The Pathless Trail by Arthur O. Friel (first color ebook reader TXT) 📕

the string and pointed downward, but ready for instant use. Diagonally across his body ran a cord supporting a quiver, from which the feathered shafts of several arrows projected above his left shoulder. Around his waist looped another cord from which dangled a small loin mat. Otherwise he was totally nude—a bronze statue of freedom.

Lourenço spoke again in the same quiet tone. The savage stepped warily forward. At the same moment three other naked men appeared with equal stealth from tree trunks which had seemed barren of all life. Like the first, each of these held an arrow ready, but pointing downward; and each moved with the slow, velvety step of a hunting jaguar. Their eyes searched those of these strange men of another world who, wearing useless clothing, carrying heavy weapons of steel, burdening themselves with queer weights on their backs, now invaded the wilderness which they and their fathers had roamed untrammeled for centuries. The invaders in turn studied the faces of the Mayorunas, of whom so many gruesome tales were told. For long silent minutes primitive and civilized man probed each other for signs of treachery—and found none.

Tim, forgetting the orders of the day, spoke out abruptly. At the gruff jar of his voice the wild men started and raised their weapons.

"Say, are those guys cannibals? I was lookin' to see some ugly mutts with underslung jaws and mops o' frizzy hair, like them Feejee Islanders ye see pitchers of. Barrin' the paint, I've seen worse-lookin' fellers than these back home."

With which he gave the savages a wide, unmistakably approving grin.

"Shut up!" muttered McKay.

Lourenço, unruffled, made instant capital of Tim's remarks.

"My comrade of the red hair," he said in the Indian tongue, "has never before seen the mighty warriors of the Mayorunas, and is astonished to find them such handsome men. He says his own countrymen are not so good to look upon."

Slowly the menacing arrows sank. As the savages studied Tim's wholesome grin and absorbed the broad flattery of Lourenço a slight smile passed over their faces. They stood more at ease. The whites sensed at once that, for a moment, at least, a friendly footing had been established, and relaxed from their own tension.

Once more Lourenço spoke, motioning toward the farther distances. The Indian who had first appeared now replied briefly. Two of the others stepped back to their trees and lifted long, hollow tubes.

"What's them?" demanded Tim.

"Blowguns," Pedro answered. "They use them for small or thin-skinned game. See, the two blowgun men carry also short darts in their quivers, and small pouches of poison."

"Uh-huh. They like their poison a dang sight better 'n I do. Say, are them guys goin' to march behind us? I don't want no poison needles slipped into my back, accidental or other ways."

Two of the savages were walking toward the rear of the line. Knowlton, exasperated, snapped out:

"They'll walk where they like, and you'll do well to give us more marching and less mouth. You nearly spilled the beans just now, and if Lourenço hadn't said something that pleased these fellows we all might be in the soup this minute. Pipe down!"

"Aw, Looey, I only said these guys were good-lookin'. Ain't no fight in words like that."

"You heard the orders this morning. Let Lourenço do the talking. That goes! We're skating on thin ice—so thin that if it breaks we drop plump into hell. Less noise!"

"Right, sir," was the sulky answer. "I'm deaf and dumb."

"March," added McKay. The head of the column already was on the move, led by the tallest Indian and a blowgun man, behind whom walked the two Brazilians. The whole line took up the step in turn and passed on into the unknown.

Again McKay consulted his compass at intervals, finding that now the route led more to the south, though there still was an easterly trend. After a time, however, the telltale needle informed him that they were proceeding almost due east, and glances at the surroundings showed that on their right was a densely matted mass of undergrowth. Not long afterward another interwoven brush wall blocked the way, and this time the leader veered to the west. Not until an opening appeared did he resume his southward course. It dawned on McKay that the savages, having no bush knives, were accustomed to follow the line of least resistance. This obviously increased the distance traveled.

The men of Coronel Nunes, too, perceived this. A halt was called, during which Lourenço talked with the guide, tapped his machete, and evidently protested against needless detours. The leader, with a few words, pointed south. Lourenço nodded and replied. The march was resumed, and when the next impenetrable tangle was encountered the Indians in the van stepped aside, the machetes of the Brazilians flashed out, and a way was cut straight through. From that time on the long knives came into frequent play and a direct course was maintained.

Suddenly, with a grunt of warning, the tall tribesman stopped. The plan of chopping through instead of going around had brought the Indians into a part of the forest which they had not heretofore traversed in their search for the missing hunter. Now they stood in a small trough between the knolls, under good-sized trees around which grew little brush. The ground was soft, almost watery. In the damp air, faint but unmistakable, hung the odor of death.

The savages at the rear came forward at once. All four of them spread out and, sniffing the air, advanced up the trough. A cry broke from one of them. The others, and the white men, too, hastened to the spot whence the call had come.

Scattered about in the soft muck were bones, two skulls, bits of tawny fur, a long bow, several big-game arrows. Around them the ground was marked with many tracks. Most of the imprints were of the vultures which had stripped the bones, but there were others—those of a barefoot man, of a great cat, and of a couple of wild hogs. The peccary tracks went straight on, but those of the man and the cat showed that a fierce struggle had occurred. And one of the two grinning skulls was that of a jaguar.

The story was plain. The hunter, following fast on the trail of the hogs, had suddenly met the jaguar. He had shot it; one arrow, blood stained for more than a foot above the barb, proved that. But in the few seconds of life left to it the animal had sprung and fatally torn the man. Then, as usual, had dropped the black scavengers of the sky to rend them both.

Silently the men of the bush and the men of the north looked down at the brief history written in the mud—a story only a week old, yet ancient as human life itself—primitive man and ferocious brute destroying each other as in the prehistoric days when saber-toothed tiger and troglodyte hunted and slew for the right to live. And as it had been then, so it was now. The living read the tale of tragedy and passed on, leaving the bones behind them. Only, before they went, the Mayorunas threw the remnants of the jaguar aside and piled the bones of their dead comrade together in one place. Then, bearing with them his bow and arrows, they resumed their way without a word.

CHAPTER XIV. A DUEL WITH DEATH

Rain came and went.

The first night's camp of the strangely assorted company was a wet one, for well on in the day the skies poured down the watery weight which had been troubling them once morning. Yet even in such miserable weather the four tribesmen of the Mayorunas declined to sleep in the same camp with the whites. They accepted the food tendered them, but when it was eaten they withdrew to some covert of their own to spend the night. Whereby the whites knew that, though their guides now could no longer suspect them of killing the lone hunter, they still were not accepted as friends.

"Did ye say them guys had a trick of jabbin' men in their hammicks at night, Renzo?" was Tim's significant question after the Indians had departed.

"Have no fear," Lourenço assured him. "They have promised to take us safely to their chief."

"How much is the word of a cannibal worth?" asked Knowlton.

"Worth everything, so long as you do nothing to make them forget it, senhor. Being uncivilized, they are not liars."

The lieutenant eyed him sharply, half minded to regard the answer as insolent. But there was no insolence in the Brazilian's straightforward gaze, and McKay laughed approvingly.

"Well spoken!" was the captain's comment.

"Among those people there are but two great crimes," Lourenço added. "They are, to speak falsely or to be a coward."

"Wherein a goodly portion of the so-called civilized world would fail to measure up to the standards of these cannibals," McKay said. "By the way, have you asked them about the Raposa?"

"No, Capitao. It is as well not to put into their heads the idea that we are hunting anyone here. I shall say nothing of that matter until we reach the chief who knows me."

"Good idea."

With that the talk ended and all sought their hammocks, dog tired from the day's travel. No watch was kept, for, as Pedro quaintly phrased it, "We now are in the hands of God and the cannibals." Nor was any watch needed.

Daybreak brought sunlight. While the breakfast coffee was being boiled the four wild men appeared silently and simultaneously, one bringing a red howling monkey and another a large green parrot as their contributions to the morning meal. Neither bird nor animal showed any wound except a slightly discolored spot surrounding a skin puncture no larger than if made by a woman's hatpin—the marks left by poisoned darts from the ten-foot blowguns. When the meat was cooked they offered portions to the whites, of whom Tim alone refused.

"I'd as quick eat a rat killed with Paris green," he growled. "No poisoned meat gits into my stummick if I know it."

"Bosh!" scoffed McKay. "It's perfectly wholesome—though it's tough as a rubber boot."

"And I might tell you, senhores, that among these people it is an insult to refuse any food offered you," added Lourenço. "I advise you to forget about the poison hereafter and eat what is put before you, even if it stinks."

His advice was emphasized by the evident displeasure of the tribesmen, who, though saying nothing, looked rather grimly at the man who had despised their provisions. But Lourenço then smoothed over the matter by telling them that the red-haired man was sick at the stomach that morning—which, at that particular moment, was not far from the truth.

Soon the triglot column was once more on its way across the hill country, which hourly grew higher and rougher—a constant succession of ridges and ravines. Lourenço, pointing out the absence of water marks on the trees of the uplands, said that now the land of the great annual floods had been left behind; for even the sixty-foot rise of waters in the rainy season could not reach to these hilltops. With the entry into this terra firma the travelers had also found the sun again, the dank mist of yesterday having vanished. Nevertheless, the going was fully as hard as on the previous day, because of the density of the bush and of the labor of crossing the narrow but deep streams flowing at the bottom of nearly every clove. Few words were exchanged, every man needing his breath for the work of walking.

As before, the keen machetes of the Brazilians opened a direct route through all opposing undergrowth. When a brief halt was called at noon the Mayorunas, who seemed to know exactly where they were despite the fact that they had never before followed this straight course, informed Lourenço that much circuitous traveling had already been saved, and that by tramping hard until sundown they might succeed in reaching the tribal maloca that night. But McKay vetoed the idea of a forced march.

"This gait is fast enough and hard enough," he declared. "No sense in exhausting ourselves to save a few hours' time. Also, we don't want to go staggering into the Mayoruna village with our tongues hanging out and our knees wabbling. First impressions are lasting with such people, and they might get an idea we were weaklings."

To which all except the savages, who did not understand the language of the white man, assented approvingly.

Yet it was the Mayorunas themselves who delayed arrival at their maloca—the Mayorunas and a monkey. When the sinking sun was still two hours high, and while the leader was forcing the pace as if determined to reach home that night whether the rest liked it or not, the monkey upset any such plan.

He was a big gray monkey, and he was high up in the branches of a tall matamata tree, where