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Valley of the Croen

Lee Tarbell



  Produced by Greg Weeks, V. L. Simpson and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  [Transcriber's Notes: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories April 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  Misspellings have been corrected.]

  VALLEY of the CROEN

  By LEE TARBELL

  There was a mysterious golden statue that always pointed one way--and it led to sudden death in the valley where flying disks landed.

  Like a lodestone drawn to a magnet, the tiny goldenstatue leaped from his hand and darted toward its huge counterpart.]

  They say cross-eyed men are bad luck. He stood there, in my doorway,eyeing me up and down with those in-focused black eyes.

  His face was hideous even if the eyes had been normal. He was slashedwith a wide cicatrice of livid scar tissue from one cheekbone across hisnose and down to the button of his jaw on the other side.

  He was big, and he looked like bad news to me. I inadvertently moved thedoor as if to close it, then he spoke:

  "You Keele, the mining man?"

  I nodded, wondering at the mild voice from the huge battered figure.

  "Been looking for you. I've run across something I wouldn't tell justanyone. But I've heard of you, that you are on the level. Here inKorea, you're known already."

  I still didn't step back and swing the door wide. But he had aroused mycuriosity as well as my natural desire to acquire things. I had made twofortunes and lost both in mining ventures. My present not small incomecame from an emerald mine in the Andes. It had been a very dirty andvery 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'tdo to seem too anxious or eager in any business deal. Too, the sight ofhis burly figure, even without the nightmare face, was not exactlyreassuring. That bulge under the native quilted coat, I knew was nothingbut a gun too big for even his bulges to conceal completely. But a manneeded a gun, here. Especially if he had something valuable, such as thewhereabouts of gold.

  He grinned, and the white, even teeth, and the wrinkles around his eyestook away the sense of impending catastrophe brought by those crossedeyes. I stepped back then, and he walked in. I sat down at my desk. Hesat down across from me, and fumbled in one pocket. He lay on the deskan object in wrappings of dirty rags. These he peeled off slowly, hiseyes seeming to dart here and there, never looking where they should. Ashe 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 stringsaround his mysterious object.

  "Korea is a funny place. As long as people have been living here, you'dthink it would be settled. But it isn't! There're immense forests, greatmountains, where no man has gone, places no one enters. They're so dumbthey don't even have compasses; they get lost! Think my compass ismagic, wonder how I know where to go next, and not get lost.Superstitious, scared to go into the great, dark, damp forests. Scaredof the mountains no one has ever climbed. That kind of country is aprospector's meat!"

  I nodded. He had the wrappings off, and I leaned forward, a littlebreathless at the beauty of the thing in his hand. A curiously wroughtlittle statuette about eight inches high, of gold. It was set with realemeralds, for eyes. About the neck and waist of the exquisite femalefigure were inset jewels, simulating girdle and necklace. A littlegolden 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 wasalien and ancient. I reached for it. He let me take it in my hands, andas I touched it, an electric tingle of surprise, a thrill of utterdelight, ran up my arm, as if the image contained a strong little soulintent 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. Icould make nothing of the facial expressions of this man. He would havebeen disturbing to play poker against. I would have said he was afraidof that little figure! Afraid, yet very much attached to it. I set itdown 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 takea look around. I have done quite a bit of that. It wasn't hard. Up nearthe Russian line I found something."

  He stopped, looked at me. Whether, he was trying to gauge my credulityor my depth, I don't know.

  "You're young. You're not yet thirty, Keele; you've got time left toenjoy a fortune such as I'm letting you in on. And I saw such womenamong these unknown people as no man would believe. I spent a lot oftime spying on them."

  I figured he was lying about the women to get me to help him finance thetrip. But just the same, the hint of unknown and unspoiled beauty ofsome hidden, weirdly alien tribe of people aroused my curiosity--the oldlure of the Savage Princess from kid days, I guess. I hadn't had a realvacation in years--and what would I enjoy more than a jaunt throughuntouched forests? Toward what didn't matter as long as the hunting wasgood. 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, almostwhispered trying to impress me:

  "The people who made that statue are still there. It isn't ancient--theystill make them!"

  Now I knew he was lying, but still I was hooked. I had to know! For thatstatue was an infinite evidence of a refinement of art culture rare onearth! If such a race still remained untouched by white man's modernrot--I could pick up a fortune in art objects. I wasn't too dumb to knowwhat they'd bring in New York. I nodded, and he went on.

  "I found a cache of valuable gold, jewels, and other things. Things Ican't understand. I could be better educated, Mr. Keele. That's why I'vecome to you. I want some help."

  I leaned back. If he found gold, he should have the wherewithal to getin there and back without my help. So he was lying. I determined to findout why, and just what the lie was.

  "Go ahead," was all I said. Give a liar enough rope and he'll triphimself.

  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 goback 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 accompanyingthat expedition. Or was it the wise emerald eyes of the little goldenGoddess that trapped me? I didn't know, then.

  Finally I got it out of him. He hadn't brought back the gold. He had tocross bandit territory, and he didn't have to tell me why he didn'tcarry his fortune with only his own rifle to guard it.

  I picked two well-known men who were available just then. Hank Polterhad led more than one hunting party through country I wouldn't havepicked--and come out safe. He knew what a gun was for, and when to useit. 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 beforehe has to is going to get you into more trouble than he can get you outof.

  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 didpretty much as they pleased, for there were few restrictions from theso-recently installed government. There are a number of gold minesaround Seoul, which was why I was there. Like the cross-eyed Jake Barto,I knew that something would turn up worth owning where governments havechanged 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 extremecleverness, 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 reasonI wanted them.

  Barto had at first wanted a large party, at least a score of "white" menof the western school, able to fight and smart enough to know how. But Ihad talked him out of it.

  "You see, Jake, with two like these, we can travel fast. If there'streachery, if they aren't satisfied with the cut we're offering, whyit's two against two--you and I have an even chance. With a largerparty, we might pick up some scoundrels