Page:Weird Tales Volume 14 Issue 3 (1929-09).djvu/11

"Over there, across the river, where you see that tower shooting up high above the trees, lives a man of mystery," said Phil West, a slim, dark, khaki-clad young man. "The natives call him the White Wizard."

Tom Bannon, rotund and heavy-faced and as youthful as his companion, reined in his horse and looked across the San Juan river toward a break in a typical Brazilian jungle scene.

"Who is he—a white man?" he asked.

"Yes, a Spaniard—Don Julian Mendoza." Phil West's fine, dark eyes snapped with interest. "He's a scientist from Madrid, who settled in this wild section of Brazil years ago, some say to conduct a secret experiment. I was told that the half-breeds won't come within ten miles of his house, because they fear he will seize them and turn them into monkeys."

Tom Bannon's explosive laugh made his big body shake. "You and your South American myths touch my funny-bone! I've knocked about with you among the Inca ruins and the Amazon jungle for six months, and not yet have you shown me a genuine mystery."

A sheepish grin spread over Phil's dark, good-looking face.

"I'll admit that the haunted shrine at Castillo was a fake; and that the River of Blood was colored with the juice from those weird red water flowers; but the White Wizard is really a man of mystery, Tom, or there would not be so much talk about him."

Tom glanced hurriedly at the banking clouds in the sky.

"There's a storm due soon," he