit-ear.
Bull clutched the arm of Daniel and spoke impressively. "These guys dance when the moon is up?"
"Yes, suh," said Daniel.
"An' they haul out this gold totem?"
Daniel nodded.
"Do you think they might be at it tonight?"
Daniel waited before replying, and while he waited the four boys suddenly turned with one accord and stared at a point in the undergrowth. Their necks were outstretched, their lean black bodies were transfixed with the horror gathered in by their distended eyes. They moaned in chorus. Moaned in the manner of sick monkeys.
Bull and Gyp stepped across and stared at the spot that riveted the attention of the natives. They could see nothing.
There were great poisonous leaves upon which the moonlight flickered, and behind the leaf clusters were deep wells of darkness, but to the two whites there was nothing to explain the abject horror that had fallen on the natives:
Bull was annoyed. "Wot the hell!" he cried, and as he spoke he took the nearest savage by the shoulder and hurled him at the point that held the eyes of the four.
The fellow screamed, fell on his hands and knees, then, picking himself up, he fled down the trail by which they had come. His three companions followed. The whites and Daniel were left alone.
FROM long talks with Daniel-Frustration-of-the-Devil I have reconstructed the happenings of that night. Daniel has great narrative power. With body movements, rolling of the eyes, use of the facial muscles, and a great control of voice he can make any listener with a shred of imagination visualize the scene of which he tells. The African Negro surpasses the Arab as a story teller. Certainly he lacks the finesse of the Arab, but he puts things forward with a tom-tom manner that is very effective.
Daniel, so he asserts, did not wish to lead the gunmen forward to the Devil Bush. He begged them to wait for the morning, and in this desire he was supported by Chicago Kate. Kate was scared. She pleaded with the three, but her wdrds were thrust aside. Bull, Slit-ear Louis, and Gyp the Greek were seized, it appears, with a sort of hysterical courage. They were going to shoot it out with all the Leopard Men, witch doctors, and Devils of Liberia!
I do not think J. Edgar Hoover has ever been in Liberia. Possibly none of his merry men has ever visited the country. Liberia is an out-of-the-way spot. Myself I have been in Monrovia and parts of the hinterland, and I can say truthfully that I have never in years of wandering found a more unlikeable country.
Fear, grisly fear of the fee-faw-fum, raw-head and bloody bones order, has its headquarters in out-back Liberia. The country, in its atmosphere of dank terror, surpasses its neighbors, Sierra Leone, French Guinea, and the Ivory Coast. Curiously this is perceptible to the natives that enter Liberia from the adjoining countries to trade. The Mandingoes of French Guinea who come over the frontier to buy kola nuts return hurriedly to their homes when their buying is done. Other tribes have the same feeling of insecurity when venturing over the Liberian frontier.
I am not holding a brief for gunmen. Like Mr. Hoover I consider them cowardly rats, but I am putting forward information that might lead to a study of that strange hysterical contempt of danger that comes to human rats at odd moments. Someone has called it "slug-courage." Possibly it comes from the possession of death-dealing weapons. I don't know.
"Ah begged 'em to wait till de dawn," says Daniel, "but dey say 'No, we go now! We'se goin' to shoot it out wiv de Leopard Mens'!"
CHICAGO KATE couldn't be left behind. She had to go along. Danid says she had her own automatic, but terror stopped her from using it.
The moon was high when they set out. The green trees were awash with its light, but the track itself was a pool of ink through which the four men and the girl stumbled. Here and there monkeys barked, but the silence smothered their yapping. Liberia was waiting. Waiting the attack of three gunmen from Chicago. Gunmen with records.
The forest thinned. The track opened out on a small plain covered with high grass. Somewhere ahead was the dim outline of a mud building. "Debbil Bush," whispered DanieL
The Liberian commissioners and men of the Liberian Frontier Force, black of course, say that the Leopard Men, seeking human prey, endeavor in every detail to follow the attacking methods of the animal whose totem they have adopted. They cover their bare bodies with varicolored nets to give them the correct spotted appearance of the animal they worship, they crawl on their stomachs when stalking their prey, they mimic all the uncouth coughs and snarls of a hungry leopard, and above all, they use the iron claws fastened to their wrists in dealing out death to the unfortunate that crosses their path.
As the gunmen moved across the open that sensation of hidden marchers moving with them came upon them. They halted and spoke together, their automatics ready. They questioned Daniel, but Daniel, for once in his life could not speak. Terror had numbed the muscles of his throat.
But Daniel saw. To the left and right of the little party the grass was coming to life. The high dry grass was moving although the night was windless!
Moving in a manner that suggested the approach of serpents. Human serpents. Moving in upon the three gunmen from Chicago, the terrified girl, and Daniel-Frustration-of-the-Devil.
"Cowardly rats!" says J. Edgar Hoover. Sure. Bull Hannen, Slit-ear Louis, and Gyp the Greek, far from Chicago. Up against it in the hinterland of Liberia.
Scribe of that jungle fight is Daniel. He dropped upon his hands and knees and showed me how the engagement opened. The bare, oiled stern of a creeping Leopard Man made a glistening target as the fellow crept through a spot where the grass was scanty. Gyp the Greek fired.
Now the snarlings, grunts, and frightening coughs of the big cats rose around the five. Exact imitations of the angry noises made by Felis pardus when in a murderous mood. The dry grass in violent motion. Five score Leopard Men crawling swiftly toward the party. Clink of the iron claws; massed growls; the horrible purring of cannibals hungry for human flesh.
Daniel by gestures showed me how the three gunmen stood in a triangle. Chicago Kate, eager for flight, had seized the big paw of Daniel and pulled him aside, so Daniel in the few seconds before he took to his heels with the girl, had a view of the gunmen-tripod spitting death into the crawling attackers.
Daniel has one strange memory of the final stage of the fight. Nothing can shake him on the point He says that when he and Chicago Kate turned, he saw for a fleeting second the gold totem of the Leopard Men. It rose out of the dry grass, a glittering yellow leopard with enormous green eyes from which shot flames. He says that the three gunmen were moving toward it. Fighting desperately to reach it when the wave of murderous natives rolled over them!
Killers of course. Gunmen, kidnapers, crooks. "Cowardly rats." I'm wondering about that word courage. It seems an ill-defined word to me.
Daniel-Frustration-of-the-Devil, holding the hand of Chicago Kate, fled back along the path. Mile after mile they covered, the fear imps biting at their heels. Daniel shouting verses as he ran. Not for a moment did they pause
LATE on the following day they reached the village where Gyp the Greek had annoyed the chief by playing "hot-foot" on him. The villagers were kind to them. They dressed the bruised and swollen feet of Kate, gave the two food and drink, and arranged for bearers to carry Kate back to the banks of the St. Paul's River. They asked no questions of the two fugitives. They guessed what had happened to the three gunmen.
In that cablegram that I thought of sending to the G-men I used the words "Chicago Kate reformed." This is how it happened. Staying in Monrovia, while a lackadaisacal inquiry was being made concerning the deaths of Bull, Slit-ear, and Gyp the Greek, Kate made the acquaintance of a banana-planter from Conakry. Her golden hair and roses-and-cream complexion enchanted the tropic dweller. He proposed marriage, and Kate accepted on the understanding that Daniel should be taken into his service. The planter agreed readily.
On the banana plantation a few miles out of Conakry I spoke with Kate and Daniel. Daniel sang some of his chants for me. One about the wife of Ham interested me. It shows the love of the Liberian Negro for the United States. Although he points continuously to that motto on the great seal reading: "Love of Liberty brought us here," he cannot free himself from the memories of America that have been inherited from the "liberty seekers" who fled our land a hundred years ago. Daniel's account of Mrs. Ham ran:
"Ole Missus Ham, so de historees say,
Fo' de Mississippi jest pined away,
She longed fo' de b'yous an' de cat-fish pie.
An' she kep' longin' an' longin' till she came to die.
Saint Peter say at de Pearly Gates: 'Where you from, woman?'
She say: 'United States'."
Daniel and Chicago Kate, now Madame Pierre Lartigue, often speak about Bull Hannen, Slit-ear Louis, and Gyp the Greek. Daniel and Kate think they were brave men.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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