"What was it, Pinto?" he asked softly.
"That organ-bird."
"What does it look like?"
"Don't know. No one ever see it."
"How do you know it's a bird?"
"Professor Ditson say so," returned Pinto, conclusively.
"That settles it," broke in Jud, jealously, from his tree. "He never saw it; nobody ever saw it; but the professor calls it an organ-bird. If he said it was an angel, I suppose itwouldbe an angel."
"Yes," returned the Indian placidly.
The argument was suddenly ended for Will in a terrible manner. A sharp, burning pain shot through his left shoulder, as if a red-hot coal had been pressed there. As he turned, he saw, trickling down the tree-trunk, long crimson streams, one of which had already reached him, and he recognized, to his horror, a troop of the dreaded fire-ants. Even as he looked, the bites of several others pierced his skin, and the pain ran like a liquid poison through his veins as each blood-red ant rushed forward and buried its envenomed jaws deep into his flesh. Brushing off with frantic haste those torturers that had succeeded in reaching him, the boy began to slip down the vine toward the ground, for it was no more possible to resist this red torrent of poison and agony than it would be to stand against a creeping fire or a stream of molten lava.
Old Jud heard the involuntary cry, which the sudden pain had wrung from Will, and looked over, only to see the red columns of ants streaming slowly, inevitably down the tree, driving Will before them to what seemed certain death. The peccary herd, aroused by his movements, had gathered around the tree in close-packed ranks, and frothing, clattering, and moaning, waited for him, making a circle of gleaming tusks.
"Go back!" called out Jud. "Go back! You can't possibly get through 'em."
"I can't!" called back Will. "I'd rather die fighting than be tortured to death up here."
As he spoke he slid another yard toward the ground. Jud drew in his breath in a gasp that was almost a groan, and, unslinging his ready automatic, began to scramble down to the ground."
"What you do?" called out the Indian, aghast, from his tree.
"I'm a-goin' to stand by that kid," said the old trapper, grimly. "I'll never go back to the boat alive without him."
"Stay where you are, Jud," shouted Will, desperately, as he gripped the keen hatchet which he had borrowed from Joe when he started on this ill-omened hunt.
"Come on, boy!" shouted the trapper, unheedingly, as he neared the ground. "I'll meet you, an' you fight through them to my tree. The old man's a-goin' to be right with you."
His words were punctuated by the deadly pop of Pinto's blow-gun. Although the Indian could not attain to Jud's height of self-sacrifice, yet he had made up his mind to do all that he could do to save the boy with the weapon he had. Again and again and again, as fast as he could level, load, and discharge his long blow-pipe, the fatal little arrows sped through the gloom and buried themselves in the thick hides of the peccaries. Already some of the inner ring were wavering and staggering under the effects of the deadly urari poison. The sight of their stricken comrades, however, only seemed to drive the herd into deeper depths of dumb, unreasoning madness. They pressed closer and closer to the tree, trampling their dead and dying comrades unheedingly underfoot, and the chorus of moaning grunts and clicking tusks sounded loud and louder.
The blood-red stream of fire-ants was half-way down the tree by this time, and Will was within a scant ten feet of the ground. The ants were very close as he lowered himself another yard, then a foot lower, and a foot beyond that, until the tusks of the plunging, leaping peccaries beneath him nearly touched his shoes. Bracing his feet against the rough trunk, he drew the little ax from his belt, and prepared to spring as far out toward Jud's tree as possible, although his heart sank and the flesh of his legs and thighs seemed to curl and chill as he looked out upon the gleaming ring of sharp, slashing tusks among which he must leap. Once downed by the herd, and he would be ripped to pieces before he could regain his feet.
Jud by this time was on the ground, and was just about to shoot, in an attempt to open a passage through the packed herd, when unexpected help came from above.
Out of the dark depths of a near-by silk-cotton tree sprang with silent swiftness a great black figure which gleamed in the half-light like watered silk.
"Look out! Look out! The black tiger!" shouted Pinto, despairingly, from his tree, having shot his last arrow into the frothing circle. Even as he spoke, the "tiger," as the Indians call the jaguar, landed full on the back and shoulders of the hindmost of the desperate, raging circle. As he landed, the great cat struck one blow with that terrible full stroke of a jaguar, which has been known to break the neck of an ox, and the peccary, with a shrill squeal of terror, went down before the death which haunts every peccary herd. At the squeal, the wild swine swung away from the tree with an instantaneous rush. A jaguar is to a peccary herd what the gray wolf is to the musk-ox of the north and the very life of each member of the herd depends upon facing their foe. Upon the instant, every peccary left the trees and hurried toward their dying comrade.
Unfortunately for the jaguar, the force of his spring, added to the impetus of his stroke, carried him too far, and for a moment he whirled over in a half-somersault and was entangled among the vines. Those lost seconds were fatal, in spite of all his strength and swiftness. Even as he recovered his feet in a lithe whirl and flirted over one shoulder the body of the dead peccary as a man might toss a rabbit, the death-ring formed around him. Two deep, the maddened swine circled him. With a deep, coughing roar, the tiger dropped his prey and struck with his armed paws lightning-like blows that ripped the life out wherever they landed. By this time, however, the peccaries were beyond all fear of death, and a score of them dashed in upon him. Jud had involuntarily leveled his automatic at the great brute as it struck the ground, but lowered it with a grim laugh.
"He's fightin' for our lives as well as his own," he called quietly to Will, as the latter reached the ground and slipped unnoticed past the heaving, tossing, fighting circle of peccaries. In another minute the boy had gained the safety of Jud's tree and gripped the old man's hand between his own.
"Let's stay here," said the old trapper, "an' see it out. We can climb this tree if they come back, an' you'll never see a fight like this again."
Even as he spoke, the circle bent in upon the great cat. With desperate leaps, he tried to spring over its circumference; but each time it widened out so that always in front and at his back and on both flanks was a fence of sharp, slashing tusks. All around him lay dead peccaries which had fallen before his incredibly rapid strokes; but now his dark, gleaming skin was furrowed and slit with long bloody slashes where the tusks of dead and dying boars had gone home. His strength ebbed with his blood. Once more, with a deep, despairing roar, he struck with both paws, killing a peccary at each blow. Then he staggered forward, and in a minute was down!
Time and again his great jaws opened and closed, sinking fierce white fangs deep through the skull or spine of some peccary, but at last only a black heaving of the furious wild pigs could be seen. At times the dark, desperate head of the dying tiger thrust its way out, only to fall back, smothered and slashed. Amid a scene of brute rage and fury which even Jud, old hunter as he was, had never imagined before, the little party slipped shudderingly away and hastened back over the trail along which they had come, nor ever stopped until they had reached the refuge of the montaria. There they found the rest of the party peacefully sleeping through the midday hours under a cool canopy of broad green palm-leaves which Hen had thrown together. Professor Ditson was more interested in their description of the black tiger than in any of the other details of their adventure.
"It was the melanic type of the jaguar and very rare," he said regretfully. "It was certainly unfortunate that you couldn't have collected this one, for there is no specimen, living or dead, in any of the zoölogical gardens or natural-history museums of the world."
"You see, Professor," explained Jud, "we were kind o' busy in keepin' some seventy-five peccaries from collectin' us. What does 'melanic' mean in American?"
"Any animal may develop either a black or a white type," Explained the professor. "When black, it is called 'melanic'; when white, 'albino.' You probably have seen black squirrels, muskrats, or skunks. They are simply color-variations of the ordinary species. So this 'black tiger' was only a jaguar which for some unknown reason happened to have a black skin. These black examples," he continued, "are neither fiercer nor larger than the ordinary kind, although generally considered so by unscientific observers."
"What about some of those peccaries?" remarked Joe, practically. "Can't we bring in one or two that Pinto killed for fresh meat?"
"No, sir," returned Jud, emphatically, "I wouldn't go back into that black bit of woods for all the fresh peccary pork in South America."
It was Hen Pine who noted that Will had taken no part in the discussion, and that he was flushed and feverish and suffering intensely from the intolerable pain of the fire-ant bites.
"Honey, you come along with ol' Hen," he said soothingly, "an' he'll fix you up so that you won't feel that fire-poison hurtin' any more."
Followed by Will, he led the way along the river-bank until they came to a small, round-topped tree with intensely green leaves. With his machete, Hen cut off several of the smaller branches. From the severed ends a thick, brilliant red sap oozed.
"It's the dragon's-blood tree," he explained "an' its juice makes the best balm in the world for burns or stings."
As he spoke he rubbed the thick, gummy liquid gently on the swollen and inflamed welts which the venomous bites of the fire-ants had raised on Will's shoulders and back. Almost instantly the throbbing, rankling pain stopped, and there came such a feeling of grateful coolness that Will told Hen it was almost worth the pain of the bite to feel the relief of the cure.
On the way back, Hen discovered another tree which brought the rest of the party nearly as much pleasure as the dragon's-blood had given to Will. It had long, glossy leaves, and a straight smooth trunk as large around as a man's body, though it was only about twenty feet high. It was loaded down with what looked like huge plums nearly the size of muskmelons. Hen told Will that it was the wild papaw tree. The fruit was delicious. When they brought back samples to the rest of the party, there was a stampede to the place and the boat was soon loaded with the luscious fruit.
As they explored the bank farther, Jud noticed that Hen was constantly chewing the dark green leaves of the wild cinnamon, which grew abundantly and had a spicy, pleasant smell like the well-known bark of that name. Without saying anything to Hen, the old man picked several and sampled them. Unfortunately for him, it takes prolonged practice to be able to chew wild cinnamon with any degree of comfort. As the fragrant fiery juice touched Jud's tongue and gums he gasped, the tears ran from his eyes as if he had swallowed red pepper, and he spat out the burning leaves emphatically.
"You must have a leather-lined mouth," he remarked to the grinning negro.
A little later, Hen added insult to the injury of the old trapper. They had come to a small tree loaded down with little round, rosy, fruit.
"That what you need, Mars' Jud," Hen assured him.
Thinking that it was perhaps a smaller edition of the papaw tree, Jud trustingly sank his teeth into one of the little spheres, only to find it bitter as gall.
"What do you mean by tellin' me I need anything that tastes like that," he howled.
"I didn't say for you toeatit," laughed the black giant. "I say you needed it. That tree the soap-tree," and Hen pointed to Jud's grimy hands suggestively.
"I guess we all need it," interrupted Will, tactfully, before Jud could express his indignation further.
Picking handfuls of the little fruit, each one of the party dipped his hands into a pool near the river bank. The waxy surface of the rosy balls dissolved in a froth of lather which left their hands as clean and white as the best of soap could have done.
As the day waned and the coolness of the late afternoon stole through the heat, the montaria was again loosed from the bank. All that night, under the light of another glorious full moon, they traveled fast and far. At last, just as the sun rose, there sounded a distant boom. It became louder and louder until the air quivered and the dark surface of the river showed here and there flecks and blobs of foam. Then, as they swept around a bend in the black stream, there appeared before them a sight of unearthly beauty not seen of white men for twice two hundred years.
Over a vast horseshoe of towering crags, with a drumming roar, the dark, resistless river rushed in a mass of snowy foam and broken rainbows down into the whirling caldron below.
"The Falls of Utiarity," whispered Pinto, as he guided the boat into a little bend by the bank just above where the terrible downward glide of the river began. Making fast to a tree on shore, the whole party stared across at the most beautiful waterfall on earth, as if they could never see enough of its beauty. Something seemed to give way in Will's brain, and for a long minute he felt as if he were entering a new and strange world. Dim, unearthly images seemed to float before him. He thought of the great white throne in Revelation—the mystic emerald circled by a rainbow and the pavement of a single sapphire-stone. Before him was the beautiful water, sinking into the abyss, yet flowing on forever, while a great rainbow trembled, faded, then came again through the mist and spray like a beautiful spirit walking the waters. With the terror, the rush, and the roar of the crashing waters, was a beauty not of earth that took away all fear, until he seemed to be gazing into the seventh heaven and seeing that which was unlawful for mortal man to look upon.
Only a moment, and once more he was back in the body and found himself looking confusedly into the faces of his companions, all of whom had felt something of the same uplift. Without a word, the Indian edged the canoe along the shore and into the mouth of a deep lagoon, half-hidden by overhanging trees. Beyond these it widened out and ended in a high, bare bank. Back from this stretched a narrow path, showing like a long line through the dark green of the jungle. Its surface was trodden ominously hard and smooth, as if crossed and recrossed by many bare feet.
"The Trail," said Pinto, softly.
"The Trail," echoed Professor Ditson, as they all stared along the thin line which pierced the forest and led away and across the vast basin of the Amazon and on and past the guarded heights of Peru until it reached the mines from which Spain had dug the gold which enabled her to conquer and hold half the world. Only the cruel, fierce, dogged fighters of Spain as she was four hundred years ago could have cut this path. Even then, when men thought little of life or of accomplishing the impossible, the Trail stood forth as a great achievement, every mile of which had cost the lives of men.
For a time, the adventurers stared in silence at the brown line athwart the green, the sign and seal of an empire long passed away. Then Pinto grounded the montaria at the edge of the bank, and, after all of the party had disembarked with their scanty equipment, pulled the boat, with Hen's help, back of a screen of tangled vines, marked by a slender assai-palm, until it was completely hidden from sight.
"If we are successful," remarked Professor Ditson, "we'll never see that boat again. If we are driven back along this trail, it may save our lives."
There was a silence. For the first time the boys and Jud realized that their leader definitely expected perils other than those ever present from the wild creatures that guarded the beautiful, treacherous, mysterious forests of this southern continent.
"Are the Injuns down here dangerous?" inquired Jud, at last.
"The personal habits of some of them do not commend themselves even to the most broad-minded investigators," returned the professor, precisely.
"Such as—" questioned Jud, again.
"Well," replied the scientist, slowly, "for one thing, the wild tribes of this part of the Amazon basin invariably eat any captives they make. Then—"
"That's enough," broke in Jud. "After I've been eaten I don't care what they do next. What might be the names of these gentlemen?"
"The Mayas, I think, are the tribe we shall be most likely to meet," said Professor Ditson, reflectively. "They have no fixed homes, but wander through the forest, guiding themselves by the sun, and sleep in the tree-tops like monkeys wherever they happen to be when night comes. They hunt men, red, white, or black," he went on; "yet, if Indian traditions can be depended upon, we do not need to be afraid of them so long as we keep to the Trail."
"How's that?" inquired Will, intensely interested.
"Every tribe which refers to the Trail," the scientist informed them, "speaks of a custom called the 'Truce of the Trail,' under which travelers along that road are safe from attack."
"Does that there truce," interposed Jud, "take in white men, or is it only for redskins?"
"That," returned the professor, "is not certain. Some say yes, some say no."
"The question is," murmured Jud, "what do the Mayas say?"
"If we pass the Trail in safety," went on Professor Ditson, "we still may expect trouble from Dawson after we get into the Peruvian highlands. He has great influence with a band of Indian outlaws who call themselves the Miranhas, or Killers, and may persuade them to ambush us in order to secure the map."
"I sure am lookin' forward to this pleasure-trip of ours," confided Jud to Will.
During the first day along the trail, Will, who was next to Pinto, tried to pass away the time by learning a few words of Mundurucu. His first lessons in that language, however, were somewhat discouraging, since the dialects of the South American Indians contain perhaps more syllables to a word than any other language on earth.
"Pinto," he began, "I'll point to things, and you tell me what they are in Indian, and keep on saying it over and over until I learn it."
"All right," agreed the Mundurucu.
"Professor Pinto," went on Will solemnly, pointing to his hand, "what's that?"
"In-tee-ti-pix-tee-e-toke-kee-kee-tay-gaw," clattered Pinto, in a breath.
"Hey, hold up there," said Will. "Try it in low."
Half an hour later found him still working on that single word.
"Whew!" he remarked when he finally had it memorized, "I've heard it takes eight years to learn Eskimo. It's liable to take me eighty before I can talk Mundurucu. What about this one?" he went on, undiscouraged, pointing to a curious tree with a mahogany-red bark—which, if he had but known it, was a stranger whose seeds had in some way drifted down from much farther north.
"E-lit-ta-pix-tee-e-fa-cho-to-kee-not-e," said Pinto, slowly and distinctly.
For fifteen minutes Will wrestled with this new word.
"Do you know what he said?" at last interrupted Professor Ditson, who had been listening to the lesson.
"He gave me the name for that tree, didn't he?" returned Will, a little peevishly.
"Not at all," said the scientist. "He simply said, 'I don't know.'"
"Not so blame simply, either," murmured Jud, who had also been following the lesson.
"Our own language is full of similar mistakes imported from native dialects," lectured Professor Ditson. "'Kangaroo' simply means 'I don't know' in Bushman; so do 'mosquito' and 'quinine' and 'cockatoo' in different Indian languages."
"Well," said Will, "I'm going to pass up Mundurucu. Here I've spent the better part of an hour in learning two words—and one of them isn't right."
"It's a gift, my boy," said Jud, patronizingly. "As for myself, I once learned three Indian languages, Apache, Comanche, an' Sioux, in less than a month."
"Indeed!" broke in Professor Ditson, cuttingly. "You surprise me. Won't you favor me with a few sentences in Apache?"
"Surely," returned Jud, generously. "Ask me anything you like in Apache, an' I'll be glad to answer it in the same language."
The appearance of a small pond ahead put a stop to further adventure in linguistics, since Pinto had promised to catch some fish from the next water they met. As they came to the shore, suddenly, before Jud's astonished eyes, a fish about a foot long thrust its head out of the dark water, opened its mouth, and breathed like any mammal. A moment later it meowed like a cat, growled like a dog, and then went under.
"I'll never dare tell 'em about this in Cornwall," exclaimed Jud, earnestly, as the talented fish disappeared. "They'd think I was exaggeratin', an' that's one thing I never do. This trip," he went on reflectively, "is liable to make me believe blame near anything."
It was Professor Ditson who told them that the strange fish was a lung-fish and was a link between the fishes and the reptiles.
A little later, Pinto, with a length of flexible palm-fiber, noosed a garpike, that strange representative of the oldest family of fishes left on earth, and another link with the reptiles. Its vertebræ had ball-and-socket joints like the spine of a snake, and, unlike any other fish, it could move its head independently of its body. Armored scales arranged in diagonal rows ran down its back, being fastened to each other by a system of hooks, instead of lapping over each other like the scales of other fishes. This armor was of such flinty hardness that Pinto struck a spark from it with his steel, and actually lighted from its own scales the fire on which the fish was cooked.
By this pond grew a great orchid with thirty-one flower-stems, on one of which Will counted over a thousand beautiful pearl-and-gold blossoms. Near the water, too, were many varieties of tropical birds flaming through the trees. Among them were flocks of paraquets colored green and blue and red; little honey-creepers with black, purple, and turquoise plumage and brilliant scarlet feet; and exquisite tiny tanagers like clusters of jewels with their lilac throats, turquoise breasts, topaz crowns, and purple-black backs shading into ruby red. These were all searching for insects, while among the blossoms whirred dainty little humming-birds of the variety known as "wood-stars." Then there were blood-red macaws with blue-and-gold wings, and lustrous green-black toucans with white throats, red-and-yellow tail-coverts, and huge black-and-yellow bills.
For the next few days the treasure-hunters followed the narrow, hard-beaten path through stretches of dark jungle and thorny thickets, or found themselves skirting lonely lakes hidden in the very heart of the virgin forest. Everywhere the Trail was omniously clear and hard-trodden. Sometimes they all had that strange knowledge that they were being watched, which human beings who live in the open acquire as well as the wild folk.
At last there came a day when the supplies had run so low that it became necessary for Pinto to do some hunting. Will went with him, and together they silently and cautiously followed one of the many little paths that at irregular intervals branched off from the main trail. This one was so hidden by vines and creepers that it seemed improbable that any one had used it for a long period of time. It led the hunters into one of the patches of open country sometimes found in the forests of the Amazon. This particular one was fringed with great trees and crossed by another path nearly parallel to the one they were following.
Near the center of the clearing, Pinto managed to shoot two curassows, huge, plump birds which looked and tasted much like turkeys. Leaving these with his companion, the Indian pushed on ahead for more. Suddenly he reappeared among the trees, and Will noticed as he hurried toward him, that his copper-colored face showed gray and drawn, while beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. As he joined the boy, Pinto placed his finger on his lips with a look of ghastly terror and led Will into the deepest part of a near-by thicket. From there, though hidden from sight, they had a view through the close-set bushes of the other path. Suddenly, from far down that trail, sounded a faint, but regular, clicking noise. As it became louder and louder, rising and falling in a regular cadence, Pinto slipped like a snake deeper into the long jungle-grass.
"Lie still for your life," he whispered in Will's ear, so faintly that the boy could scarcely make out the words. Then, in an instant, from out of the jungle not twenty feet away there strode along the dim path a figure of nightmare horror—that of a tall naked man, with gaunt and fleshless arms and legs, great knobs of bone marking his knee and elbow-joints. His sunken body was painted black, with every bone outlined in a chalky white, so that he seemed a living, walking skeleton.
Around the black and wasted neck, wrinkled like that of a mummy, hung a long string of small bones which, with a thrill of horror, the boy recognized by their nails as those of human fingers. It was these, striking together, which made the clicking noise that Will had heard. The face of the horror was painted black, except the lips and chin, which showed blood-red, while out of the holes at the corners of the lower lip protruded curved, gleaming peccary-tusks. These ornaments gave an indescribably brutish appearance to the countenance that they ornamented, while above them two snaky black eyes with an expression of implacable cruelty glittered like crumbs of glass from under overhanging brows. Like a specter, the shape disappeared among the shadows; but it was followed by another and another and another, until a long procession of terrible figures had passed.
As the ill-omened clicking died away in the distance Will sprang to his feet.
"No!" hissed the Indian. "Our only chance of life is to lie quiet. That is a Maya war-party on a man-hunt!"
"They'll meet the others on the Trail," whispered Will.
"Six men can't do any more against fifty than two," returned Pinto, practically. "We'll only throw away our lives and not save theirs."
"Stay if you want," returned the boy; "I'll live or die with them!" and he sped back at full speed along the path over which they had come. Just before he reached the Trail he looked back—and there was Pinto at his shoulder.
"Very foolish," the latter muttered, "but—I come too."
Down the Trail the two hurried, and, rounding a bend, burst in suddenly upon the rest of the party lying in the shade of the overhanging trees awaiting their return.
"Mayas! Mayas!" gasped Pinto.
As he spoke, far down the Trail from around a curve sounded the faint, ominous clicking which the two hunters had heard before.
It was then that the old scientist showed that he deserved the right to lead which he claimed.
"Stand still!" he said sternly to Pinto, as the latter seemed inclined to bolt down the Trail away from the fatal sound. "Put up your gun!" he ordered Jud; "the Truce is our only chance."
Then, with quick, decisive commands, he lined the party up so that no part of the body of any one of them extended beyond the surface of the Trail, and yet a space was left wide enough to allow any others using the path to pass. At the head of the line he placed the two Indians, Joe and Pinto, so that the Mayas might note the presence in the party of members of their own race.
"Show the peace sign," he snapped sharply to Joe, who led the line. "Brace up!" he went on, slapping Pinto sharply on his bare back; "don't look so scared. No matter what they do," he said, turning to the rest of the company, "don't leave the Trail for a second or make any kind of attack on them. They will probably try to make us break the Truce of the Trail. If any of us do, we are all lost."
"My peace sign," muttered Jud, grimly, "will be an automatic in one hand an' this little toothpick in the other," and he opened the five-inch blade of the jack-knife with which he had killed old Three Toes, the grizzly, as already chronicled in "The Blue Pearl." "If I'm goin' to be eaten," he went on, "there'll be eighteen Mayas that ain't goin' to have any appetite for the meal"; and he shifted the single clip of cartridges remaining, so that he could feed them into the automatic if it came to a last stand.
All further conversation was ended by the appearance of the same horrible apparition which had so terrified Pinto a short time before. As the gaunt painted skeleton of the first Maya showed against the green background, surmounted by the black and blood-red face with the grinning tusks and implacable eyes, an involuntary gasp went up from the whole waiting party. Jud slipped the safety-catch from his revolver; Pinto's face looked as if suddenly powdered with ashes; Will's hands stole to the hatchet at his belt; while, down at the end of the line, Hen Pine gripped his heavy machete until his great muscles stood out like iron bands. Two of the party alone showed no sign of any emotion: Joe, the descendant of a long line of proud Chippewa chiefs, disdainfully stretched out both empty hands palms up in the peace-sign; while Professor Ditson's calm face seemed to show only the mild interest of a scientist.
As the leading Maya caught sight of the waiting line, he slowed his swift stride and the war-party crept up close and closer. Then came the tense moment which would decide whether the Truce was to hold. As the grim hunters moved up, there was no sign on the face of any of them of any acceptance of the peace which Joe had offered. With short, gliding steps, they made a complete circle around the little party, closing up until their menacing, fearful faces were less than a foot away and the reek of their naked bodies was like the hot taint of jaguars of the jungle in the nostrils of the waiting six. In their left hands they carried bows and quivers of fiercely fanged arrows gummed with fatal venom, while from their belts swung curved, saw-toothed knives and short, heavy clubs, the heads of which were studded with alligators' teeth.
As the Mayas came closer, the waiting line wavered involuntarily before the terrible menace of their hating, hateful faces. The Mundurucu especially, although no coward, had been taught from earliest childhood to dread these man-eaters, the Mayas. It was Professor Ditson who noticed that, in spite of their menacing approach, not a single warrior had as yet gripped a weapon.
"Steady, Pinto, steady all," he said calmly, "They're trying to stampede us. If one of you leaves the Trail, we're all dead men."
He spoke just in time, for already Pinto was looking longingly toward the refuge of the forest, forgetting that the woodcraft of those hunters of men was superior even to his own. Perhaps even Professor Ditson's voice would not have stopped him if it had not been for a sudden happening.
As the leader of the Mayas half-circled around Joe, the latter turned to face him, still holding out his arms. The motion flung open his flannel shirt, unbuttoned to the waist, and showed, tattooed red on his brown skin, the curling, twisted totem-mark of intertwined serpents by which Joe had claimed the right of his blood in the lodge of the Great Chief during the quest of the Blue Pearl. As the Maya caught sight of this sign he stopped in his tracks. Little by little the menace died out of his fierce eyes, and, as if drawn by a magnet, he crept in closer and closer with outstretched neck, staring at the tattoo marks which wound down and around Joe's waist. Then, with a sudden gesture, he swept aside the ghastly necklace that he wore. There, outlined against his fleshless chest just over his heart, showed a similar emblem—crimson inter-twining serpents facing in opposite directions, with gaping mouths like those of which the totem-pole was made which towered before the lodge of the Great Chief in far-away Akotan. The Maya chief stood motionless for a moment. Then he stretched both hands out toward Joe, palms up, and stood as if waiting.
"Put your hands in his, boy," hissed Jud, from down the line; "he's waitin' for the brotherhood sign."
Without a word, Joe clasped hands with the Maya chief, and for an instant the two looked into each other's eyes, the spectral cannibal and the lithe son of a French trapper and a Chippewa princess. Then, disengaging his right hand, the Maya fumbled at his belt and suddenly stretched out toward Joe the supple, beautiful tanned skin of a snake, such as but one of the party had ever seen before. It was long and narrow and of a flashing golden-yellow, thickly flecked with tiny red-brown spots. This he wound around the boy's neck, so that it swung gleaming against his gray flannel shirt. Once again with outstretched hands the strange figure stood as if waiting, encircled the while by fierce, impassive faces with tusks gleaming horribly against blood-red jaws, and white painted bodies showing like ghosts against the green of the forest.
"Give him your tie," dictated Jud. "Don't you know blood-brothers have to exchange presents?"
Joe hesitated. He had a weakness, perhaps inherited from both sides of his family, for neckties of the most barbaric colors. The one that he was wearing was one of Cornwall's best and brightest, a brilliant green-and-purple creation which had cost him a whole dollar at White Wilcox's store. To give it up would leave him tieless in a great wilderness.
"Hurry!" muttered Professor Ditson, as the Maya chief began to lower his outstretched hands.
Thus urged, the boy reluctantly pulled a foot of glimmering silk from his neck, and the next instant the most brilliant tie that ever graced Mr. Wilcox's emporium was gleaming against the gray-white of a necklace of human bones.
The Maya received the enforced present with a grunt of undisguised pleasure, and, raising both hands above his head with palms outstretched, faced his waiting band and began a crooning song filled with strange minor cadences. One by one his men took up the strain, and, led by him, filed away from the trail like ghosts going back to their graves. As the clicking of their necklaces and the notes of their chant sounded faint and fainter and at last died away in the green tangle of the jungle, a long sigh of relief came unconsciously from every member of the expedition. It was Jud who first broke the silence.
"I've always heard," he said, "that Injuns north, south, east, an' west belonged to the four main totems, the Bear, the Wolf, the Snake, an' the Eagle, but I never believed it before to-day. That old tattoo-mark, boy," he went on, turning to Joe, "certainly came in right handy."
"He gone off with my good tie," returned Joe, sorrowfully.
"And a good job, too, I call it," remarked Will, who had never approved his friend's taste in neckwear.
It was the Maya's present which most interested Pinto and Professor Ditson. The Mundurucu Indian sidled up close to Joe and stared at the glittering skin with all his eyes, but without attempting to touch it.
"It's the sacred snake that in the old days only kings and gods could wear," he murmured.
"He's right," said Professor Ditson, raising the gleaming, golden skin reverently from Joe's neck. "It's the skin of the Yellow Snake which the Aztecs used to wind around the forehead of Atapetl, their terrible goddess of war. Only her priests knew where to find these snakes, and it was death for any one else even to look at the skin except at the annual sacrifices of the goddess. This one," he went on, "will be a safe-conduct for the whole party all the way to Peru—and ought to be a lesson to you," he continued severely, turning to Jud, "never to speak against snakes again."
Five days later they came to a great lake which seemed to stretch away through the depths of the forest interminably, with the trail following its winding shores.
At the first sight of the water shining in the sunlight, Pinto showed signs of great uneasiness.
"This must be the Lake of the Man-eaters," he said to Professor Ditson. "I have heard the wise men of the tribe speak of it many times. All the animals around it are eaters of men. See, perhaps there be some of their tracks now!" and he pointed to where there showed in the soft sand what looked like the paw-prints of a huge cat.
"Pinto," said the professor, severely, "I'm ashamed of you! The sight of those Mayas has made your mind run on man-eaters. Don't you know a puma's track when you see them, and don't you know that a puma never attacks a man?"
"The perfesser's right for once," chimed in Jud. "That's the track of what we call a mountain-lion or panther up north, an' they don't never hurt nobody."
Pinto was still unconvinced. "Perhaps they do here," he insisted.
"You come along with me," returned Professor Ditson. "We'll explore this lake a bit before dark." And, followed by all of the party except Will and Jud, whose turn it was to make camp, he disappeared around a bend in the shore.
The two who were left behind soon found a high, sandy bank where they cleared a space and started a small fire. Just in front of them was a tiny bay, connected with the lake by a narrow channel edged by lines of waving ferns, while a little beach of white sand curved away to the water in front of the camp-site.
"Here is where Judson Adams, Esquire, takes a bath," suddenly announced the old trapper, producing a couple of cakes of tree-soap, which he had picked along the trail, and slipping out of his clothes like an eel.
"Pinto said never to go into strange water," warned Will.
"Pooh," said Jud. "He was talkin' about rivers where them murderin' catfish an' anacondas hide. This pool ain't ten feet across an' there's nothin' in it except a few stray minnies"; and he pointed out to Will a little school of short, deep-bodied fish which looked something like the sunfish which the boys used to catch along the edges of Cream Hill Pond. Otherwise no living creature showed in the clear water, nor could be concealed along the bright, pebbly bottom.
"Better not," warned Will again. "This ain't your country, Jud. Pinto seemed to know what he was talking about. Let's wait until the professor gets back."
"Pinto will never win any Carnegie medals, an' I guess I can take a bath without gettin' permission from the perfesser," returned Jud, obstinately. "However," he went on, "just to show you that the old man never takes any chances, I'll poke a stick around in this pool to drive out the devil-fish that may be hidin' here."
Nothing happened as the old man prodded the water with a long branch cut from a near-by tree, except that the motion of the stick seemed to attract more and more of the chubby fish which he had first seen from the outer channel into the pool.
"Gee," remarked Jud, "but those fish are tame! I'll bet if I had a hook an' line I could flick out a dozen. Better come in with me, Bill," he went on. "I promised your family that I'd see that you boys took plenty of baths an' kept your hair brushed all through this trip."
"I'll wait till the boss comes back," said Will, laughingly.
That was enough for Jud.
"I'm my own boss!" he remarked indignantly, and waded in with a cake of tree-grown soap clenched tightly in one hand.
His first step took him well above his knees. There was a swirl and a flash from the center of the pool, and in an instant the whole surface was alive with a furious rush of the short, deep-bodied fish toward Jud. As they approached, the old man noticed uneasily their staring, malignant eyes, and that they had projecting, gaping lower jaws, thickly set with razor-edged, triangular teeth.
Suddenly the whole school were upon him, crowding into the shallow water where he stood and snapping at his bare legs like mad dogs. Before he could stir, two of them had bitten pieces of flesh out of the calves of both of his legs. As the blood from their bites touched the surface of the pool, the fish seemed to go entirely mad, snapping their fierce jaws frantically and even springing clear of the water, like trout leaping at a fly.
If they had not been so numerous that they jostled each other, or if Jud had not been quicker than most men twenty years younger, he would have been terribly mutilated. As it was, when he finally reached the safety of the bank, the water which he had just left boiled and bubbled like a caldron, and two of the fish followed him so closely that they landed, flapping, snapping, and squealing, far up on the white sand.
When Will approached them, the stranded fish tried to spring at him, clicking their jaws with impotent, savage fury. A moment later, as he tried to hold one of them down with a stick, it drove its keen wedge-shaped teeth clear through the hard wood. When the rest of the party came back, they found Jud and Will staring as if fascinated at the desperate, raging dwellers of the pool.
"I told you strange water not safe," said Pinto, as Professor Ditson skilfully bandaged Jud's legs with a dressing of sphagnum moss and the thick red sap of the dragon's-blood tree. "Look," and he showed Will that a joint of one of his fingers was missing. "Cannibal-fish more dangerous than anaconda or piraiba. They kill tiger and eat up alligator if it get wounded. Once," he went on, "white man ride a mule across river where these fish live. They bit mule and he threw man off into the river. When I got there an hour later only skeleton left of mule. Man's clothes lie at bottom of river, but only bones inside. You wait a little. I pay them well." And he disappeared into the woods.
Professor Ditson corroborated the Indian.
"They are undoubtedly the fiercest and most dangerous fish that swim," he said. "If the water is disturbed, it arouses them, and the taste or smell of blood seems to drive them mad."
By the time Jud was patched up, Pinto came back trailing behind him a long length of liana, from either end of which oozed a white liquid. This vine he pounded between two stones and threw into the pool. A minute later the water was milky from the flowing juice, and before long was filled with floating, motionless piranhas stupefied by the poisonous sap. Pinto fished out several with a long stick, and breaking their necks, wrapped them in balls of blue clay which he found along the shore, and, first making air-holes, set them to bake in the hot coals of the fire. When at last a smell of roast fish went up from the midst of the fire, Pinto pulled each ball out and broke the hard surface with light taps of a stick. The skin and scales came off with the clay. Opening the fish carefully, he cleaned it, leaving nothing but the savory white baked meat, which tasted and looked almost exactly like black bass. Jud avenged himself by eating seven.
Toward the end of the afternoon, Professor Amandus Ditson left the rest of the party reclining in that state of comfort and satisfaction which comes after a good meal. Each day the professor devoted all of his spare time toward realizing the greatest ambition of his life, to wit, the acquirement of one full-grown, able-bodied bushmaster. To-day armed with nothing more dangerous than a long crotched stick, he strolled along the trail, leaving it occasionally to search every mound or hillock which showed above the flat level of the jungle, since in such places this king of the pit-vipers is most apt to be found. Two hundred yards away from the camp, the trail took a turn, following the curved shore of the great lake, and in a few minutes the scientist was entirely out of sight or sound of the rest of the party. At last, finding nothing inland he turned his steps toward the lake itself. On some bare spaces showing between the trail and the edge of the water, he saw more of the puma-tracks like those which Pinto had pointed out earlier in the day. Remembering the Indian's fear the scientist smiled as he examined the fresh prints of big pads and long claws.
"Harmless as tomcats," he muttered to himself.
A moment later something happened which upset both the professor and his theories. As he straightened up, a hundred pounds of puma landed upon him. The legend of the lake, as far as pumas were concerned, was evidently correct. Harmless to man in other places, here, it seemed, the great cat stalked men as if they were deer. This one intended to sink the curved claws of her forepaws in the professor's shoulders, and, with her teeth at his throat, to rake his body with the terrible downward, slashing strokes of the catamount clan. Fortunately for himself, he had half-turned at the sound which her sudden spring made among the bushes. Instead of catching his throat, the panther's fanged jaws closed on the upper part of his left arm, while her forepaws gripped his shoulders, which were protected by a khaki coat and flannel shirt. Professor Ditson promptly caught the animal's throat with his sinewy right hand and held the great beast off at arm's length, thus keeping his body beyond the range of the deadly sickle-like hind claws. For a moment the puma's luminous gooseberry green eyes stared into his, and he could see the soft white of her under parts and the long, tawny tail which is the hall-mark of her family. As he sank his steel-strong fingers deeper into the great brute's throat, Professor Ditson abandoned all hope of life, for no unarmed man can hope to cope successfully with any of the great carnivora.
"A dozen zoölogists have lied in print!" he murmured to himself, indignantly.
Even as he spoke, he tried to wrench his left arm free. He immediately found, however, that it was impossible to pull it straight out from between the keen teeth. Sinking his fingers deeper into the puma's throat, he squeezed it suddenly with all of his strength. Involuntarily, as the wind was shut off from her lungs, the gripping jaws relaxed enough to allow the scientist to pull his arm through them for a few inches sidewise. Again the puma caught the moving arm, a few inches lower down. Again, as the man gripped her throat afresh, she relaxed her hold, and he gained an inch or so before the sharp teeth clamped tight again. Inch by inch, the professor worked the full length of his arm through the fierce jaws which, in spite of the khaki sleeve and thick shirt beneath, pierced and crushed terribly the tense muscles of his arm.
Throughout the struggle the tawny beast kept up a continual grunting, choking snarl, while the man fought in utter silence. At last the whole length of the professor's left arm had been dragged through, until only his hand itself was in the mouth of the puma. Shoving it down her hot gullet, he gripped the base of her tongue so chokingly that the struggling panther was unable to close her jaws, and, for the first time during the fight, the professor was free from the pain of her piercing teeth.
In a desperate struggle to release the grip which was shutting off her breath, the puma lurched over and fell full length on her back in the loose sand, dragging the man down with her, and the professor found himself with his left hand deep in her gullet, his right hand still clutching the beast's throat desperately, while his knees, with the weight of his body back of them, pressed full against her ribs on each side. As they struck the ground he sank his elbows into the armpits of the puma beneath him, spreading her front legs and pinning them down, so that her frantic claws could reach inward only enough to rip his coat, without wounding the flesh beneath. Once on the ground, the panther struggled fiercely, pitching and bucking in an effort to release herself from the man's weight so that she could be in a position to make use of the curved scimitars with which all four of her paws were armed. The loose sand shifted and gave her no purchase.
As they fought, Professor Ditson felt his strength leaving him with the blood that flowed from his gashed and mangled arm. Raising himself a little, he surged down with both knees and felt a rib snap under his weight and the struggling body relax a trifle. For the first time he dared hope to do what no man had done since the cavemen contended with their foes among the beast-folk, and to his surprise noted that he was beginning to take a certain grim pleasure in the combat. The fury of the fight had pierced through the veneer of education and culture, and Professor Amandus Ditson, the holder of degrees from half a dozen learned universities, battled for his life that day with a beast of the forest with all the desperation and fierce joy which any of his prehistoric forebears might have felt a hundred thousand years ago.
It had become a question as to which would give up first—the man or the beast. Fighting off the waves of blackness which seemed to surge up and up until they threatened to close over his head, he fought desperately with clutching hands and driving knees, under which the thin ribs of the puma snapped like dry branches, until at last, with a long, convulsive shudder, the great cat stopped breathing. Even as he felt the tense body relax and become motionless under his grip, the blackness closed over his head.
There the rest of the party, alarmed by his long absence, found him an hour later. His gaunt body was stretched out on the dead panther and his right hand was sunk in the long fur, while his left hand and arm were buried to the elbow in the fierce gaping mouth and his bowed knees still pinned the great cat down. Around the dead beast and the unconscious man sat four black vultures. Thrusting forward from time to time their naked, red, hooded heads, they seemed about to begin their feast when the rescuing party arrived. With his face hidden in the panther's tawny fur, Professor Ditson seemed as dead as the beast that lay beneath him. It was not until Hen had pried his fingers away from the puma's throat and carefully drawn his gashed hand from the beast's gullet that his eyes flickered open and his gaunt chest strained with a long, labored breath.
"I was wrong," were his first words. "TheFelis concolordoes occasionally attack man. I'll make a note of it," he went on weakly, "in the next edition of my zoölogy."
"I was wrong, too," burst out Jud, pressing close up to the exhausted scientist and clasping his uninjured hand in both of his. "I thought you were nothin' but a perfesser, but I want to say right here an' now that you're aman."
The danger, however, was not yet over. The scratches and bites of a panther or a jaguar, like those of a lion or tiger, almost invariably cause death from blood-poisoning if not immediately treated. Under Professor Ditson's half-whispered directions, they stripped off his clothes, washed away the blood and dirt with clear water, and then, using the little surgical kit which he always wore at his belt, injected a solution of iodine into every scratch and tooth-mark.
"It is necessary," said the scientist, gritting his teeth as the stinging liquid smarted and burned like fire, "but I do not believe that life itself is worth so much suffering."
The rest of the party, however, did not agree with this perhaps hasty opinion, and persisted in their treatment until every puncture was properly sterilized. Then, bandaged with great handfuls of cool sphagnum moss and attended by the faithful Hen Pine, the professor slept the clock around. While he was asleep, Will and Pinto slipped away together to see if they could not bring back a plump curassow from which to make broth for him when he finally woke up; while Jud and Joe, with similar good intentions, scoured the jungle for the best-flavored fruits they might find.
Will and his companion found the birds scarce although they slipped through the jungle like shadows. As they penetrated deeper among the trees they were careful to walk so that their shadows fell directly behind them, which meant that they were walking in a straight line, along which they could return by observing the same precaution. As they reached a tiny grove of wild oranges, Will's quick eye caught sight of something which gleamed white against the dark trunks, and the two went over to investigate. There they saw a grisly sight. Coiled in a perfect circle were the bones of an anaconda some fifteen feet in length. Every vertebra and rib, and even the small bones of the head and the formidable, recurved teeth, were perfect, while in all the great skeleton there was not a fragment of flesh nor a scale of the skin remaining. Strangest of all, inclosed by the ribs of the snake was the crushed skeleton of a large monkey, which likewise had been cleaned and polished beyond the skill of any human anatomist or taxidermist. Some terrible foe had attacked the great snake while lying helpless and torpid after its heavy meal and had literally devoured it alive. The face of the Indian was very grave as he looked at the gleaming bones before him, and he stared carefully through the adjoining thickets before speaking.
"Puma bad man-eater," he said at last; "cannibal-fish worse; but anicton most dangerous of all. He eat same as fire eats. He kill jaguar, sucurucu, bushmaster, alligator, Indian, white man. He afraid of nothing."
"What is the anicton?" inquired Will, frightened in spite of himself.
Even as he spoke, from far beyond in the jungle came a strange, rustling whisper which seemed to creep along the ground and pass on and on through the woods like the hiss of spreading flames.
"Come," said the Indian, briefly, "I show you." And he led Will farther out into the jungle through which the menacing whisper seemed to hurry to meet them.
Soon small flocks of plain-colored birds could be seen flying low, with excited twitterings, evidently following the course of some unseen objects on the ground. Then there came a rustling through the underbrush, and, in headlong flight, an army of little animals, reptiles, and insects dashed through the jungle. Long brown wood-rats scuttled past, tiny jumping-mice leaped through the air, guiding themselves with their long tails, while here and there centipedes, small snakes, and a multitude of other living creatures sped through the brush as if fleeing before a forest fire.
Suddenly, through a corner of the jungle thrust the van of a vast army of black ants. Through the woods they moved in lines and regiments and divisions, while little companies deployed here and there on each side of the main guard. Like a stream of dark lava, the army flowed swiftly over the ground. As with human armies, this one was made up of different kinds of soldiers, all of whom had different duties to perform. Most numerous of all were the eyeless workers, about half an inch in length, armed with short, but keen, cutting mandibles. These acted as carriers and laborers and reserves, and, although blind, were formidable by reason of their numbers. Larger than the workers, measuring a full inch in length, were the soldiers, with enormous square heads and mandibles pointed and curved like pairs of ice-tongs. These soldiers would drive in each mandible alternately until they met in the body of their victim, and when they met they held. Even if the body of the ants was torn away, the curved clinging jaws still clinched and bit. With the soldiers came companies of butchers, whose jaws had serrated teeth which sheared and cut through flesh and muscle like steel saws. Besides these, there were laborers and reserve soldiers by the million.
Pinto told Will that a large ant-army would take twenty-four hours to pass a given point even when traveling at full speed. As they watched this army, Will saw an exhibition of what it could do. A large agouti in fleeing before them had in some way caught its leg in a tangle of vines and, squealing in terror, tried in vain to escape. Before it could release itself, the rush of the army was upon it, and it disappeared under a black wave of biting, stinging ants, which methodically cut up and carried off every fragment of the animal's flesh, and passed on, leaving behind only a picked skeleton.
As Will watched this hurrying, resistless multitude, although well beyond the path of its advance, he felt a kind of terror, and was relieved when the Mundurucu started back for camp.
"Nothing that lives," said Pinto, as they turned toward the trail, "can stand against the black army."
The next day Jud and Joe joined in the hunt, leaving Hen to nurse the professor. Following a deer trail back from the shore, they came to a patch of swampy woods a mile from the lake. There Will discovered a mound some five feet high made of rushes, rotting moss, leaves, and mold.
"Is that a nest of ants?" he called to the Indian, pointing out to him the symmetrical hillock.
Pinto's face lighted up.
"No," he said, "that a nest of eggs. We dig it out, have good supper to-night."
"It must be some bird," exclaimed Jud, hurrying up, "to make a nest like that. Probably one of them South American ostriches—hey, Pinto?"
"You'll see," was all that the Indian would say as he began to dig into the soft, spongy mass. The rest of the party followed his example. By the time they had reached the center of the mound, digging with sticks and bare hands, the matted, rotting vegetation felt warm to the touch, and this heat increased as they approached the base of the nest. Down at the very bottom of the mound, arranged in a circle on a bed of moss, they found no fewer than twenty-four white eggs as large as those of a duck, but round and covered with a tough, parchment-like shell.
Pinto hurriedly pouched them all in a netted game-bag which he had made for himself out of palm-fiber.
"Want to see bird that laid those eggs?" he asked Jud.
"I sure would," returned the old trapper. "Any fowl that builds a five-foot incubator like that must be worth seein'."
"Rub two eggs together and she come," directed Pinto, holding out his bag to Jud.
Following the Indian's suggestion, Jud unsuspectingly rubbed two of the eggs against each other. They made a curious, penetrating, grating noise, like the squeal of chalk on a blackboard.
Hardly had the sound died away, when from out of a near-by wet thicket there came a roaring bellow that shook the very ground they stood on, and suddenly the air was filled with the sweet sickly scent of musk. Jud turned as if stung by a fire-ant, to see a pair of green eyes glaring at him above the jaws of a great alligator which had been lurking in the darkness of the jungle. As it lay there like an enormous lizard, the dark gray of its armored hide hardly showed against the shadows. On each side of the fore part of the upper jaw, two cone-shaped tusks showed white as polished ivory, fitting into sockets in the lower jaw. Even as Jud looked, the upper jaw of the vast saurian was raised straight up, showing the blood-red lining of the mouth gaping open fully three feet. Then, with a roar like distant thunder, the great reptile raised its body, as big as that of a horse, upon its short, squat legs, and rushed through the brush at Jud with a squattering gait, which, however, carried it over the ground at a tremendous rate of speed for a creature eighteen feet long.
It was Jud's first experience with an alligator, and with a yell he ran down the slope like a race-horse. Unfortunately for him, on a straight line downhill an alligator can run faster than a man, and this one began to overtake him rapidly. As he glanced back, the grinning jaws seemed right at his shoulder.
"Dodge him! Dodge him!" yelled Pinto.
At first, Jud paid no attention, but ran straight as a deer will sometimes run between the rails to its death before a locomotive when one bound to the side would save it. At last, as Will and Joe also began to shout the same words over and over again, the idea penetrated Jud's bewildered brain and he sprang to one side and doubled on his trail. His pursuer, however, specialized in doubling itself. Unable to turn rapidly on account of its great length, and seeing its prey escaping, the alligator curved its body and the long serrated tail swung over the ground like a scythe. The extreme end of it caught Jud just above the ankles and swept him off his feet, standing him on his head in a thorn-bush from which he was rescued by Pinto and Will, who had followed close behind. The alligator made no further attempt at pursuit, but quickly disappeared in the depths of a marshy thicket.
"Whew!" said Jud, exhausted, sitting down on a fallen log and mopping his steaming face. "That was certainly a funny joke, Mr. Pinto. About one more of those an' you won't go any further on this trip. You'll stay right here—underground."
The Mundurucu was very apologetic, explaining that he had not intended to do anything worse than startle the old man, while Will and Joe interceded for him.
"He only wanted to see you run," said the latter, slyly. "Nobody can run like Jud when he's scared."
"No, boy," objected the old trapper, "I wasn't exactly scared. Startled is the right word. It would startle anybody to have a monstrophalus alligator rush out of nowhere an' try to swallow him."
"Certainly it would," agreed Will, gravely. "Anybody could see that you weren't scared, you looked so noble when you ran."
Peace thus being restored, the whole party returned to camp, where that night Professor Ditson, who was feeling better, gave a long discourse on the difference between crocodiles, alligators, and caymans.
"If that had been a crocodile," he explained "you wouldn't be here now. There's one species found in South America, and it's far faster than any alligator. Look out for it."
"I most certainly will," murmured Jud.
That night at supper, Pinto proceeded to roast in the hot coals the whole clutch of alligator eggs except the two which Jud had dropped in his excitement. For the first time in a long life, the old trapper refused the food set before him.
"I've et monkeys an' dragons an' cannibal-fish without a murmur," he said, "but I draw the line at alligator's eggs. They may taste all right, but when I think of their dear old mother an' how she took to me, I'm just sentimental enough to pass 'em up."