Some were holding bows, with arrows on drawn strings. Others were raising long blowguns to their lips. All were aimed toward a central target; the spot where Biff and Kamuka stood.
Biff felt himself sink inwardly as he heard Kamuka gasp the word: “Macu!”
Slowly, the Macu warriors closed in on the two boys. The sharp eyes that glared from painted faces were on the watch for even the slightest move.
Kamuka muttered to Biff, “Drop machete. Right away.”
As Kamuka let his machete fall, Biff did the same. The inner circle of Macus dropped their own weapons and sprang forward upon the boys.
The two were captured without a struggle. The Macus brought out rawhide bowstrings and tied the wrists of the prisoners behind them. They also tied their ankles together, but in hobble fashion, far enough apart so that they could still take short steps.
Two of their captors picked up the machetes. Another snatched Biff’s wrist watch and tugged it loose. Next, they were finding prizes in the pockets of the prisoners: Biff’s scout knife and his father’s metal mirror; the marbles and the little mirror that Kamuka had been given earlier in the day.
Kamuka seemed indifferent to all that happened. He braced his feet so that the Macus had trouble pushing him around. Biff copied that procedure and found that it helped. Their captors were in a hurry because all the while, the cries of the howler monkeys were becoming louder. Above the din, Kamuka said calmly, “If they hear this back at the safari, they will know that we are having trouble. They will come to help us.”
“But how will they know what is happening?”
“You will see why. Soon.”
Leaping monkeys formed dark red streaks against the deep green of the jungle foliage. A few Macus were guarding Biff and Kamuka. The rest spread out through the brush, where they squatted as they had originally. Gradually, the commotion lessened up in the treetops. Then, as the monkeys returned to normal, the Macus bobbed up again.
Now, their bows and blowguns were pointed upward. The air was suddenly filled with arrows and darts that found their marks high above. Monkeys began tumbling from the trees, while the rest scattered, howling louder than before. From the distance came answering chatter, like an alarm spreading through the jungle.
“The Macu come across river to hunt monkeys,” Kamuka told Biff. “We heard monkeys talk. I should have known Macu were here.”
The Macus gathered up the dead monkeys and marched Biff and Kamuka back along the trail. New howls were coming from far off.
“You see?” undertoned Kamuka. “Maybe safari will hear and come fast.”
“Or go the other way faster,” put in Biff. “Those villagers are scared by the very thought of meeting up with Macus.”
“But your father will come, with Mr. Whitman—”
“I only hope they won’t fall into the same trap.”
“They will not fall into trap. They will have Jacome with them. He will be on watch.”
Biff’s hopes rose at Kamuka’s words, only to fall again as their Macu captors turned suddenly from the trail. Instead of trampling the side path, the Macus moved stealthily in single file, pushing the captured boys into the line ahead of them. They spread the jungle plants as they moved through them, then let them fall back into place, leaving no trace of their route.
Literally, the entire party was swallowed by the jungle. Biff groaned loud enough for Kamuka to hear.
“Fine chance we have now!” Biff said. “They will never find us, unless the natives know where the Macu village is.”
“Macu never make village,” replied Kamuka. “All they do is tear down huts that belong to other people.”
The procession was moving straight westward toward the setting sun. That, at least, made sense to Biff, for it proved that the Macus had come from across the Rio Negro, as they usually did. Evidently they had found the fishing poor, so had gone on a monkey hunt instead.
Soon, the procession reached the Macu camp. This was a small natural clearing where the Macus had chopped down a few palm trees. Women of the tribe were sewing palm leaves together to form roofs for crude shelters around a central fire.
While the hunters skinned monkeys for the evening meal, other tribesmen gathered around Biff and Kamuka, prodding them as if they were curiosities. Their hands were finally released and they were allowed to eat. Biff was glad that they were fed left-over fish instead of monkey meat.
Then they were marched to two small trees. Biff’s wrists were tied behind him around a tree, and he was allowed to slide down to a sitting position. Kamuka was tied in the same fashion to another tree only a few feet away. Liana ropes were used instead of thongs, but the knots were very tight and solid.
Other Macus tied their ankles in the same manner, so that escape would be difficult, if not impossible. As the Macus moved away and gathered around the slowly dying fire, Biff saw their ruddy faces and spoke to Kamuka.
“They sure look bloodthirsty, with their faces all done up in war paint.”
“That is not for war,” said Kamuka. “It is for hunger. They will wear the paint all night, for luck in catching monkeys tomorrow.”
Biff and Kamuka were not too uncomfortable that night. They slept fitfully until dawn, when the women brought them water but offered them no food. When they were alone again, Biff asked:
“What do you think about head-hunters now, Kamuka? Will they let us grow up before they shrink our heads?”
“Maybe,” returned Kamuka. “Sometimes they take prisoners for members of the tribe. But I do not want to be Macu. I want to be johnny-on-the-spot.”
“You’re on the spot all right. We both are. If I only had something to cut these ropes!”
“I have something Macu did not find. I have it in back pocket where I can get it easy. Burning glass.”
Kamuka’s words roused Biff to an eager pitch.
“Get it, Kamuka!” he exclaimed. “Try to hold it into the sunlight and turn it toward my hands.”
“But it will burn your hands—”
“Not long, it won’t. I’ll tell you when to move it and which way to tilt it.”
Kamuka soon had the little microscope tilted toward the sun. Biff repressed a sudden “Ouch!” and then said calmly, “Just a little higher, Kamuka. Hold it there a moment. No, a little more. Now, the other way—”
“I smell rope burning!” Kamuka said.
“Hold it just as it is,” urged Biff.
Soon Biff, too, could smell the burning rope. A minute later, he found that the bonds yielded when he tried to pull his wrists apart. Finally the rope broke completely, and with one hand free Biff was able to take the microscope and work on Kamuka’s bonds.
By now, most of the Macu hunters had left the camp, and the few who remained were still asleep. The boys worked on their ankle ropes, unnoticed, but found them so tight that they had to take turns burning them. Finally free, they realized that their biggest problem lay ahead.
“We can’t both make a run for it at once,” whispered Biff, “or they might wake up and spot us. You slide for the brush first, Kamuka. If they still see me, they may not notice that you have gone.”
“But I can’t leave you here alone, Biff.”
“You won’t be leaving me. I’ll give you time to work around the clearing. Then if they see me start to leave, you can raise a yell and draw them your way.”
“Very good, Biff. We try it.”
The ruse worked better than they had hoped. Kamuka gained the edge of the clearing with ease. Biff gave him due time to get properly posted, then followed the same route. They had chosen it well, for it was not only the closest edge of the clearing; it was directly toward the rising sun, which would tend to dazzle anyone who looked that way.
Once in the jungle, Biff kept close to the clearing as he circled it, calling softly to Kamuka until they finally met. Again, the sun proved helpful. They had been headed toward it when they were brought here as prisoners, late in the previous afternoon. So now, they had only to move toward the morning sun to reach the jungle trail.
It was slow going, as they had to be wary of animals in the brush, yet all the while they felt the urge to hurry in case their escape had been discovered back at the Macu camp. At last, however, they came upon the trail. Then came the question: Which direction should they take?
“The safari must have come as far as we did,” declared Biff, “in fact probably a lot farther, as they were supposed to keep on coming until they overtook us.”
“But when they didn’t find us,” said Kamuka, “they must have turned back to look.”
“You may be right,” decided Biff. “They could have figured, too, that we missed the trail somewhere along the line. I’ll tell you what. Let’s go back along the trail a couple of miles anyway. If we don’t meet them, we’ll know they are up ahead.”
“And all the time,” added Kamuka, “we keep good sharp look for Macu!”
That final point was so important that both Biff and Kamuka kept paying more attention to the bordering jungle than to the trail itself. Every sound, from a bird call to a monkey howl might mean that Macu hunters were about. So could the slightest stir among the jungle flowers and the banks of surrounding plants, where at any moment, painted faces topped with wavy hair might come popping into sight as they had the afternoon before.
But there wasn’t a trace of motion in all that sultry setting until the boys reached a place where the trail took a short, sharp turn around the slanted trunk of a fallen ceiba tree. Biff, in the lead, gave a quick glad cry as he saw native bearers coming toward them, bowed under the weight of the packs they carried.
At the head of the column strode a white-clad man wearing a tropical helmet. At sight of him, Biff turned and called to Kamuka:
“Here’s Mr. Whitman coming with the whole safari! We’re safe now, Kamuka! Come on!”
With that, Biff dashed forward, only to be caught by the shoulders and spun full about, his arm twisted in back of him. Biff’s captor shoved him straight toward the leader of the safari, and the boy saw for the first time that the man in white wasn’t Mr. Whitman.
Looking down from beneath the pith helmet was the ever-smiling face of Nicholas Serbot, tinted an unearthly green in the subdued glow of the jungle. Over Biff’s shoulder leered the face of his captor, Big Pepito!
Biff’s first concern was for Kamuka. He managed to dart a quick look along the trail hoping to shout a warning to his companion. Then, Biff caught himself, fearful that such a call would turn attention in Kamuka’s direction.
The warning wasn’t needed. Kamuka had witnessed Biff’s rapid capture and had taken action on his own. With uncanny instinct, Kamuka had found an opening in the seemingly solid wall of jungle and had already dived from sight.
One man, however, had seen the green mass close behind Kamuka’s quick-moving form. That man was Urubu. He raised his rifle and fired into the thick foliage, three times in quick succession.
As Urubu paused, Biff appealed frantically to Serbot:
“Don’t let him shoot again—”
Serbot ordered Urubu to lower his rifle, which the guide did. At the same time, Urubu grinned, for he had seen no ripple in the jungle leaves beyond the spot where he had first aimed.
“Perhaps,” purred Serbot, “Urubu is trying to shoot an anaconda, the way he did the other day.”
“Or some other jungle creature,” added Pepito, over Biff’s shoulder, “like those that we heard run away.”
Biff guessed that they were trying to draw out facts from him, to learn if he and Kamuka had followed Luiz and listened in on the discussion that had shaped the later events. As Biff tightened his lips, determined not to answer, Urubu became impatient.
“And maybe,” put in the leering guide, “I just now try to kill some person, the way Luiz was chased and killed.”
“What happened to Luiz was his own fault,” Biff argued hotly. “He tried to kill my father first, with a knife.”
“Your bearers did not tell us that,” stated Serbot smoothly. “We met them on their way back to Santa Isabel, and they told us that Whitman had fired at Luiz, who ran into quicksand—”
“Where we tried to save him. Did they tell you that?”
“Yes, they told us that. But not that Luiz had tried to kill your father.”
“That happened before they even woke up. By then, Luiz had started to run, so naturally Mr. Whitman went after him.”
“The boy lies,” snarled Urubu. “The bearers did not give you foolish talk like this.”
“They gave us other foolish talk,” reminded Serbot. “They scared our crew by saying there were Macus around here.”
“But there are Macus around!” exclaimed Biff. “Their camp is only a few miles away from here. I know, because the Macus had me tied up as a prisoner all last night!”
The effect on Serbot’s party was electric. Even before Urubu could translate the words to the bearers, they were dropping their packs, ready to take to flight, for they recognized the name “Macus” when Biff mentioned it.
But Serbot, raising his smooth tone to a surprisingly strong pitch, spoke in a mixture of Portuguese and native dialect that Biff managed to understand.
“Where will you go?” demanded Serbot. “Do you think you will be safe by running away like frightened deer, while the Macus are looking for just such prey? If there are Macus all around, as the boy says, there is nothing for us to do but go on and be ready for them!”
All this while, Pepito had retained his grip on Biff, but had been gradually relaxing the hold. Now, at Serbot’s order, he released Biff entirely, but still kept a wary eye on him. Biff longed to dash into the jungle and look for Kamuka, but again he managed to restrain himself.
The chances were that Urubu’s shots had missed and that Kamuka was lying low in the motionless foliage. To race after him and draw new gunfire would be the worst thing that Biff could possibly do. So he waited patiently until the safari started on.
Then Serbot took the lead, telling Biff to stay beside him, while Pepito guarded one flank and Urubu the other, all three carrying ready rifles. The bearers stepped along close together, eager to get through the Macu territory.
“Keep a sharp watch,” Serbot told Biff. “The Macus caught you yesterday. Don’t let them trap you again today.”
Occasionally, Biff managed to look back, hoping that Kamuka had come from cover and was stealing along behind the safari. Soon Biff gave that up, realizing that if Kamuka had decided to follow them, he would be staying completely out of sight.
When they reached the spot where the Macus had bobbed up the day before, Biff recognized it. He turned to Serbot and said, “This is where the head-hunters were yesterday.”
Serbot swung about and ordered the safari to halt. As the bearers set down their packs, Biff studied their faces and realized that some were members of the group that Whitman had organized, the natives who had started home when Joe Nara had exhibited the shrunken heads.
Their meeting with Serbot’s safari must have scared some of Serbot’s crew into going back to Santa Isabel. But Serbot or Urubu must have talked some of Whitman’s men into coming along as replacements. Now Biff understood how Serbot had learned so much about Luiz.
After a brief rest, Serbot asked Biff, “Were there many head-hunters here?”
“Yes,” replied Biff. “A lot of them.”
“And which way did they take you?”
Biff pointed to the west. Smoothly, Serbot asked, “If there were so many, how did you manage to escape today?”
“Because most of them had left before dawn to go hunting,” replied Biff. “That’s why I was afraid of running into them.”
“Good. We’ll be on the watch for them.”
Serbot ordered the safari forward. At the end of another mile, they came to a side trail, which cut sharply in the direction of the Rio Negro. After a rapid discussion with Urubu, so thick with dialect that Biff could not understand it, Serbot decided to take the river route.
As they started along it, Serbot spoke to Biff, using the smooth, easy tone that reminded Biff of their first meeting in the airplane above the Amazon.
“If the Macus are hunting along the main trail,” declared Serbot, “they will never bother to come this way. That makes it all the safer for us. Anyone taking the main trail would be gone, for certain.”
That was passed along by Urubu to the bearers, who not only were pleased, but quickened their pace, hoping to get out of Macu territory all the faster. But Biff’s heart sank, for he was afraid there would be no catching up with his own safari now.
Then Biff noted that Serbot was studying him steadily. Evidently, the smiling man was anxious to learn which way the other safari had gone, and was hoping that Biff’s change of manner would give the fact away.
Suddenly, there came an interruption that gave Biff a cause for real alarm.
“Listen!” he exclaimed.
From the treetops came a running chatter that seemed to carry like a wave from somewhere off in the jungle. Biff recognized the excited gabble.
“The howler monkeys!” he told Serbot. “That’s the way they acted after the Macus shot some of them with arrows yesterday!”
Serbot tried to gauge the direction of the sound, then ordered the safari onward, faster. They followed the rough, irregular trail until they reached a spot where the chatter lessened and finally quieted altogether. Serbot waved for the bearers to set down their packs.
The order came just in time. The bearers themselves pointed to heads and shoulders that bobbed from behind trees and bushes. Terrified, the bearers shouted, “Macu!”
Serbot dived behind a pack, to use it as a shelter. Pepito and Urubu did the same, expecting Biff to join them with the huddling bearers, for spears, arrows, and darts were now skimming toward them. Instead, Biff acted upon sudden impulse and raced along the jungle trail. He heard guns blast in back of him, but knew Serbot and the others were too busy shooting at the attacking head-hunters to worry about him.
Biff passed a turn in the trail and knew then that he was safe from gunfire, but he had his eye on an opening in the jungle another hundred feet ahead. There, Biff was sure that he could duck from sight the way Kamuka had. But Biff was becoming too hopeful too soon.
Less than halfway to the spot, Biff halted in his tracks as the foliage parted and a painted Macu warrior loomed in sight. Armed with bow and arrow, the deadly marksman was already taking aim at Biff with his bowstring fully drawn.
Another moment, and the poison-tipped arrow would be in flight, allowing Biff no chance of escape at such close range!
The twang of the head-hunter’s bowstring was drowned by an explosive burst from farther up the trail. With it, the Macu marksman gave an upward, sideward jolt at the very instant the arrow was leaving his bow.
The feathered missile zimmed high and wide by a matter of scant inches, for Biff could hear it whirr past his ear and stop with a sharp thud in a tree trunk just behind him.
A piercing yell seemed to echo the timely gunshot. The Macu had dropped his bow and was gripping his left arm with his right hand as he dived off into the jungle. The bullet had jolted the bow from the Macu’s grasp, sending the arrow wide.
Now, looking up the trail, Biff saw his father hurrying in his direction, rifle in hand. Biff started to meet him, shouting, “Dad!” only to have Mr. Brewster wave him back. Next, Biff saw his father take a quick shot at another Macu huntsman who had popped up in the brush, only to drop from sight again.
Now, from the other side of the trail, a brown head and arm poked from among a mass of blossoms that sprouted from the thin bark of a fallen tree trunk. Biff heard the familiar call: “Biff, come this way! Quick!”
It was Kamuka. Biff vaulted the log and took shelter behind it, but tried to shake off Kamuka’s restraining hand as he saw his father come along the trail with Mr. Whitman and Jacome. All three were taking long-range shots at distant Macus.
“I have to warn Dad,” Biff explained. “Serbot’s party is just around the bend.”
“He knows,” assured Kamuka. “We were coming back when we heard their guns. So we hurry fast.”
“Coming back along this trail?”
“That’s right. When they couldn’t find us on the main trail, they think maybe we take this one. So today, they take it to look for us.”
“Then you sneaked ahead of Serbot’s party after you ducked from sight. But how did you know to take this side trail when you reached it?”
“Jacome leave special message that I understand. Twist of grass and broken jungle branch are as good as mirror signal, sometimes.”
Mr. Brewster and his fellow-marksmen had rifles with a longer range than the Macu weapons. Also, they were able to shift positions along the trail, preventing the Macus from picking a point of attack.
Serbot’s party, on the contrary, had first let the Macus close in on them. Then, in solidly entrenching themselves, they had lost all chance of mobility. Soon they would have been surrounded if Mr. Brewster and his companions hadn’t come along to scatter the foe. Kamuka called Biff’s attention to that fact.
“Macu run like scared deer,” said Kamuka. “But now your father is telling Mr. Whitman and Jacome to stop shooting. Why?”
“I guess Dad wants to keep the Macus around as a threat,” returned Biff grimly, “until he sees what Serbot intends to do. Urubu might take a pot shot at anybody.”
Kamuka gave a knowing nod. “You tell me!”
“Then you saw it was Urubu who fired after you?”
“Sure, Biff. I look long enough to see him aim. I tell Mr. Brewster all that happened, too.”
Evidently, Mr. Brewster had profited by Kamuka’s report. He had reached the bend where he was in direct sight of Serbot’s entrenched party, but he was motioning for Whitman and Jacome to stay behind him.
Serbot looked up from behind a pack, then gave a wary glance in the direction the Macus had gone. A few arrows came whizzing from high among the tree boughs, but they landed wide. They were sufficient, however, to shape Serbot’s next decision.
Serbot ordered Pepito and Urubu to resume their shooting after the Macus. At the same time, Serbot clambered over the packs and came along the path to meet Mr. Brewster, who in his turn ordered Mr. Whitman and Jacome to renew their fire on the distant head-hunters. Rifles barked in unison.
Biff and Kamuka joined their party in time to catch a last glimpse of the routed head-hunters.
“They won’t stop until they reach their camp,” declared Biff, “and maybe they’ll still keep on going from there.”
“Until they reach the Rio Negro,” added Kamuka, “and maybe they swim it quick.”
Mr. Brewster’s meeting with Serbot resulted in an immediate, though guarded truce. Mr. Whitman and Jacome moved up to back Mr. Brewster, while Serbot was beckoning for Pepito and Urubu to come and join him. The boys stayed in the background as did Serbot’s bearers, none of whom had been injured in the brief fray.
How many head-hunters might be lying dead in the brush or limping away wounded, there was no telling, but the battle had been won rapidly and effectively. Serbot seemed duly appreciative as he purred:
“We owe you much,amigo. You have helped us. Perhaps there is some way we can help you.”
“None at all,” Mr. Brewster said curtly. “Now that we have driven off the Macus, we can go our separate ways.”
“But how can you go anywhere? You have no bearers.”
“They are waiting farther up the main trail, with our equipment. We left them while we came back to look for the boys.”
Serbot promptly raised a new line of inquiry.
“Perhaps you are surprised to see me here,” he suggested, “So far from Manaus, where we last met.”
“Why should I be surprised?” returned Mr. Brewster. “We are both looking forbalata, aren’t we?”
“I am not looking for rubber,” Serbot declared. “I am looking for a man named Joe Nara, who claims to have a gold mine somewhere near the headwaters of the Rio Negro. He came down to Manaus in a fast boat shortly before you left your hotel.”
“Who told you I had left?”
“The manager at the Hotel Jacares. He also said that your room appeared to have been robbed. The next day your jeep was found near an empty boathouse. I learned that Senhor Whitman had started from there on a rubber exploration trip upriver.”
“And you thought I had joined him?”
“Exactly, Senhor. So I came by plane to find you.”
Biff realized that Serbot’s plane must have been one of those that had passed over Nara’s cruiser on the trip up the Rio Negro.
“After I hired Urubu as a guide,” continued Serbot, “I learned that you had arrived on Nara’s cruiser. So I assumed that you planned to meet Nara later.”
“So you bribed Luiz to kill me, to make sure of meeting Nara first.”
“No, no,Senhor. I only wanted Luiz to delay your safari, as Pepito and Urubu will tell you.”
Serbot gestured to the pair, and Pepito smiled broadly while Urubu showed his usual ugly grin.
“I wanted to talk to Nara,” continued Serbot earnestly, “because I had heard that he was willing to sell his gold mine to the highest bidder. That is, if he really has a gold mine. Perhaps you could tell me that?”
“I wouldn’t know,” returned Mr. Brewster. “As you say, I am only interested in rubber. And it’s time that I was starting off to look for some.”
With that parting, Mr. Brewster motioned his companions back toward the main trail. They had only gone a dozen paces, when Mr. Brewster undertoned:
“Take turns glancing back to see what that crowd is doing. I don’t trust any of them, particularly Urubu.”
Biff took the first look and reported that Urubu, like Serbot and Pepito, was leaning on his gun while the trio apparently discussed what to do next. Soon Kamuka reported the same thing. Then Mr. Whitman looked back and announced that the group was now out of sight.
Mr. Brewster called for a quicker pace, and when they reached the main trail, they moved even faster—so fast in fact, that Biff and Kamuka had to jog along to keep up with the three men.
“We came back to look for you at dawn,” Biff’s father told the boys, “so our bearers will be packed and waiting for us when we reach our last night’s campsite. If Serbot pushes his crew to overtake us, they will be worn out, while we’ll be starting fresh.”
Mr. Whitman was feeling the heat, for he removed his white helmet to mop his forehead.
“More likely,” he said, “Serbot will try to overtake Nara by going up the bank of the Rio Negro. That makes all this hurry useless.”
“No, we still must keep ahead of Serbot,” Mr. Brewster insisted. “If Serbot has guessed where Nara is going, he will move up the Rio Del Muerte while we are coming down it.”
The bearers were waiting when they reached the campsite, and fell promptly into line. There was little difficulty in spurring them on. The mere mention that the Macus were behind them was enough. During the next few days, the bearers toiled steadily along the inland trail. Apparently, there was nothing that they feared more than the Macus.
Nothing, at least, until the safari reached a deep but narrow stream that the bearers promptly identified as Rio Del Muerte. Then they broke into a babble of Indian talk that only Jacome was able to translate.
“They say they leave us here,” declared Jacome. “It is death, they say, to go down this river.”
Mr. Brewster studied the narrow trail that flanked the riverbank and dwindled off into the thick green of the jungle.
“Tell them that if they go back the way they came, they may meet the Macus.”
Jacome translated Mr. Brewster’s comment. The bearers chattered back excitedly, and Jacome announced:
“They say they would rather meet Macu than stay near Rio Del Muerte. They say they go home now.”
While Jacome spoke, the bearers picked up their few belongings and started on their homeward trek. Biff and Kamuka noted that they did not even stop to fill their water bags from the stream that they seemed to dread so much.
“What do you make of it, Kamuka?” Biff asked.
“I do not know,” Kamuka replied. “I cannot even understand the things they say to Jacome, except that they are afraid to go downriver.”
However, the expedition was far from being stranded. The pack bags that the native bearers had abandoned contained three rubber boats, complete with aluminum seats and paddles. Biff and Kamuka helped pump them full of air, so that they took on a squatty, roundish shape.
Then, after a survey of the rubber flotilla, Mr. Brewster decided to take Biff and Kamuka with him in one boat, while Mr. Whitman and Jacome manned the second, each carrying whatever equipment it could bear. The third boat was converted into a raft and loaded with all the remaining packs. Biff’s father took it in tow, letting Hal Whitman pace the trip downstream.
To Biff, this was a fine change after the long, sweaty hours on the trail when he and Kamuka had helped relieve the bearers. They were floating through a maze of jungle green that at times actually arched into a tunnel above them.
Though heavily loaded, the boats moved easily, more swiftly as the jungle banks narrowed and the river itself deepened. Whitman was waving back cheerily as they skimmed off the mileage. Suddenly they saw him rise and wag his paddle frantically as he shouted:
“Stay back—stay back—”
His words were drowned by a mighty roar as they turned the bend and saw what Whitman had already viewed. No wonder the natives called this the Rio Del Muerte, the River of Death! Just ahead, a curved crest of foam showed where the stream took a sudden drop in the form of a mammoth waterfall—a sheer plunge to doom on the rocks a hundred feet below!
“Paddle hard on the right, boys—with all your might!”
Mr. Brewster shouted the order above the river’s tumult, and all three bent to the task. They brought their boat broadside to the approaching brink and drove it toward the left bank of the stream, which here was scarcely a hundred feet wide.
It was a gruelling race against death. There was no escaping the powerful current that seemed to draw them with a suction pull. Yet the jungle bank was coming closer with every stroke.
They were almost there now, but Biff, in the bow, had no chance to catch the first projecting tree, as the boat was swept past it. He worked madly with the paddle instead, for here the bank was eaten away by the current, and there was nothing to grab.
It seemed certain now that the boat would be carried over the falls, when suddenly it began to swirl about, and another few strokes brought them into the last big clump of overhanging brush.
Biff and Kamuka managed to grab hold and cling there, while Mr. Brewster worked the boat into the bank itself. Then new disaster loomed in the shape of the pack boat which had been following them on its towline. As the other boat spun past, its line went taut before Mr. Brewster could cut it.
Biff’s shoulders seemed to wrench half from their sockets, and he felt the bush pull loose from the soil. Then the tug ended as the other boat came full about, giving them a soft thump. Churned into this new position, it bulked in between the bank and their own craft, almost wedging them loose and out into the stream.
Mr. Brewster made a quick leap across the baggage and up on to the high bank, carrying the slack line which he hitched over a tree bough. That secured both boats, while the boys clambered ashore.
In cutting away the bank, the current had created an eddy which accounted for the final swirl that had carried both boats to safety. Yet only a dozen feet away, the tangled jungle growth actually quivered on the fringe of the falls that dropped in one huge deluge into the dizzy depths below.
It was from there that they first looked for Whitman’s boat, expecting to see it bobbing somewhere in the rocky gorge a hundred feet below. The rising mist obscured the bottom of the falls where the terrific torrent would by now have battered the bodies of Mr. Whitman and Jacome into a pulp.
Or so they thought, until Mr. Brewster stepped closer to the overhanging bushes and gained a full view of the crescent-shaped brink. He beckoned to the boys and exclaimed:
“Look there!”
Caught between two low rocks, Whitman’s boat was jammed on the brink, its two occupants still alive, temporarily at least. Heavily loaded, wide of beam and flexible because of its inflated sides, the rubber boat had snagged where almost any other craft would have cracked up and gone over the crest.
Other low rocks jutted at close intervals along the foamy brim. Biff noticed them when he saw Mr. Whitman rise in the boat to point them out to Jacome.
“Those rocks are like steppingstones, Dad!” exclaimed Biff. “If we throw a line to them, maybe we can haul them ashore—”
An interruption came as the boat wabbled on its precarious perch, due to Mr. Whitman’s shift of weight. It settled back again, as Whitman plopped down into the stem. From the shore, Biff’s father gestured for Whitman to stay down and received a nod in reply. Turning to Biff, Mr. Brewster declared:
“Throwing them a line won’t help. If they missed their footing, they would be swept away in spite of it. We’ll have to carry it across to the other bank and moor it there.”
From the pack boat, Mr. Brewster produced a coil of thin, strong rope which he estimated as more than long enough to bridge the stream and return. He looped the center around a tree trunk and gave the ends to Kamuka, motioning him into the empty boat. Then, with Biff helping, Mr. Brewster kept working his way up along the bank, pulling the boat from the shore, while Kamuka nimbly grabbed at passing branches.
After they were a safe distance upstream, Mr. Brewster brought Biff into the boat with him and told the boys:
“Paddle hard on the left, this time. Try to swing the boat upstream—and don’t stop, not for one instant!”
Again, they were in the swirl of the swift-flowing current where Biff, paddling bow, found it impossible to bring the boat about, even with Kamuka working valiantly to help him. But Mr. Brewster had allowed for that. Their efforts, plus his own, brought them to the far bank, still well above the falls.
There, the boys warped the boat downstream while Biff’s father hauled in the floating rope. Picking a landing spot, they carried one end of the rope about a tree, where they drew it taut and tied it to the other end. The rope now followed the slight curve of the cataract’s brim from the opposite bank as far as Whitman’s stranded boat.
Mr. Brewster then took a loop of rope around a paddle and began to twist it, winch fashion. He let the boys take over, one at each end of the paddle, while he waved to the boat and pointed to the water. Whitman and Jacome understood the plan at once and caught on to the rope as it emerged.
Rapidly, the boys turned the paddle, tightening the rope until it looked like a suspension cable, except for its outward curve. Mr. Whitman and Jacome, rising gradually from the boat, gripped the center of the double line.
Jacome took to the steppingstones first, moving in limber, catlike fashion as he left the boat. Mr. Whitman, who had settled low to offset the loss in weight, watched every move, still clutching the center of the rope, which also helped to steady the boat.
Hand over hand, Jacome followed the rope, swinging from one projecting rock to the next, or actually leaping a space where the water gushed through. It became easier as Jacome neared the bank where the pack boat was moored. There, Jacome swung on the shore and waved for Whitman to follow.
As before, Whitman rose too rapidly. This time, the boat skidded out from under him; as it did, he hopped to the nearest rock and balanced there by clinging to the rope. Biff saw the boat slide over the falls, tumbling from sight with the light luggage it contained.
Breathlessly, Biff watched Hal Whitman swing to the next broad stone, where he swayed dangerously while Mr. Brewster and Jacome, tightening their ends of the rope, helped to steady him. What had been child’s play for Jacome would have meant disaster for Whitman, without that timely aid.
The last leap, that looked the easiest, was the most dangerous of all. Where Jacome had swung himself clear up on the bank, Whitman dropped short, but not into the sweeping current that fringed the shore. Jacome had wisely edged the pack boat into the gap. Whitman landed on the luggage, and Jacome pulled him up to the bank above.
During the next few hours, the party worked its way down the steep walls that flanked the waterfall. This might have been impossible, except for the holds afforded by the heavy jungle growth. The boats were deflated and lowered by ropes. Then, when Biff and Kamuka reached the gorge, they found a shallow stretch where they waded and swam the river, to receive the luggage from the pack boat that Mr. Whitman and Jacome lowered from their side.
Farther downstream, the boys found Whitman’s boat, still intact, along with its baggage, which Jacome had tied inside the rubber craft before abandoning it. Biff and Kamuka hauled it ashore and spread the contents of the bags so they could dry.
That night, they camped within sound of the big waterfall, and the muffled roar seemed almost musical, now that its hazard had been passed. But Hal Whitman, seated by the campfire, spoke bitterly about his harrowing experience.
“I blame Joe Nara for all this,” he declared. “I believe he is our real enemy, not Nicholas Serbot.”
“How do you figure that, Hal?” inquired Mr. Brewster.
“First, Nara must have snooped a lot more than he let on,” argued Whitman, “in order to learn about that boathouse down in Manaus. Am I right?”
“You may be right,” conceded Mr. Brewster. “Go on.”
“And by checking on me,” continued Whitman, “he found out about you. He learned that you were staying at the Hotel Jacares. So he sent one of his Indians to steal your map—”
“Wait, Hal,” interposed Mr. Brewster with a smile. “How could he have known that I even had the map?”
“He knew Lew Kirby made a deal with somebody. You were the logical man, or you wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble and expense of sending me up to Santa Isabel to organize a safari.”
“But if Nara knew I had the map, why would he want to steal it? Lew Kirby was his partner. Remember?”
“I remember.” Mr. Whitman smiled grimly. “What’s more, so does Joe Nara, and that’s probably the one thing he’d like most to forget.”
“So he wouldn’t be bound by any deal that Kirby made?”
“Exactly. Without the map, you haven’t any claim. If Kirby signed over his share of the mine to you, you would need the map to prove it.”