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

thrown off breech bolts blended with the faint slither of arrows being swiftly drawn from quivers. Eyes searched the bush, spying no enemy.

Two more steps, and Tucu stopped, head thrust forward, eyes boring into something on the ground. The rest, taking care not to touch one another's weapons, crowded around and looked down at the huddled form of a man.

A matted mass of black hair, a neck burned copper brown by sun, tattered cotton shirt and trousers, big, bare dirty feet, a rusty repeating rifle of heavy caliber—these were what they saw first. The man lay straight, his face in the dirt, his hands a little ahead as if he had been crawling forward at the moment of death. Tucu turned him on his back, revealing a blanched yellow-brown face which was proof positive of his race.

"Peruvian," said Pedro.

"What got him?" demanded Knowlton. "No wound on him."

Lourenço questioned Tucu. The leader, who evidently knew just where to look, tore open the thin shirt at the left side and pointed to a tiny discoloration surrounding a red dot under the ribs. He muttered a few laconic words.

"A blowgun trap," Lourenço explained. "The gun is set a little way beyond here. This man, sneaking along the path, broke the little cord which shot the gun. The poisoned dart struck in his side. He must have pulled out the dart, but he could not go far before his legs became paralyzed, and he fell. Then, still trying to crawl, he died."

Pedro picked up the dead man's gun and worked the lever. The weapon was fully loaded and showed no sign of recent firing. Pedro coolly pumped it empty, gathered up the blunt .44 cartridges, and pocketed them for his own use.

Tucu watched the proceeding in satirical approval. Then, leaving the body where it lay, he went stooping along the path ahead, his keen eyes searching the undergrowth. In a few minutes he returned with the blood-stained dart which, as Lourenço had guessed, the stricken prowler had pulled from his flesh and dropped. This he passed to a blowgun man. The latter carefully opened his poison pouch, redipped the point of the dart, held it a moment to dry in a shaft of sunlight, and slipped it into his dart case among a score of unused missiles.

"No waste of ammunition here," was McKay's dry comment. "What happens to this corpse now?"

Through Lourenço's mouth Tucu answered.

"It will be left here until police warriors come from the malocas. Certain men travel the paths daily to inspect the traps. When they find this man they will cut off his hands and feet with their wooden knives and throw the rest aside to be eaten by the animals. He has not been dead long or he would have been devoured by some wild thing before we came. The trail travelers will set the trap again and take the hands and feet to the malocas, where they will be washed, cooked, and eaten."

The faces of the Americans contracted slightly. A simultaneous thought made them flash startled glances at each other.

"Tim—" Knowlton said, and paused. Lourenço smiled.

"No, Senhor Tim will not be expected to eat man meat," he assured them. "I thought of that before we left—one never knows when these traps will yield human flesh. So, without letting Monitaya know why I spoke, I told him you North Americans believed the flesh of an enemy to be poisonous, and that you would not eat it on that account. Monitaya will remember that."

"By George! you have a head on your shoulders, old scout! I was worried for a minute. If they offered Tim a broiled foot or a stewed hand he'd go for his gun."

Briefly Tucu spoke. The Mayorunas separated and went into the forest, seeking any sign of other enemies.

"Queer that this chap should come here alone—if he was alone," added Knowlton. "Suppose he's the fellow that's been swiping stray girls? Or a spy?"

"Neither, I think, senhor. The girls were captured by more than one man, and I doubt if this one had been here before. Probably he was one of those lone prowlers of the bush whose hand is against every man. He is a half-breed, as you see, and came, perhaps, to steal a girl for himself. The jungle is well rid of him."

"Uh-huh. Guess you're right. Say, I'd like to see how that blowgun trap operates. Can't understand what blows the dart when nobody is here."

"I do not know, either, senhor. Perhaps Tucu will show us."

The savage guide, after a moment's hesitation, pointed along the trail and stalked away, the others at his heels. At a spot some fifteen yards farther on he turned into the bush at the right, walked a few paces away from the path, turned again sharply to the left, advanced once more, and halted. Before them, not easy to discern in the masking brush, even though they were looking for it, hung the long barrel of the blowgun, lashed to a couple of small trees and pointing toward the path.

Tucu stepped to the mouthpiece of the slender tube and pointed to a sapling, just behind and in line with it, which had been cut off about shoulder-high from the ground. From the tip of this thin trunk dangled a wide strip of bark. The savage, having indicated this, stood as if the action of the device were perfectly clear.

"Too deep for me," admitted McKay, after a puzzled study of the tube and the trunk. The others nodded agreement. Lourenço confessed to the Indian the blindness of all.

Thereupon Tucu bent the sapling far over and released it. As it sprang erect the bark strip slapped the end of the gun. Also, the watchers saw something hitherto unnoticed—a thin, flexible vine attached to the top of the thin stump. Lourenço's face showed understanding.

"See, comrades, this is it: The little tree is bent far down and held by the long vine. The vine passes around a low branch, then up over other limbs, and out across the path, where it is fastened to a root near the ground. A man following the path breaks the vine. The little tree then flies up and the bark sheet strikes the wide mouthpiece of the gun. The air forced into that mouthpiece by the blow of the bark shoots the little dart. The dart does not fly as hard as if blown by a man, but it goes swiftly enough to pierce the skin of anything except a tapir. As soon as the poison is in the blood the work is done."

"It sure is done," Knowlton echoed, thinking of the short distance covered by the dead Peruvian after passing this spot. "Mighty ingenious apparatus. These people are no fools, I'll say."

"You say rightly," Pedro muttered. Turning, they went out to the path, looking askance at the thin death tube as they passed along it.

The scouting Mayorunas returned, having found nothing. Tucu resumed his place at the head of the line. Without a backward glance at the body sprawling in the trail at the rear, the column swung into its usual gait.

The Americans, silent before, were silent again. They had looked for the first time on the work of the Mayoruna traps; had observed the cold-blooded way in which the Indiana handled the still form on the ground; had visualized the forthcoming mutilation of that body and the resultant cannibal rites. More vividly than ever before they realized that these men and Monitaya himself were relentless creatures of the jungle, and that, despite the present existent friendliness, there yawned between them and their barbarous allies an impassable gulf.

For the moment the jungle itself seemed a poisonous green abyss of creeping, crawling, sneaking death. And though they had faced death too often in another land to fear it in any form, though they marched on with unwavering step, their eyes were somber as in their hearts echoed the last appeal of the man they had left behind them:

"Ye ain't goin' to desert a comrade amongst a lot o' man eaters—"

CHAPTER XIX. THE RED BONES

Four days the expedition tramped steadily onward through the rugged labyrinthine hills. Four nights its members slept in utter exhaustion. Neither by day nor by night was any sign of the Raposa seen, nor of any other human being.

So tired from the constant struggle did the Americans become that their jaded brains began to picture the mysterious wild man as a mere legendary creature, which they never would find even though they searched the inscrutable forests until the end of time. Yet when, on the fifth day, Tucu informed them that they now were nearing the principal settlement of the Red Bones, the announcement cheered them as if they were about to enter a civilized city and there meet David Rand safe and sane.

Not that any chance of striking his trail had been neglected in the meantime. It was thoroughly understood that if he were met anywhere he was to be made prisoner, and that thereafter the back trail should be taken. Lourenço had impressed on Tucu the fact that the whole journey had for its object the finding of the wild man, and that he must not be killed if found. Since the Indians were not in the habit of hunting so assiduously anyone but a bitterly hated foe, it is quite possible that they misunderstood the spirit of the quest and believed the "dead-alive" prowler would, if captured, undergo some extremely unpleasant treatment at the hands of the white men. But so long as it was made clear that the Raposa must be caught alive, if caught at all, Lourenço did not trouble about what the Mayorunas might surmise.

Now, as the end of the long, pathless trail approached, arose a question of which McKay had previously thought but had not spoken—how he was to converse with the Red Bone chief. Lourenço asked Tucu whether the Red Bones spoke the Mayoruna tongue. Tucu replied that they did not. He added, however, that the languages were not so dissimilar as to prevent some sort of understanding being reached between members of the two tribes. The veteran bushman nodded carelessly.

"When the tongue fails, Capitao, the hands still can talk," he said. "It takes more time and work, that is all. Ah, here is a path!"

It was so. For the first time since leaving the Monitaya region a path lay under their feet. And for the first time Tucu and his fellow Mayorunas, glancing along that faint track, showed hesitation.

"Why the delay?" snapped McKay.

"They suspect traps. I will go ahead and feel out the way. I have done it before on other paths."

After a few words to Tucu, Lourenço cut a long, slim pole. With this in hand he preceded the column, walking slowly, pausing sometimes, continually prodding the path, studying it with unswerving gaze as he progressed. The thin but rigid feeler, strong enough to tip the cover of any pit or to spring any concealed bow or blowgun, was at least ten feet long, and between the scout and the head of the line Tucu preserved another ten-foot interval. Progress was necessarily slow, but it was sure.

In this fashion they advanced perhaps half a mile. Not once did they have to leave the path, but Lourenço's caution did not diminish. Rather, it increased as they neared the Red Bone town. At length another path joined the one on which they were traveling. Here Lourenço paused for minutes, inspecting with extreme care the ground and the bush.

Suddenly he cocked his head as if listening. Then, with a backward motion of the hand to enjoin silence, he faced down the branch path and stood calmly waiting.

To those behind came a light rustle of leaves and a scuffle of moving feet; a sudden cessation; then Lourenço's voice speaking to some one concealed behind the intervening undergrowth. His tone was slow, quiet, easy—the tone which, even if the words were not understood, would soothe suspicious and abruptly alarmed minds. After another short silence he resumed talking, pointing carelessly to the place behind him where stood the silent file of Mayorunas. A guttural voice replied. A head peered cautiously from the edge of the bush, stared fixedly at Tucu, and withdrew. The voice sounded again. Immediately three Indians stepped into view, poised for action. Another interval of staring, and they relaxed.

"Come forward, comrades," said Lourenço. They came, halting again at the junction of the trails. Tucu spoke to one of the newcomers, who scowled as if only partly understanding, but grunted some sort of answer. Those behind the Mayoruna leader craned their necks and scanned the Red Bone men, who continued to eye with evident misgiving the tall-bonneted cannibals and the broad-hatted pair of whites.

Man for man, these Red Bones were in every way inferior to the emissaries of Monitaya. Their bodies were more gaunt, their skins more coppery,