Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Camp of the Snake
    The Camp of the Snake
    The Camp of the Snake
    Ebook82 pages1 hour

    The Camp of the Snake

    By Harold Lamb

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    "The Camp of the Snake" revolves around the adventures of Alexander McDonald Smith, employee of the Pan American Motors in Detroit. By a chance of mistaken identity he gets send to India in order to try to increase the sale of American cars there. However, in the turn of mysterious events, Smith gets tangled in a dangerous adventure involving the hidden tomb of a Mogul of the Chitralis and a deadly power more dreadful than any weapon.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGood Press
    Release dateDec 8, 2020
    ISBN4064066312459
    The Camp of the Snake

    Read more from Harold Lamb

    Related to The Camp of the Snake

    Related ebooks

    Art For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Alaska OR BUST

      Dec 19, 2022

      Alaska OR BUST
      20 min read

    • Article

      Iain Ayre

      Mar 17, 2023

      BIO: Iain Ayre’s automotive enthusiasms span everything from Minis to Bentleys. He has prototyped several car designs without commercial success, and has written 18 books on random motoring subjects. He continues to avoid getting a proper job. Chris

      3 min read

    • Article

      The LONG HAUL

      Mar 21, 2022

      The LONG HAUL
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Great River Road

      Jul 17, 2020

      The Great River Road
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Flight Of Fancy

      Aug 5, 2022

      BIO: Phil White’s first job, at 15, involved restoring classic cars. A decade later he began writing about them in magazines. 35 years on, he’s still at it. He plans to grow up at some point, but in the meantime climbing rocks, running, cycling and,

      4 min read

    • Article

      Famous Last Words

      Dec 19, 2022

      Famous Last Words
      3 min read

    • Article

      Letters To The Editor

      Aug 16, 2019

      Letters To The Editor
      4 min read

    • Article

      Backfire

      Feb 29, 2020

      In December 1953, I entered the United States Air Force aviation cadet program for jet pilot training. My last phase of training was in Laredo, Texas, from November 1954 until June 1955, when I received my wings and commission. Sometime in the late f

      13 min read

    • Article

      American Picker

      Jan 11, 2024

      American Picker
      5 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      Sep 29, 2022

      Q. Many years ago (1970s), I was a subscriber. During that time, I think I read an article about Diamond T trucks in Old Cars Weekly. The article was about a Diamond T dealership in Washington. This dealership developed a low cab-over, tilt-cab model

      2 min read

    • Article

      Power To The People

      Jun 19, 2019

      Power To The People
      7 min read

    • Article

      Tales From The Shed Show

      Jun 1, 2019

      Tales From The Shed Show
      9 min read

    • Article

      A Bike, A Boy Scout And A Bandit

      Jun 1, 2021

      A Bike, A Boy Scout And A Bandit
      4 min read

    • Article

      You Must Apologise

      Jun 17, 2021

      You Must Apologise
      5 min read

    • Article

      Readers’ Letters

      Sep 6, 2018

      Readers’ Letters
      5 min read

    • Article

      Hunting T-rex

      Feb 12, 2023

      While ‘the little old lady from Taft’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as ‘the little old lady from Pasadena’ (who owned — according to songwriters Jan and Dean — a ‘brand new shiny red super stock Dodge’), Mark II and I were nevertheless on ou

      10 min read

    • Article

      Hunting T-rex

      Feb 12, 2023

      While ‘the little old lady from Taft’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as ‘the little old lady from Pasadena’ (who owned — according to songwriters Jan and Dean — a ‘brand new shiny red super stock Dodge’), Mark II and I were nevertheless on ou

      10 min read

    • Article

      History In The Making

      Sep 10, 2021

      History In The Making
      2 min read

    • Article

      A Century Between sets

      May 22, 2020

      A Century Between sets
      7 min read

    • Article

      A Different River

      Jan 16, 2019

      A Different River
      9 min read

    • Article

      Your Mail

      Mar 7, 2024

      Your Mail
      4 min read

    • Article

      Dry Lake Memories

      Jan 7, 2022

      Dry Lake Memories
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Camp of the Snake

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Camp of the Snake - Harold Lamb

      Harold Lamb

      The Camp of the Snake

      Published by Good Press, 2022

      goodpress@okpublishing.info

      EAN 4064066312459

      Table of Contents

      I. The Beginning of the Trail

      II. The First Touch

      III. A Watering

      IV. An Inn Without a Keeper

      V. The Chimney

      VI. What Gordon Carnie Saw

      VII. A Last Warning

      VIII. Moorcroft Makes a Suggestion

      IX. The Emerald Casket

      X. The Edge of the Cliff

      I. The Beginning of the Trail

      CHAPTER I

      Table of Contents

      THE BEGINNING OF THE TRAIL

      ONE dusty morning I found a piece of paper on my desk in the offices of Pan American Motors, on Woodward Avenue, Detroit. It was a yellow paper about as big as my hand and what it said was this:

      When convenient, Mr. Hacket would like to see Mr. Smith in his office.

      Hacket was about third assistant sales manager of Pan Am., and I was general utility man, with a reputation for getting into trouble. It turned out that Hacket had something worse than trouble on his mind, and that was an idea.

      Ever been in India, Smith? he asked.

      I told him I didn't think so, and he looked as if I was trying to tell him something that was not so. Said my card—application card, filed with the personnel department on entering Pan Am. Motors—had stated distinctly that I had lived there for three years.

      That must be A. L. Smith, I explained, after thinking it over. He's been laid up for two months with double pneumonia. My name is Alexander McDonald Smith.

      This only bothered Hacket for a minute. After all, the idea was not his, and he saw no reason to worry about it. So he explained things in the rapid fire manner of a young fellow who thinks it's business-like to be swift.

      The Pan Am. directors had asked our chiefs why we were not selling more cars to the Orient. We had a few sales and a lot of inquiries from Japan, but India was a blank. Someone had dug up figures to prove that there were so many thousand cars in India and practically none of American make. The climate there in a good part of the country was an all-year affair, like southern California; the oil supply was plenteous and convenient, and so forth. Our competitors, for some reason, were not trying to sell cars there.

      You remember how the business part of the U. S. of A., shortly after the war, figured out to launch a government merchant marine in all the seven seas, whichever they may be, and to corner the trade of South America, and drill for oil in Alaska and so forth. Well, Pan American Motors was making more money then than it knew what to do with, and starting plants in Canada and England. With trade in general booming and buzzing, nobody thought of the bumps. Nobody ever does.

      So Motors was going to send a representative to India, and Hacket picked me, as hereinbefore related, to find out—transportation and ten dollars a day paid—if there was a market for our cars, and if not, why not. He added that I could catch the Soo limited out of Chicago the next day and connect with the Canadian Pacific transcontinental at a place called Moose Jaw.

      Which India, I asked, do you mean?

      No, I was not trying to be funny. There is a good deal of Scotch in me under the skin—old, sure-enough stuff, inherited— and I wanted to be certain where I was going before starting. The map of the world has a Dutch East Indies and a West Indies, besides an Indo-China, and men like Hacket have been known to overlook bigger things than that. Sure enough, he pawed over his papers and finally went off to ask about it. When he came back he said it was British India. So I listened to another bunch of instructions and went oft to clear out my desk, and wait for letters of introduction and tickets. Nobody asked if I wanted to go.

      As a matter of fact I did, badly. Any other place would have done as well. It was a dusty morning and the office windows were opened wide for the first time that summer. The jangle of the street cars down Woodward was as bad as the clatter of the typewriters, and I had not set foot off pavement for eight months.

      Lord, how a fellow gets to hate the streets, when a straw bonnet and a park and open windows are the only things he can see of a change in the season!

      If I had known what sort of a camp I was bound for, a couple of months hence, I'd have yelped out loud. I didn't imagine such a thing and you couldn't if you tried. Think of a few tents bunched over a snow-fed river, three thousand feet below. Trees bigger than the California sequoias, and mountains crowding all around that would make the Rockies look like slag heaps. Fishing for what you want, and big game shooting—well, for stags, bear and such-like.

      Man, I've sampled a good many kinds of camps, from the week-end auto parking kind to the government A. E. F. brand, and I want to say right now that this camp was in a class by itself.

      Sometimes, when the alarm clock does its stunt and I wake up from dreaming about that place, I'm in a fever to pick up again and start off to it. And then come the chills, when I think of all that happened and of the hours when I cursed A. L. Smith for not going instead of me.

      AS I said, Pan American Motors started out to sell the world, and before been in Calcutta a week I thanked my stars I was not a salesman. We had as much chance of selling cars in India as I would have of underscoring an opera.

      Outside a shipping cost with a duty tacked on that came to about half the selling price of a car, there were only two reasons why Pan American Motors would never flourish in India. Natives—coolies they call 'em—and bullock carts were sit- ting around waiting for a chance to haul loads at about a quarter the cents-per-mile a truck would roll up.

      You might investigate Kashmir, Mr. Smith, someone suggested. A splendid country, you know, just being opened up. It is in the Hills, and I imagine the climate would be a welcome change from this.

      Two weeks

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1