"And when I dieDon't bury me a-tall,But pickle me bonesIn alky-hawl—"
"And when I dieDon't bury me a-tall,But pickle me bonesIn alky-hawl—"
When his roar had subsided and the two former officers had sat silent a moment, smiling over his nocturnal adventures, the door of Schwandorf's room opened abruptly and the German stepped out.
"Morgen," he grunted, striding to the table. "Thomaz!"
"Si, Senhor Sssondoff." The youth faded away into the kitchen quarters.
"Always feel grumpy until I eat," grumbled the blackbeard. "None of this coffee-cigarette breakfast for me. A real meal, coffee with gin in it, a cigar—then I feel human. Sleep well?"
His bold gaze never flickered as it encountered Knowlton's.
"Fine. If you snored I didn't know it. Didn't hear the bodies taken out this morning, either."
"Bodies! Oh! Those fellows dead?" He tilted his head toward the doors behind which the sick men had lain. "Glad of it. Best for them and everybody else. Hate to have sick people in the place."
The Americans said nothing. They lit new cigarettes and waited for the other to become "human." And when his substantial breakfast was down, his gin-flavored coffee had disappeared, and his big cigar was aglow, he did.
"Well, gentlemen, have you decided to take good advice and let your Raposa alone?" he asked, affably.
"Who ever follows good advice?" Knowlton countered. Schwandorf chuckled.
"Niemand.Nobody. So you will go." He shook his head solemnly. "I have said all I can without offense. But if you persist I can only help you to start. If possible I should like to go with you up the river to the place where you will take to the bush; but I must go to Iquitos, in Peru, on the monthly launch which is due in a day or two, so all my business is in the other direction. If now I can aid in the matter of a crew—"
"That is what we were about to ask of you."
"So. Then let us be about it. I have been thinking, since you showed your determination last night, and have made inquiries about men. There are now in Nazareth, the little Peruvian town across the river, several men from whom you can pick an excellent crew. Men of the river and the bush, not worthless loafers like these townsmen here. Men who are not afraid of hell or high water, as the saying is. Not remarkable for either beauty or brains, but good men for your work—by far the best you can obtain. I would suggest a large canoe and six or eight of those men as crew."
The others smoked thoughtfully. Then McKay said, "We should prefer Brazilians."
"Not if you knew the people hereabouts as well as I. It, of course, makes no personal difference to me what sort of crew you get, but I tell you that these men are best. What does it matter which side of the river they come from? Men are men."
"True," McKay conceded.
"Can't be too fussy here," Knowlton added. "Let's see the men."
All rose. But then Schwandorf suggested:
"No need of your going to Nazareth. Better stay here, unless you want to go through a great deal of ceremonious foolishness over there. It's Peruvian ground and the barefooted ignoramuses of officials may insist on showing their importance by demanding your papers and all that. I can go across, get the men, and be back here before you'd be half through the preliminaries. Saves time."
"All right, if it's not too much trouble."
"A good deal less trouble than if you went, to be frank. I'm known, and I can go straight about the business. So sit down and wait. Thomaz! My hat!"
Out he tramped to the piazza, where he paused a moment to run a swift eye over the disheveled figure of Tim, who had fallen sound asleep in a chair. Then, without a further word or glance, he descended the ladder and swung away down the street. The Americans, watching him from the doorway, observed that children in his path hastened to get out of it, and that he spoke to nobody.
"Prussian," rasped McKay.
"M-hm! Done time in the Kaiser's army, too, even if he has been here since before the war. But he's treating us pretty white."
The captain made no answer. Their eyes followed the big figure until they saw it go sliding away toward Peru in a canoe propelled by two languid townsmen. Then McKay dropped a hand on Tim's shoulder. The red-lashed eyes flew open instantly.
Briefly, quietly, Knowlton told of what had passed while he napped, then asked what information he had gleaned from Joao.
"He says," answered Tim, "this guy is a queer duck. Been around here quite a while, but Joey don't know what's his game. He goes off on trips upriver, stays quite a while, comes back unexpected, and nobody knows where he's been or why. He don't use Brazilian boatmen—gits his men on the other side. And the Peru boys themselves dunno where he goes, or, anyways, they say they don't.
"Two of 'em come over here awhile back and got drunk, and Joey tried to pump 'em, but all the dope he got was that this here Fritz goes away upstream to a li'l' camp, and from there he goes off into the bush alone, and the Peru guys jest hang around the camp till he gits back. Sounds kind o' fishy to me, and Joey says it does to him, too, but he couldn't work nothin' more out o' the drunks because about that time Sworn-off himself comes buttin' in and asks these guys what they think they're doin' on this side the river, and they beat it back to Peru toot sweet. He's got their goat, all right, and I wouldn't wonder if he's got Joey's, too. Anyways, Joey tells me he's off this geezer and advises me to lay off him, too, though he can't name a thing against him."
"Queer," said Knowlton, looking again at the canoe out on the water.
"Gun running?" suggested McKay.
"Nope," Tim contradicted. "I thought o' that, but Joey says they's nothin' to it; they watched this sourkrout close, and he don't never git no guns from nowheres. Besides, they's nobody up there to run guns to but Injuns, and them Injuns are so wild they don't want no guns; they stick to the bow and arrer and such stuff, which they sure know how to use. Whatever his game is, he plays a lone hand as far's this town knows. Got no pals here, and nobody wants to walk on his corns."
"May be perfectly all right, too," mused Knowlton. "A little gold cache or something—though he said there was none in this region. Oh, well, what do we care? We have our hands full with our own business, and all assistance is appreciated."
An hour drifted past. Men of the town lounged by, looking curiously at the strangers, some nodding and voicing a friendly, "Boa dia." Women, too, watched them from windows and doors, and children slyly peeped around corners until something more important—such as a cat, a goat, or a gorgeous butterfly—came their way. Tim went inside and slicked up a bit by buttoning and lacing his clothes and combing his rebellious hair. At length a long boat put out from the farther shore and came surging across the sun-gleaming river.
"Handle themselves well," McKay approved, noting the easy grace of the crew. In the bow a tall, slender fellow stood with arms folded, balancing himself to the sway of the rather clumsy craft and watching the water ahead. In the stern, on a little platform whence he could look over the heads of the others and catch any signal from the lookout, a squat, dark-faced steersman lounged against his crude rudder. Between these two the paddlers stood, each with one foot on the bottom of the long dugout and the other on the gunwale, swinging in nonchalant unison as their blades moved fore and aft. Under the curving roof of a rough-and-ready cabin, open at the sides to allow free play of air, Schwandorf lolled like some old-time barbarian king.
Down to the landing place trudged the three Americans, and there the employers and the prospective employees looked one another over with interest. Eight men had come with Schwandorf, and a hard gang they were. The bowman, hawk nosed, slant eyed, black mustached, with hairy chest showing under his unbuttoned cotton shirt, had the face and bearing of a buccaneer chieftain; and the effect was intensified by a flaring red handkerchief around his head and the haft of a knife protruding from his waistband. The rowers behind him, though of varying degrees of swarthiness and height, all had the same sinewy build, the same bold stare, the same devil-may-care insolence of manner; and though none but the lookout wore the piratical red around his brow, more than one knife hilt showed at their waists. The steersman, whose copper-brown skin and flat face betokened a heavy strain of Indian blood, gazed stolidly at the Americans with the unwinking, expressionless eyes of a snake. Back into the minds of McKay and Knowlton came Schwandorf's words, "Men not afraid of hell or high water." They looked it.
"Here they are," announced the German, stepping ashore deliberately. "José, thepuntero"—his hand indicated the lookout—"Francisco, thepopero"—pointing to the steersman—"and sixbogas. Good men."
McKay ran a cold eye along the line of faces, his gaze plumbing each. Under that chill scrutiny the third man's stare wavered and dropped. That of the next also veered aside. The rest fronted him eye to eye.
"Two of them will not do," he asserted, in the brusque tone of a captain inspecting his company. "Numbers Three and Four—fall out!"
Literal obedience would have put Three and Four into the river, wherefore they stood fast. But, though they did not quite understand the meaning of the words, they grasped the fact that they were not wanted. One laughed impudently, the other slid a poisonous glance at the bleak-faced officer. The squat Francisco scowled. So did Schwandorf.
"No man who cannot look me in the eye is needed on this trip," McKay declared. "Also, six men are enough. If necessary we will bear a hand at the paddles ourselves. José, you have been told by Senhor Schwandorf what we want?"
"Si."
"You can start at once?"
"Si."
"What pay?"
"We leave that to you."
"Um! A dollar a day for each man?"
"Money or goods?"
"American gold."
"Si. Bueno."
"Very well. Take those two men back to Nazareth, get what belongings you need, return here, and report to me at the hotel. I am captain. Understand?"
"Si—Capitan."
"All right. On your way!"
As the boat drew out the two rejected men bade the Americans an ironical "adios," and one spat in the stream. In the faces of the others, however, showed something like respect for the crisp-spoken captain, and José snarled something at the ill-mannered Three and Four.
"You might need those men," mumbled Schwandorf.
"Guess not," McKay answered, serenely, turning toward the hotel. "Come on, boys. Let's get our stuff ready to ride."
Less than two hours later their rooms were vacant, their duffle was stowed in the long dugout, the Peruvian crew stood arrogantly eying the Brazilians who had gathered to witness the departure, and the Americans were bidding good-by to Remate de Males in general and its German resident in particular.
"Mr. Schwandorf, we thank you for your efficient aid," said Knowlton, extending a hearty hand. "You have helped us to get going with all dispatch, and we trust that we can repay the favor soon."
"You owe me no thanks," was the curt reply. "I would expect you to do as much for me if our positions were reversed. I wish you luck."
"Get aboard, Tim!" McKay ordered, setting the example himself. Tim obeyed, first giving the important Joao d'Almeida Magalhaes Nabuco Pestana da Fonseca a real American handgrip and getting in return a double embrace from that worthy official. Whereafter he winked and grinned expansively at several women garbed in violent hues of red, yellow, and green, frowned slightly at Schwandorf, lit the last cigar he was to smoke for many a long day, and, as the dugout began to move, erupted into a more or less musical farewell to the females of the species:
"The Yanks are goin' away,Pa-a-arley-voo!They're movin' on to-day,Pa-a-arley-voo!The Yanks are goin' away, they say,Leavin' the girls in a heartless way,Rinkydinky-parley-voo!"
"The Yanks are goin' away,Pa-a-arley-voo!They're movin' on to-day,Pa-a-arley-voo!The Yanks are goin' away, they say,Leavin' the girls in a heartless way,Rinkydinky-parley-voo!"
With one final wave of his cigar to the gesticulating Joao and the grinning women he turned his back on the town and faced the little-known river and the inscrutable jungle. But neither his eyes nor his thoughts traveled beyond the bow of the boat. Through narrowed lids he studied the swaying paddlers and the piratical José. And in his mind echoed the whispered warning of Joao, delivered during the effusive embrace at parting:
"Comrade, watch thosebastardos Peruanos."
Day by day the long canoe crawled into the vast unknown. Day by day the down-flowing jungle river pushed steadily, sullenly against its prow, as if striving to repel the invasion of its secret places by the fair-skinned men of another continent. Day by day it slid past in resentful impotence, conquered by the swinging blades of the Peruvianbogas. And day by day the close companionship of canoe and camp seemed to weld the voyagers into one compact unit.
Through hours of blazing sun, when the mercury of the thermometer which Knowlton had hung inside the shadytoldocabin fluctuated well above 100 degrees, the hardy crew forged on. Through drenching rains they still hung doggedly to their work, suspending it only when the water fell in such drowning quantities that they were forced to tie up hastily to shore and seek cover in order to breathe. When sunset neared they picked with unerring eye a spot fit for camping, attacked the bush with whirling machetes, cleared a space, threw up pole frameworks, swiftly thatched them with great palm leaves, and thus created from the jungle two crude but efficient huts—one for themselves and one for theirpatrones. When night had shut down and all hands squatted around the fire in a nightly smoke talk they regaled their employers with wild tales of adventures in bush and town, some of which were not at all polite, but all of which were mightily interesting. And despite all discomforts, fatigue, and the minor incidents and accidents which often lead fellow travelers in the wilderness to bickering and bitterness, no friction developed between the men of the north and the men of the south.
Not that the Peruvians were at all obsequious or servile. They were a reckless, lawless, Godless gang, perpetually bearing themselves with the careless insolence which had characterized them at first, blasphemous of speech toward one another—but never toward the North Americans. Disputes arose among them with volcanic suddenness, and more than once knives were half drawn, only to be slipped back under the tongue-lashing of the hawk-nosedpuntero, José, who damned the disputants completely and promised to cut out the bowels of any man daring to lift his blade clear of its sheath. Five minutes afterward the fire eaters would be on as good terms as ever, shrugging and grinning at their passengers—particularly Tim, who, shaking his head disgustedly, would grumble:
"Aw, pickles! Another frog fight gone bust!"
Yet Tim, for all his disparagement of these abortive spats, knew full well that any one of them held the makings of a deadly duel and that José's lurid threats were no mere Latin hyperbole. He realized that the red-crowned bowman ruled his crew exactly as any of the old-time buccaneers whom he resembled had governed their free-booting gangs—by the iron hand; and that, though these men sailed no Spanish Main and flew no black flag, the iron-hand government was needed. He saw also that the rough-and-ready courtesy of this crowd toward their passengers was due largely to the attitude of Captain McKay, who had enforced their respect at the start by his soldierly bearing and retained it ever since by his military management.
For the captain, experienced in directing men, conducted himself at all times as a commanding officer should: he saw all, said little, treated José as a subordinate officer, and left the handling of the crew entirely to him. His aloofness forestalled any of that familiarity which, with such a gang, would have led to contempt. On the other hand, his avoidance of any assumption of meddlesome authority prevented the irritation and dislike which free men inevitably feel for the self-important type of leader. Thus he cannily steered himself and his mates between the two rocks which might have wrecked the expedition before it was well started. And Knowlton, ex-lieutenant, and Tim, ex-sergeant, seeing and understanding, followed his example.
So the days and nights rolled by, the miles of never-ending jungle shore fell away behind, and, save for the occasional outbreaks between members of the crew, all was serene. To all appearances the Peruvians were whole-heartedly interested in serving their employers faithfully, and the North Americans were gliding onward with no thought of insecurity. Yet appearances frequently are deceptive.
In the heat of the day—in fact, before the broiling sun neared the zenith—Tim and Knowlton habitually fell asleep inside thetoldo, not to awake until two hours before sunset, when, according to the routine agreed upon, the night's camping place would be sought and two or three of the Peruvians would go into the bush with rifles, seeking fresh meat. McKay never slept during the day's traverse. Nothing escaped his eye from the time when he emerged from his mosquito net in the misty morning until he entered it again by firelight. The men in the boat; the floating alligators and wading birds of the water; the flashing parrots, jacamars, toucans, trogons, and hummers of the air; the yard-long lizards and nervous spider monkeys of the tangled tree branches alongshore—all these he watched quietly as the boat forged on. And the sinister Francisco, watching him in turn, and the paddlers throwing occasional glances his way, came to regard him as the only alert member of the trio. Wherein they erred.
The truth was that every one of the three adventurers was on his guard. Tim had not forgotten the last words of his boon companion, Joao, and at the first opportunity he had quietly passed on that warning. Moreover, McKay and Knowlton, without discussing the matter, had meditated on the unexpected assistance of Schwandorf, the speed with which the crew had been obtained, the promptness of José to accept the first payment offered, and other things. Wherefore it had come about that at no hour of the twenty-four was every eye and ear closed. And the real reason why red Tim and blond Knowlton slept by day was that they thus made up the slumber lost at night.
Not that either of them patrolled the camp in sentry go. So far as the Peruvians knew, they slept as soundly as McKay. But, lying in their hammocks, they divided the night watches between them on a schedule as regular as that of a military camp, though the shifts necessarily were longer. As sunset came always at six o'clock and all hands sought their hanging beds two hours later, Tim's "tour of duty" lasted until one in the morning. When the phosphorescent hands of his watch pointed to that hour he stealthily reached out and jabbed Knowlton, sleeping beside him. When a barely audible "All right" reached his ears he was officially relieved.
Night followed night, became a week, lengthened into a fortnight. Still, so far as the crew was concerned, nothing happened. A little rough banter among them as they smoked their last cigarettes, then sleep and snores; and that was all until morning. Men less experienced in night vigils than the ex-soldiers would have abandoned their watches long before this—if, indeed, they had ever adopted them. But these three were schooled in patience. Moreover, neither Tim nor Knowlton had ever before penetrated the jungle, and at times the light of the waxing moon revealed to their eyes strange things which they never would have seen by day. So the tedium of the long hours of wakefulness might be broken at any moment.
Once they camped close to a conical hillock of compact earth, some four feet high and almost stone hard, from which radiated narrow covered galleries—the citadel and viaducts of a community of termites. Tim, still harboring vivid recollections of his ant battle at Remate de Males—though by this time he had trained himself to sleep in his hammock, where he was comparatively safe—looked askance at it when told what it was, and was only partly reassured by the information that termites were eaters of wood rather than of flesh. After sleep had embraced the rest of the camp he still was uneasy, lifting his net at long intervals and squinting at the moonlit mound as if expecting a horde of pincer-jawed insects to erupt from it and charge him. And during one of these inspections he saw something totally unexpected.
From the black shadows of the forest had emerged another shadow, so grotesque and misshapen that it seemed a figment of indigestion and weird dreams—a thing from whose shaggy body protruded what appeared to be only a long tubular snout where a head should be, and which looked to be overbalanced at the other end by a great mass of hair. It stood stone still, and for the moment Tim could not decide which end of it was head and which was tail, or even whether it were not double-tailed and headless. Then, slowly, the apparition moved.
Into that hard-packed earth it dug huge hooked claws, and from its tapering muzzle a wormlike tongue licked about, gathering the outrushing white ants into its gullet. For minutes Tim lay blinking at it, wondering if he really saw it.
Then, picking up his rifle, he slipped outside his net and advanced on the creature.
The animal turned, sat back on its great tail, lifted its terrible claws, and waited. Six feet away, just out of its reach, Tim stopped and stared anew. Then he grinned.
"You win, feller," he informed the beast. "What ye are I dunno, but any critter that's got the guts to ramble right into camp and offer to gimme a battle is too good a sport for me to shoot. Help yourself to all the ants in the world, for all o' me. I'm goin' back to bed. Bon sewer, monseer."
Wherewith, still grinning, but warily watching, he backed until sure the big invader would not spring at him. Knowing nothing of ant bears, he did not know it was hardly a springing animal.
Its claws looked sufficiently formidable to disembowel a man—as, indeed, they were, if the man came near enough. But when Tim had withdrawn and the sluggish brute had decided that it would not need to defend itself, it sank to all-fours and passed stiffly away into the shades whence it had come.
On another night, when Tim slept, Knowlton detected a creeping, slithering sound which made him slip off the safety catch of his heavy-bulleted pistol and peer at the hut where slept the crew. No man was moving there. Still the sound persisted. Lifting his net, he spied beyond the hut of the Peruvians a moving mass on the ground—a cylindrical bulk which looked to be two feet thick, and which glided past like a solid stream of dark water flowing along above the dirt. Its beginning and end were hidden in the bush, and not until it tapered into nothing and was gone did he realize fully that he had been gazing at an enormous anaconda. Then he kicked himself for not shooting it. But before long he congratulated himself for letting it go.
Perhaps an hour later the startled forest resounded with an agonized scream, so piercing and so appallingly human that all the camp sprang awake. The outcry came but once, sounding from some place not far off, near the water's edge, and in the direction toward which the huge serpent had disappeared. Before the watcher had time to tell the others of what he had seen, one of the boatmen discovered the rut left in the soft ground by the reptile. Thereafter Knowlton kept his own counsel, listening to the excited curses of the men and observing their pallor and their nervous scanning of the shadows. José said the screech undoubtedly was the death shriek of some animal caught and crushed in the snake's tremendous coil. McKay concurred with a nod. And when Knowlton casually said it was tough that nobody had been awake to shoot the thing as it passed the camp, José emphatically disagreed.
A bullet fired into that fiendish giant, he averred, would have meant death to one or more men; for the serpent's writhing coils and lashing tail would have knocked down the sleeping-hut and shattered the spines of any men they struck. No, let Señor Knowlton thank the saints that the awful master of the swamps had gone its way unmolested. For the rest of that night Knowlton kept his watch openly, accompanied by José and three of the paddlers, who refused to sleep again until they should be miles away from the vicinity of that dread monster.
Two nights afterward the camp was aroused again. Tim alone saw the start of the disturbance, and he kept mum about it because he did not choose to let the Peruvians know he had been on the alert. Out from the gloom and straight past the huts a thick-bodied, curve-snouted animal came charging madly for the river, carrying on its back a ferocious cat creature whose fangs were buried deep in its steed's neck—a tapir attacked by a jaguar. With a resounding plunge the elephantine quarry struck the water and was gone. The tiger cat, forced to relinquish its hold or drown, swam hurriedly back to the bank below the encampment, where it roared and spat and squalled in a blood-chilling paroxysm of baffled fury. And though every man was awakened, not one left the flimsy shelter of his net. Nor did anyone so much as speak until Tim, wearying of the noise, announced his intention to "go bust that critter in the nose and give him somethin' to yowl about."
The proposal met with instant and peremptory veto.
"As you were!" snapped McKay. "Let him alone! You wouldn't have a Chinaman's chance in that black bush. A jaguar is bad all the time, and when he's mad he's deadly. Never fool with one of those beasts, Tim. I've met them before and I know what they can do."
To which José agreed with many picturesque oaths, declaring that a jaguar was no mere beast—it was a devil. Tim, grumbling, obeyed orders. The jaguar, hearing their voices, stopped its noise and probably reconnoitered the camp. But no man saw the brute, and its next roar sounded from some spot far off in the jungle.
Other things, too, passed within Tim's range of vision from time to time in the moonlit hours: a queer bony creature which he took for some new kind of turtle, but which really was an armadillo; a monstrous hairy spider which slid like a streak up his net, hung there for a time, decided to go elsewhere, and departed with such speed that the man inside rubbed his eyes and wondered if he was "seein' things that ain't"; a couple of vampires which flitted in from nowhere like ghoulish ghosts, wheeled and floated silently on wide wings, seeking an exposed foot protruding from the hammocks, found none, rested a moment on the roof poles, chirping hoarsely, and veered out again into the night.
To Knowlton's watch came a strange owl-faced little monkey with great staring eyes and face ringed with pale fur—one of those night apes seldom seen by man; a small troop of kinkajous, slender, long-tailed animals which looked to be monkeys, but were not, and which leaped deftly among the branches like frolicsome little devils let loose to play under the jungle moon; a big scaly iguana, its back ridged with saw teeth and its pendulous throat pouch dangling grotesquely under its jaw; and more than one deadly snake and huge alligator, the first gliding past with venomous head raised and cold eye glinting, the second lying quiescent except for occasional openings of horrific jaws.
To the ears of both the hammock sentinels came the mournful sounds of living things unseen. From the depths beyond drifted the weird plaint of the sloth, crying in the night, "Oh me, poor sloth, oh-oh-oh-oh!" Goat suckers repeated by the hour their monotonous refrains, "Quao quao," or "Cho-co-co-cao," while a third earnestly exhorted, "Joao corta pao!" ("John, cut wood!"). Tree frogs and crickets clacked and drummed and hoo-hooed, guaribas poured their awful discord into the air, and on one bright breathless night there sounded over and over a call freighted with wretchedness and despair—the wail of that lonely owl known to the bushmen as "the mother of the moon," whose dreadful cry portends evil to those who hear it.
Sometimes the air shook with the thunderous concussion of some great falling tree which, long since bled to death by parasitical plant growths, now at last toppled crashing back into the dank soil whence it had forced its way up into a place in the sun. Other noises, infrequent and unexplainable, also drifted at long intervals from the mysterious blackness. And in all the medley of night sounds not one was cheerful. The burden of the jungle's cacophonic cantanta ever was the same—despair, disaster, death.
Then came the fifteenth day. It dawned red, the sun fighting an ensanguined battle with the heavy morning mists and throwing on the faces of the early-rising travelers a sinister crimson hue. Before that sun should rise again some of those faces were to be stained a deeper red.
Some two hours after the start, while Knowlton and Tim loafed at the fore end of the cabin, enjoying the comparative coolness of the early day, another boat hove in sight up ahead—a longish craft manned by eight paddlers and without a cabin.
As it came into view its bowman tossed his paddle in greeting. The Peruvians ignored the salutation. The bowman, after shading his eyes and peering at the flamboyant figure of José, resumed paddling without further ceremony, evidently intending to pass in silence. But then McKay arose, waved a hand, and told José to steer for the newcomers. José, with a slightly sour look, gave the signal to Francisco, and the course changed.
The other canoe slowed and waited. Its men watched the tall figure of McKay. Tim and Knowlton scanned the bronzed faces of those men and liked them at once. The paddlers evidently were Brazilians, but of a different type from the sluggish townsmen of Remate de Males—alert, active-looking fellows, steady of eye, honest of face, muscular of arm—in all, a more clean-cut set of men than the Peruvians. All three of the Americans noticed that no word was exchanged between the two crews.
"Boa dia, amigos!" spoke McKay. "Who are you and whence do you come?"
"We are rubber workers of Coronel Nunes, senhor," the bowman answered, civilly. "We go to make a new camp. This land is a part of theseringelof the coronel, and we left his headquarters yesterday."
"Ah! Then the headquarters is above here?"
"One more day's journey," the man nodded.
"I thank you. Good fortune go with you."
"And with you, senhor. May God protect you."
With the words the Brazilian glanced along the line of Peruvian faces and his eyes narrowed. Though his words were only a respectful farewell, his expressive face indicated that McKay might be badly in need of divine protection at no distant date. As his paddle dipped and his men nodded their leave-taking, Francisco, thepopero; sneered raucously:
"Hah! Merecaucheros! Workers! Slaves!"
And he spat at the Brazilian boat.
Fire shot into the eyes of the bowman and his comrades. Their muscles tensed.
"Better be slaves—better be dogs—than Peruvian cutthroats!" one retorted. "Go your way, and keep to your own side of the river."
"We go where we will, and no misborn Brazilians can stop us," snarled Francisco. To which he added obscene epithets directed against Brazilians in general and the men of Coronel Nunes in particular.
The unprovoked insults angered the Americans as well as the Brazilians. Knowlton leaped through thetoldoand confronted Francisco.
"Shut your dirty mouth!" he blazed.
For reply, the evil-eyed steersman spat at him the vilest name known to man.
An instant later, his lips split, he sprawled dazedly on his platform, perilously close to the edge. Knowlton, the knuckles of his left fist bleeding from impact with the other's teeth, stood over him in white fury. Francisco's right hand fumbled for his knife. Knowlton promptly stamped on that hand with a heavy boot heel.
"Good eye, Looey!" rumbled Tim's voice at his back. "Boot him some more for luck. Hey, you! Back up or I'll drill ye for keeps!" This to a pair of the Peruvian paddlers who had come scrambling through the cabin.
After one searching stare into Tim's hard blue eyes and a glance at his fist curled around the butt of his belt gun, thebogasbacked up. A moment later they were thrown boldly into their own part of the boat by José, who blistered them with the profanity of three languages at once. Then McKay came through and took charge.
"That'll do, Tim! Same goes for you, Merry! José, I'll handle this. You, Francisco! Get up!"
The curt commands struck like blows. Every man obeyed. And when the squat steersman again stood up McKay went after him roughshod. In the colloquial Spanish of Mexico and the Argentine, in the man talk of American army camps, he flayed that offender alive. José himself, efficient man handler though he was, stared at his captain in awe. And Francisco, though not given to cringing, skulked like a beaten dog when the verbal flagellation was finished.
Turning then to the Brazilians, McKay formally apologized for the insults to them.
"It is nothing, senhor," coolly answered the bowman—though his glance at the Peruvians said plainly that it would have been something but for the swift punishment by the Americans. "Again I say—may God protect you! Adeos!"
The Brazilian boat glided away. The Peruvian craft crawled on upstream in silence.
When the next camp was made all apparently had forgotten the affair. The men badgered one another as usual, though none mentioned Francisco's split mouth; and Francisco, himself, albeit sulky, betrayed no sign of enmity. After nightfall the regular camp-fire meeting was held and at the usual time all turned in. One more night of listening to the sounds of the tropical wilderness seemed all that lay ahead of the secret sentinels.
Sleep enveloped the huts. Snores and gurgles rose and fell. Tim himself, for the sake of effect, snored heartily at intervals, though his eyes never closed. Through his mosquito bar he could see only vaguely, but he knew any man walking from the crew's quarters must cast a very visible shadow across that net, and to him the shadow would be as good a warning as a clear view of the substance. But the hours crept on and no shadow came.
At length, however, a small sound reached his alert ear—a sound different from the regular noises of the bush—a stealthy, creeping noise like that of a big snake or a huge lizard. It came from the ground a few feet away, and it seemed to be gradually advancing toward his own hammock. Whatever the creature was that made it, its method of progress was not human, but reptilian. Puzzled, suspicious, yet doubtful, Tim lifted the rear side of his net, on which no moonlight fell. Head out, he watched for the crawling thing to come close.
It came, and for an instant he was in doubt as to its character, for around it lay the deep shadow of some treetops which at that point blocked off the moon. It inched along on its stomach, its black head seeming round and minus a face, its body broad but flat—a thing that looked to be a man but not a man. Then, pausing, it raised its head and peered toward the hammock of Knowlton. With that movement Tim's doubts vanished. The lifting of the head showed the face—the face of Francisco, the face of murder. In its teeth was clamped a bare knife.
Forthwith Tim applied General Order Number Thirteen.
In one bound he was outside his net, colliding with Knowlton, who awoke instantly. In another he was beside the assassin, who, with a lightning grab at the knife in his mouth, had started to spring up. Tim wasted no time in grappling or clinching. He kicked.
His heavy boot, backed by the power of a hundred and ninety pounds of brawn, thudded into the Indian's chest. Francisco was hurled over sidewise on his back. Another kick crashed against his head above the ear. He went limp.
"Ye lousy snake!" grated Tim. "Crawlin' on yer belly to knife a sleepin' man, hey? Blast yer rotten heart—"
"What's up?" barked McKay from his hammock.
"Night attack, Cap. If ye're comin' out bring along yer gat. Hey, Looey, got yer gun on? Some o' these other guys might git gay. They're comin' now."
True enough, the Peruvian gang was jumping from its hut. With another glance at the prostrate Francisco to make sure he was unconscious, Tim whirled to meet them, fist on gun.
"Halt!" he roared. "First guy passin' this corner post gits shot. Back up!"
The impact of his voice, the menace of his ready gun hand, the sight of Knowlton and McKay leaping out with pistols drawn, stopped the rush at the designated post. But swift hands dropped, and when they rose again the moonlight glinted on cold steel.
"Capitan, what happens here?" demanded José, ominously quiet.
"Knife work," McKay replied, curtly. "Your man Francisco attempted to creep in and murder Señor Knowlton. If you and the rest have similar intentions, now's your time to try. If not, put away those knives."
"Knives!Por Dios, what do you mean?"
"Look behind you."
José looked. At once he snarled curses and commands. Slowly the knives slipped out of sight. The paddlers edged backward to their own shack, leaving theirpunteroalone.
"The capitan has it wrong," asserted José. "We awake to find ourpoperobeing kicked in the head. We want to know why. If Francisco has done what you say I will deal with him. That I may be sure, allow me to look."
"Very well. Look."
José advanced, stooped, studied the ground, the position of Francisco's body, the knife still clutched in the nerveless hand. Tim growlingly vouchsafed a brief explanation of the incident. When José straightened up, his mouth was a hard line and his eyes hot coals.
"Si. Es verdad.To-morrow we shall have a newpopero."
With which he stooped again, grasped the prone man by the hair, dragged him into the moonlit space between the huts, and flung him down. "Juan, bring water!" he ordered.
One of the paddlers, looking queerly at him, did so. José deluged the senseless man. Francisco, reviving, sat up and scowled about him. His eyes rested on the three Americans standing grimly ready, shoulder to shoulder, before their hut; veered to his mates bunched in sinister silence beside their own quarters; shifted again to meet the baleful glare of José. His hand stole to his empty sheath.
"Your knife, Franciscomio?" queried José, a menacing purr in his tone. "I have it. It seems that you are in haste to use it. Too much haste, Francisco. But if you will stand instead of crawling as before, you may have your knife again—and use it, too."
Francisco, staring sullenly up, seemed to read in the words more than was evident to the Americans. He lurched to his feet, staggered, caught his balance, braced himself, stood waiting.
"You know who commands here," José went on. "You disobey. You seek to stab in the night—"
"Now or later—what is the difference?"
"—and now the boat is too small for both of us." José ignored the interruption. "Here is your knife. Now use it!"
He flipped the weapon at the other, who caught it deftly. José dropped his right hand to his waist. An instant later naked steel licked out at Francisco's throat.
The steersman's knife flashed up, caught the reaching blade, knocked it with a scraping clink. For a few seconds the two weapons seemed welded together, their owners each striving to bear down the other's wrist. Then they parted as the combatants sprang back.
José side-stepped twice to his right. Francisco, turning to preserve his guard, now had the light full in his face. But the moon rode so high that the steersman's disadvantage was negligible, and the next assault of thepunterowas blocked as before. And this time the wrist of thepoperoproved a bit the better; he threw the attacking steel aside and struck in a slashing sweep at his antagonist's stomach.
A convulsive inward movement of the bowman's middle, coupled with a swift back-step, made the slash miss by a hair's breadth. With the quickness of light José was in again. His knife hand, still outstretched sidewise, stopped with a light smack of flesh on flesh. Then it jerked outward. His steel now was red to the hilt.
One more rapid step back, a keen glance at his opponent, and José stood at ease. From Francisco burst a bubbling groan. He staggered. His knife dropped. His hands rose fumblingly toward his neck. Suddenly his knees gave way and he toppled backward to the ground. The silvery moonlight disclosed a dark flood welling from his severed jugular.
With the utmost coolness José ran two fingers down his wet blade, snapped the fingers in air, and spoke to his crew:
"As I said, we shall have a newpopero. To-morrow, Julio, you will take the platform."
A rumble ran among the men. Their eyes lifted from Francisco to the Americans, and in them shone a wolfish gleam. The bowman turned sharply and faced them.
"Who growls?" he rasped. "You, Julio?"
"Si, yo soy," Julio answered, harshly, fingering his knife. "I will be steersman, but I steer downstream, not up. Francisco spoke the truth. Now or later—what is the difference? Let it be now!"
A louder growl from the others followed his words. One stepped back into the shadow of the hut.
"Perros amarillos!Yellow dogs! You go upstream, fools! The Americans must be taken—"
A raucous sneer from Julio interrupted him. Simultaneously the paddler's hand leaped upward, poising a knife.
"The gringos stay here—and you, too, you Yanqui cur!"
The poised knife hissed through the air at José.
Out from the crew house shot a streak of fire and a smashing rifle report.
José dodged, staggered, screeched in feline fury, the knife buried in his left arm.
McKay grunted suddenly, fell, lay still.
"God!" yelled Tim. "Cap's gone! Clean 'em, Looey!"
With the words he leaped aside and pulled his pistol, just as another rifle flare stabbed out from the other hut and a bullet whisked through the space where he had stood. An instant later he was pouring a stream of lead at the spot whence the burning powder had leaped.
Knives flashing, teeth gleaming, the other paddlers charged across the ten-foot space between the huts.
José, his left arm helpless, but his deadly right hand still gripping his knife, hurled himself on Julio, who had seized a machete from somewhere.
Knowlton slammed a bullet between the eyes of the foremostboga, who pitched headlong. He swung the muzzle to the other man's chest—yanked at the trigger—got no response. The gun was jammed.
With a triumphant snarl the blood-crazed Peruvian closed in, slashing for the throat. Knowlton slipped aside, evaded the thrust, swung the pistol down hard on his assailant's head. The man reeled, thrust again blindly, missed. Knowlton crashed his dumb gun down again. It struck fair on the temple. The man collapsed.
Tim was charging across the open at the crew house. José and Julio were locked in a death grapple. No other living man, except Knowlton, still stood upright. Stooping, he peered into the red-dyed face of McKay. Then he laid a hand on the captain's chest. Faint but regular, he felt the heart beating.
"Thank God!" he breathed. With a wary eye on the battling Peruvians he swiftly raised the captain and put him into Tim's hammock. As he turned back to the fight Tim emerged from the other hut, carrying a body, which he dropped and swiftly inspected. At the same moment the fight of José and Julio ended.
With a choked scream Julio dropped, writhed, doubled up. Then he lay still. José, his face ghastly, stared around him. His mouth stretched in a terrible smile.
"So this ends it," he croaked, his gaze dropping to Julio. "Adios, Julio! The machete is not—so good as the knife—unless one has—room to—swing it—"
He chuckled hoarsely and sank down.
For an instant Knowlton hesitated, his glance going back and forth between McKay and José. Swiftly then he ran his finger tips over McKay's head. With a murmur of satisfaction he turned from his comrade and hurried to the motionless bowman, over whom Tim now bent.
"Bleedin' to death, Looey," informed Tim. "Ain't cut bad excep' that arm. That flyin' knife must have got an artery. Can we pull him through? He's a good skate."
"I'll try. You look after Cap. He's only knocked out—bullet creased him—"
"Glory be! He's all right, huh? Sure I'll fix him up. Everybody else dead? I got that guy in the bunk house—drilled him three times."
"Look out for that fellow over there. Maybe I brained him, but I'm not sure."
Knowlton was already down on his knees beside José, working fast to loop a tourniquet and stop the flow from the pierced arm. With a handkerchief and his pistol barrel he shut off the pulsating stream.
"Yeah, he's done," judged Tim, rising from the man whom Knowlton had downed at last. "Skull's caved in. What 'd ye paste him with?"
"Gun. Cursed thing stuck."
"Uh-huh. Them automats are cranky. Say, lookit the mess Hozy made o' that guy Hooley-o."
Knowlton glanced at Julio and whistled. José's oft-repeated threat to disembowel a refractory member of the crew had at last been literally fulfilled.
But the lieutenant had seen worse sights in the shell-torn trenches of France, and now he kept his mind on his work. Wedging the gun to hold the tourniquet tight, he lifted his patient from the red-smeared mud and bore him to the nearest hammock in the crew quarters. Striding back, he found Tim alternately bathing McKay's head and giving him brandy. In a moment the captain's eyes opened.
"Some bean ye got, Cap," congratulated Tim, vastly relieved at sight of McKay's gray stare. "Bullet bounced right off. Here, take another swaller. Attaboy! Hey, Looey, we better pack this crease o' Cap's, huh? She keeps leakin'."
"Yep. Dip up the surgical kit. And give José a drink. I'll have to tie his artery, too. How do you feel, old chap?"
"Dizzy," McKay confessed. "What's happened?"
"Lost our crew," was the laconic answer. "All gone west but José, and he's bled white. We'll have to paddle our own canoe now."
For a time after his head was bandaged McKay lay quiet, staring out at the tiny battlefield and at his two mates working silently on the wounded arm of José. When they came back he spoke one word.
"Schwandorf."
"Yeah! He's the nigger in the woodpile, I bet my shirt. But why? What's his lay, d'ye s'pose?"
"Perhaps José knows," suggested Knowlton. "But he's in no shape to talk now. Let's see. Schwandorf said he was going to Iquitos?"
"Yes, but that doesn't mean anything."
"Probably not. Well, maybe José can explain."
There were some things, however, which José could not have told if he would, for he himself did not know them. One was that Schwandorf really had gone to Iquitos, where was a radio station. Another was that from that radio station to Puerto Bermudez, thence over the Andes to the coast, and northward to a New York address memorized from Knowlton's notebook, already had gone this message: