West from Singapore: Stories [Paperback]

He’s a two-fisted American adventurer and veteran of a hundred waterfront brawls. He’s “Ponga Jim” Mayo, and he minds his own business and leaves international intrigue to others. But, as master of his own tramp freighter, trouble seeks him out as he navigates the treacherous East Indian seas from Borneo to Singapore. Never one to back away from danger, Jim straps on his colt automatic and takes the helm of theSemiramis, ready to battle pirates and spies, dope peddlers and gunrunners and whoever else dares to challenge his command . . . and God help the man who crosses Jim Mayo.Our foremost storyteller of the American West,Louis L’Amourhas thrilled a nation by chronicling the adventures of the brave men and woman who settled the frontier. There are more than three hundred million copies of his books in print around the world.AUTHOR’S NOTE
GORONTALO
 
THE RIVER IS deep and the anchorage not very good. At the time of the story the town of Gorontalo had a population of about six thousand—a picturesque little port on the south side of a long peninsula. As in most of these small ports there was, aside from the local people, a certain number of drifters, adventurers, treasure hunters, ship’s officers out of a job, and men tramping the island for one reason or another, most of them hoping to pick up an odd dollar here or there.
 
John Russell has written well of these islands, and so has Somerset Maugham.
 
EAST OF GORONTALO
 
PONGA JIM MAYO leaned against the hogshead of tobacco and stared out at the freighter. His faded khaki suit was rumpled, his heavy jaw unshaven. The white-topped cap carried the label “Captain” in gold lettering, but Ponga Jim looked like anything but a master mariner, and felt even less like one.
 
Being broke was a problem anywhere. In Gorontalo it became an emergency of the first water. Everything he owned in the worllC-