Talk:Twenty-Four Hours
Add topic| Information about this edition | |
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| Edition: | Extracted from Adventure magazine, May 1922, pp. 03-47. |
| Source: | http://archive.org/details/AdventureV056N0319251230 |
| Contributor(s): | ragpicker |
| Notes: | Accompanying illustrations may be omitted |
| Proofreaders: | ragcleaner |
A word from the author
[edit]From the "Camp-Fire" (Editorial) section, p. 180
A WORD to Camp-Fire from Arthur O. Friel in connection with his novelette in this issue—something about the real “doings” on which the story is based:
Some time ago I spun a little yarn for you chaps regarding the experiences of one Hard Hart and one Bull Kelly, alias El Tigre and El Toro, upon one river Orinoco. Also among those present was a little lady out of luck, Jean Rogers, and a somewhat slippery individual named Pablo Benito. I left these four folks and their launch heading for the lower river, with revolutionary activities merrily busting loose along said river. Since then several of you have taken your quills in hand to point out that quite a number of things might happen to this quartet before they could reach Ciudad Bolivar, and that it was up to me to trail along with them for at least a few more leagues. You were dead right. The fact is, I intended to tell some more of this story long before now; but my rudder got jammed and sheered me away off my course.
YES, señores, quite a number of things may happen down in that part of the world; and when they do happen they're likely to come in flocks. Some of the events in the present story, for instance, actually have happened. The town of Caicara was raided by revolucionarios—eight hundred of them, who suddenly appeared in canoes from the west—in the summer of 1922, while I was paddling my curial down the river on my way out. The jefe civil, an ex-rebel, was shot three times by the leader of the raiders, who was his own kinsman. Just how he escaped with his life was a moot question when I reached the town; but escape he did. After setting this good example to his men, the rebel general had two of them formally executed because they did practically the same thing; they shot up a noncombatant who had aroused their anger. At the execution the genial general informed all and sundry that he stood for “order.” In the interests of this same “order” he had recently attacked San Fernando de Apure (which is by no means the San Fernando de Atabapo of my other Venezuelan stories) and, in the course of a demonstration of his peaceful proclivities, had caused about 200 casualties. The name of this gentleman and his relative the jefe civil, by the way, was not Gordo, but its exact opposite in Spanish, meaning “thin.”
PERCHANCE some of you, unacquainted with the “dumbness” of most Latins in matters mechanical, may say that the barefaced hoodwinking of Mendez would be impossible. But not so. Put a real Mendez up against a real Kelly with motor trouble to be solved, and Kelly could convince him that the engine was made of green cheese and the power generated by maggots. For that matter, I have seen, right here in our own States, a first-class automobile driver sweat blood for days over the ignition of a motorboat, finally quitting in a blue funk; and then a vagabond who had drifted that way stepped into the boat and got her running like a watch within half an hour. The source of trouble, when pointed out, was so obvious that the chauffeur looked like a kicked pup. Latin Americans aren't the only ones who are thick when it comes to lining up a marine motor.—A. O. F.