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

this early hour. Soon the air was heavy with the odor of broiling meat, and from the fire of the Brazilians the fragrance of coffee was wafted to the nostrils of the recumbent Knowlton. He arose, swallowing fast.

"Gee! I'm half drowned!" was his humorous complaint. "The smell of eats makes my mouth water so fast I have to gasp for air. Must tickle your nose, too, eh, Rand, old top?"

Rand, famished though he was, gave no sign of assent or of hunger. In fact, he gave no sign of anything. Stoically he sat, eyes front.

"By thunder! the man's got pride!" the lieutenant added, in a lower tone. "Almost ready to keel over from lack of food, but stiff as a cigar-store Indian. Darned if I'm not beginning to respect him!"

Tucu approached, carrying two big monkey haunches. One he offered to McKay, the other to Rand. The latter's immobility vanished in a flash. With a lightning grab he seized the proffered meat and sank his teeth in it. As he wolfed down the tough flesh the three men standing over exchanged glances. Tucu laid a hand on his stomach and pressed inward, signifying that the man had long gone hungry. The others nodded. Then they split the other haunch between them and fell to gnawing.

Lourenço, bringing coffee to the captain, asked Tucu in what direction the Monitaya houses lay. Without hesitation the Indian pointed off to the left. The Brazilian glanced at the creek, estimating its general direction and rate of flow, then returned to his fire.

Offered coffee, Rand took it and sipped it with evident relish. Likewise he accepted a cigarette, which he puffed like a man just learning to smoke—or one who has not smoked for years. For his meat, his drink, and his smoke he gave no indication of gratitude. His attitude was as indifferent and matter-of-fact as if he were one of the Mayorunas. When his smoke was ended he began inspecting his bad foot.

"Let's see that," said Knowlton, dropping on one knee. "Looks pretty sore. Yes, it's more than sore; it's infected. How'd you get it, anyway?"

No answer. Knowlton probed his face keenly. Rand straightened out his legs, wriggled his toes, and scowled.

"Queer!" muttered the lieutenant, rising. "He looks as if he actually didn't know how he got that wound. You'd think he'd remember that much, anyhow. I sure am afraid his head is all scrambled up."

He went to the canoe, returned with his meager medical kit, and knelt again.

"Now listen here, Rand. I don't know how well you understand me, but I'm taking the chance. This foot has to be opened up and cleaned out. Otherwise you're going to have serious trouble with it. I'm going to hurt you. If you raise a row you'll get an anæsthetic—a swift punch under the ear. Better sit still and make no fuss."

With which he went to work. He did a thorough job, and there was no doubt that it hurt. But Rand gave no trouble, nor even a sign of pain—except that he dug his fingers into the dirt.

"Good boy!" the amateur surgeon approved, when he finished. "You're a Spartan—if you happen to remember what that is. Now we'll move on. But before we go, wash your face good and hard. Get that tribe paint off. These Indians with us don't like it. You're no Indian, anyhow; you're white, like us. Savvy? White man. Wash off paint!"

He rolled up his kit and returned to the canoe. The Mayorunas, men and women, were entering their own craft. Rand sat motionless a moment, McKay and the Brazilians watching him keenly. Slowly then he got up of his own accord, limped to the water's edge, and began to scrub his face.

When he desisted the marks still showed, for the red dye clung stubbornly to his skin; but they were fainter than before. The other men eyed him thoughtfully, none speaking. He settled himself in his former place, curled up, and began to doze.

"A queer fish!" Pedro said, softly. "Is he crazy or not?"

"Hanged if I know," replied McKay. "He's no maniac, anyhow. I'd give real money to know just what his mental condition is. But we can forget him for a while. I'm going to let you fellows sleep by turns now. I had some sleep last night; you've had none at all. Merry, your eyes need rest. You curl up in the bow and snooze one hour. Then another man, and so on. And how about letting Tucu lead the parade again?"

"Excellent, Capitao! I was thinking of that." Lourenço talked to Tucu, who swung out into the current. The boat of the white men followed, then the others. At a steady cruising speed the brigade surged on downstream.

Knowlton's allotted hour passed. Pedro took his place and was instantly asleep. In turn he was aroused, and Lourenço laid down his paddle. But just then Tucu's canoe slowed and floated in to the left bank.

The others backed water and looked at a very narrow ravine—almost a cleft—in a rising hillside. Through it led a lane of water. From the third boat, in which were two women of the Monitaya tribe, now came voices carrying information to the Indian leader. At once he turned his boat into the cleft.

"This is the connection we have been seeking." Lourenço explained. "The women say the boats of their captors came through this crack in the hill. At the end we shall find the creek of Monitaya."

The women spoke truth. After threading their way along the weedy water-path, which was barely wide enough to give passage for the boats, they emerged at a slant into another stream. Down this, with the sure instinct for direction of the hereditary jungle-dweller, Tucu turned his prow without asking the women whether to go with or against the current. Once more on the waters of their home creek, the Mayorunas quickened their strokes and howled merrily on toward their malocas.

Lourenço took his nap and resumed his place. Hour after hour the fleet sped on. Noon passed without a halt, the paddlers munching at whatever fragments remained from breakfast. By turns the Americans and Brazilians each got another hour's sleep, McKay consenting to relax when all his mates had rested. Rand dozed and awoke at intervals, seeming content and comfortable despite his cramped position.

By four o'clock even the Mayorunas began to lag in their strokes. Excluding the halt at sunrise, they now had been journeying for fifteen hours, in the last nine of which they had covered many miles of serpentine water. The heat of the day and the constant drive of the paddles had taken their toll, and now the body of every man fiercely demanded more food. McKay, knowing that in jungle travel distance is not a matter of miles, but of hours, had begun to figure that the journey which had taken nearly five days of overland work might be completed that night by the swiftly moving canoes. But now, recognizing the signs of exhaustion, he realized that without some powerful spur the Indians would not attempt to reach the home malocas until the morrow.

Then the spur came. Even as Tucu began scanning the shores for a good camp site, he and every other Mayoruna suddenly ceased paddling and threw up his head. Faint and far, a xylophonic call of beaten wooden bars rapped across the jungle, rising and falling in swift, regular cadence—a sirenical flow and ebb of sound waves. Over and over it undulated, rapid, incessant, imperative.

A chorus of excited grunts broke from the canoe brigade. The dugout of Tucu leaped away like a roweled horse. Lourenço and Pedro buried their paddles in mighty strokes, hurling their boat ahead to keep from being run down by those behind.

Lourenço barked at Tucu, who flung back an answer.

"Paddle hard, Capitao! If we do not keep up we shall be wrecked. That message is the war call of the Mayorunas—calling in the hunters from the forest to take arms against an enemy. We must race now with these madmen around us, or we go under. Paddle!"

CHAPTER XXIII. STRATEGY

In the last light of the fast-fading day the canoes darted from the forest into the clearing where stood the Monitaya malocas.

Long before their arrival the siren call had ceased, but there had been no lessening of speed by the racing dugouts. On the contrary, the last long mile had been covered in a final desperate spurt, the paddles swinging in swift unison to the accompaniment of a ferocious chant of one syllable: "Hough! Hough! Hough!" This explosive cadence had echoed down the stream ahead of them; and now, as the panting crews emerged from the jungle, they found themselves flanked by a long line of their fellow-warriors, bristling with drawn arrows and ready spear points. But of the enemy whose presence that great xylophone had betokened there was no sign.

At sight of the familiar feather bonnets of their own men the tense Monitayans let their weapons slowly sink. And when Tucu, leaping ashore, gaspingly demanded news of the fight, the line dissolved into a mob which rushed to welcome him and his mates. In the first few breaths it was learned that no fight had yet taken place, but that all the warriors had been brought in and ordered to prepare to march at the next sunrise; and that the sudden war call had been sent out as the result of the arrival of a stranger.

Then the crowd parted, and through it came striding two men whose appearance caused the white men to erupt into hoarse shouts of greeting. One, whose hard face swiftly relaxed into a half smile of relief, was the great chief himself. The other, whose jutting jaw suddenly dropped and whose blue eyes opened in incredulity, was Tim—Tim, once more strong and florid and aggressive, gripping his rifle, astounded at the sight of his comrades standing there alive and alert. They soon learned why.

Dropping his gun, he sprang at them with an inarticulate roar of welcome. He wrung their hands, pounded their shoulders, laughed, cried, swore, all at once. Then he burst out:

"Glory be! Ye're alive, homelier 'n ever and tough as tripe! We thought ye was wiped out sure! We was all set to start in the mornin' and pull them Red Bones to pieces. Mebbe we'll do it yet, too. How'd ye break through? Did ye kill Sworn-off and his gang?"

"Schwandorf? Gang? Haven't seen anybody but Red Bones—though we sure saw plenty of them," replied Knowlton. "What are you talking about?"

"Then ye missed him by about one point windage. When'd ye leave? Last night? I bet he's there by now. Gee! Where'd ye git them girls? And who's this guy? Great gosh! Is he the Raposy? Wal, for the love o' Mike—"

"Tim!" broke in McKay. "What's all this about? Now wait. This is the Raposa. These girls are Mayoruna women held prisoners by the Red Bones. We got them last night and lit out in the middle of a general engagement. Now open up with your news."

"Right, Cap. We got a visitor to-day—old friend of ourn—li'l' old Hozy, the only white guy in that Peruvian crew we had. He's all dolled up like an Injun—shaved face, tribe paint, and so on. He come through the Injun country that way—I dunno yet how he done it, him bein' a Peruvian and all, but he got through, and he says Sworn-off and a whole gang of bad eggs is back here to git this Raposy guy and all the girls they can lay hands on. He says Sworn-off's got them Red Bones workin' for him, and you fellers must be massacreed sure by now.

"Good thing I was here when he come, or he'd be cut up and in the stewpot. Monitaya's a good skate, but he sure is poison to anything Peruvian, and soon as Hozy begun to try to talk he got wise and dang near bumped him off. I got him to cool down some, and he believes Hozy's tellin' the truth, but even at that they got Hozy tied up like a dog. Come look at him."

But it was necessary to wait awhile for Tucu and Lourenço to tell Monitaya the tale of what had taken place; for the chief demanded immediate and full details, and not until he had them would he return to his maloca and his hammock throne. By that time the little moon was again ruler of the sky and the keen hunger of the voyagers had grown ravenous. Followed by the rescued and the rescuers, he then stalked into the tribal house and to his usual place, where he commanded that food be brought.

On the ground, directly in front of the chief's hammock, sat a gaunt, painted Indian around whose neck was a stout noose, the other end of the cord being held