Tupahn--the Thunderstorm

 Extracted from Adventure Magazine, May 1922, pp. 03-47. Accompanying illustrations may be omitted. [A "Pedro and Lourenço" adventure story]

TUPAHN—the

THUNDERSTORM

A Complete Novelette

by Arthur O. Friel

Author of “The Jararaca,” “Black Hawk,” etc.

I.

FOUR of us went.

Two of us came back.

And this, senhores, is the tale of all four of us, but particularly of the pair who did not return.

I—Lourenço Moraes—and my partner, Pedro Andrada, were rovers of the jungle of the Javary, western frontier of Brazil: a couple of seringuerios in the employ of Coronel Nunes, owner of the greatest rubber estate along the border, who often called us “tramps” and “scamps,” but who relied on us to do dangerous scouting for him. It was while we ranged the bush in his service that we met the two North Americans.

The first of these was Senhor Thomas Gordon Mack, an explorer whom we found a captive of brutal snake-men and saved from a hideous death. The second was Senhorita Marion Marshall, whom Senhor Tom himself rescued from the merciless claws of Black Hawk, a negro-Indian who sought to make himself ruler of all the country between the rivers Javary and Jurua.

They were North Americans both, as I have said. Yet, though they came from the same country and each fell into the power of brutes, neither knew of the other's existence until we bushmen brought them together. And between the night when we snatched Senhor Tom from 'the fangs of snakes and the afternoon when he killed Black Hawk before his whole Indian army, there passed many days of wilderness travel.

Now, with the Hawk dead behind us and his gang of Tucuna Indians broken up and hurrying to their jungle homes, we four swung our canoes northward along a creek leading toward the Amazon town of Viciado, where the senhorita had been captured and her uncle murdered and robbed by renegades. She alone of our party had ever traveled that creek before, for we three had come to the stronghold of Black Hawk from the west and south; and even she knew next to nothing about it, for on her previous journey, she had been a bound captive, dreading death or worse, and not gifted with the jungle-trained mind which sees and remembers without effort. But she did know that her captors had paddled only three days with her.

To us, accustomed to traveling long distances by canoe, a journey of less than half a week seemed mere play, and we pulled our dugouts along carelessly, expecting no danger nor even any trouble. Which shows, senhores, what fools men can be. The fact that you have just beaten Death does not mean that he is not waiting for you in another shape at the next turn of the river.

As we went, the eyes of three of us rested often on the fourth. And the fourth, as you may guess, was the senhorita. We admired her, as men long used to seeing only Indian women are compelled to admire a handsome white girl; but more than her beauty we approved her spirit. For she was not lolling lazily in Senhor Tom's boat and taking advantage of the fact that she was a young woman recently rescued from peril. Dressed in the explorer's spare khaki, with her black hair snugly pinned up by thorns and shirt-sleeves rolled high, she was swinging her paddle as regularly as any of us.

As she worked she kept her eyes straight ahead in a constant watch for snags. So Pedro and I had plenty of chance to watch her and also to squint now and then at Senhor Tom, who seldom took his gaze off her swaying shoulders.

We saw that her stroke was smooth and clean, but that she was working too hard. We saw also that Senhor Tom's blond-bearded jaw was clamped tight and that he was pulling hard in an attempt to ease the toil for her. The result was that both were laboring too much and their craft was surging along at top speed. There was no sense in this, and we decided to make them ease up.

So, after Pedro had given me a wink and a side-move of the head toward their dugout, he suddenly drew in his paddle, snatched up his rifle, peered ahead, and hissed:

“Slow! Hold!”

At once they bore back on their blades. The water swashed loudly, then stilled as their boat lost headway. Senhor Tom deftly slipped his blade into the boat and rose, gun in hand. The girl leaned forward, her eyes roving along the bushy banks to see what caused our alertness.

Our canoe slid past theirs, and I kept on paddling slowly, as if we really had spied something alarming. Understanding Pedro's ruse, I expected him to grunt in a relieved way and resume paddling at an easy rate, keeping the other craft behind us. But he did not.

As we floated around a steep-banked bend he made a soft noise. I looked more sharply at the left shore, toward which his face was turned. Then I saw, only a few feet from us and lying beside a narrow cleft in the bank, a rusty rifle.

If we had not been playing that game and scanning the shore so closely we should have passed the gun without seeing it, for it was partly hidden among small stalks of driftwood. Now I turned the canoe aside and we grounded beside it. For a moment we searched the earth around us before touching the weapon. Footprints, blurred by rains, led up to the top of the incline. Whoever had been there had been gone for some time—or was still up above.

No canoe lay in the crack, and the man who owned that firearm must have gone his way. But no man is likely to abandon his rifle without a very good reason, especially in our jungle, where a gun is life itself. So, leaving the weapon where it lay, Pedro and I dug our toes into the clay and mounted to the top of the slope, carrying our guns ready.

Less than a rod from the edge we saw a flimsy shelter of poles and palm-leaves. In it hung an empty hammock. On the ground lay what was left of the man who had slept there.

His bones were scattered about, his shirt and breeches now were only torn rags, and we saw nothing at all to show who he was. But we quickly saw why he was there. In the skull gaped a big bullet-hole.

For a few minutes we stood looking at it and at the bush round about. Then Pedro turned the skull over with his gun-muzzle.

“Por Deus!” he muttered. “This is a sweet thing to find lying on the river-bank, Lourenço. It is murder.”

I nodded, for I too saw that the man had been shot while asleep. Only the one hole was in the skull, and it was high on the back of the crown. The bullet had been fired while he lay at rest, ranging downward and probably coming out through his throat.

“Shot in the night by a companion who then fled in their canoe,” Pedro added. “The murderer dropped that rifle down below in his hurry to get away, and either forgot it or could not find it in the darkness. The gun may belong either to the killer or to this man. Let us look at it. Perhaps it may tell us a tale. There is nothing else here that will.”

But just as we turned back toward the water I saw a brownish bit of wood among the rags. Stooping, I grasped it and picked it up. It was the haft of a sheath-knife.

“Here is something,” I said. “A rusty blade of about seven inches, with four nicks on the back which look as if made by a file. And the-wood has been checkered to give a firm grip in a hot hand. It looks like the weapon of a knife-fighter.”

“And so it is,” my partner agreed after studying it and feeling its weight and balance. “Those four nicks must mean four human lives. That is why this man was killed by stealth, no doubt—his killer dared not fight him. Now we have only to learn who carried this knife and who traveled with him.”

“A very simple matter in this vast bush, of course,” I jeered.

Yet it was much more simple than either of us expected. The answer to our problem came before we again picked up our paddles.

Down below Senhor Tom had stepped ashore and pulled the abandoned rifle out of the driftwood, and now he and the Senhorita were looking at it. As we slid down to them he turned to us, his blue eyes gleaming.

“Say, fellows, this is—⁠Hullo! What's that you've got? Find something upstairs?”

“A hammock and this knife,” I answered, passing the ugly blade to him. The girl leaned forward eagerly and looked.

“Oh, now I'm absolutely sure of it!” she cried. “That was the knife of the tall man!”

“What tall man?” Pedro demanded.

“One of the two who carried me to the camp of the Hawk! He was a yellow-faced animal with a thick mouth and the eyes of a snake, and he was noisy and quarrelsome. He drew this knife more than a dozen times on the journey, threatening the other man with it, and once he pointed to these dents on the back of it. I saw this handle sticking out from his waistband all the time for three days, and I shall never forget it.

“The other man was shorter and very brown—an Indian, or nearly so—and not so noisy; but I watched his eyes once after the tall one threatened him, and they made me shiver. They looked positively poisonous. He——”

She stopped suddenly, looking from one to the other of us and up at the top of the bank. She paled a little.

“Are they—are they dead?” she asked.

“The tall one is very dead,” Pedro told her. “The other is gone. But what about the rifle?”

Senhor Tom answered:

“Miss Marshall was saying she thought this gun belonged to one of those skunks, though she wasn't sure. The butt is dented. See? Looks like old tooth-marks. Some animal bit it some time, perhaps. Nothing else to distinguish it from any other repeater. Forty-four caliber, as usual, and rotten dirty inside and out.”

He dropped the weapon and climbed the bank. While he was gone we examined the gun and found it just as he had said. Between rust and foulness, it was worthless. I pitched it back among the muddy sticks and rubbed the rust from my hands on to my jungle-stained breeches. And then Senhor Tom came slipping down, grinning.

“Old Lady Nemesis sure tapped that mutt hard when she called on him,” he said. “Shoved her finger clear through his head—beg pardon, Miss Marshall. Still, I don't suppose it shocks you to know that one of your uncle's murderers got what was coming to him. Retribution, and all that.”

The girl did not answer his words or his smile. Her deep eyes, so darkly blue that they seemed almost black, rested steadily on his bronzed face for a time. Then she glanced away down the creek and held her paddle as if anxious to go.

The blond man's grin faded. He rubbed his jaw, scowled, shrugged and took his place in his dugout. We boarded our own craft and shoved off ahead of them. And as we swung on down the creek I wondered what had displeased the girl.

But I did not wonder long, for women and their moods have never troubled me much. Soon my thoughts were all on the thing that had taken place on the shore behind us. I could see the night fire smoldering red in the gloom; the two men lying in their hammocks; the slow, stealthy raising of the short man's head, and his motionless watch of the tall one's breathing; the silent swing of a gun, the sudden flash of the shot; and then the hurried plundering of the body and the hasty departure down the black stream.

It was nothing to me that the the yellow-faced brute had been murdered in his sleep. A man who would carry a white girl, or any other girl, to such a fate as awaited her in the camp of Black Hawk deserved a hundred deaths. It was nothing to me that the short man, murderer of his comrade, was still alive. But it was something to all three of us men that that short man was not yet punished for his share in abducting the senhorita.

There were others besides him, too, who had had a hand in that outrage—men of Viciado, one of the worst towns on the great river, toward which we now were journeying. And as I thought, I spoke my thought.

“We shall find him in Viciado, no doubt. Within the week we can teach him and his fellows what it means to treat white women brutally.”

Pedro, up in the bow, grunted agreement. And while we stroked ahead at the slow pace we had chosen, we pictured with grim satisfaction what we should do three days thence.

What fools we were!

We did not know what awaited us down the stream.

II.

NOON found us ashore, joking as we ate, but a little troubled in mind. We were squatting on a shady point, and at each side of us the water swerved away in a different direction. The creek had split.

Part of it veered off to the northeast, the rest to the northwest; and there was nothing to indicate which of the two new creeks we ought to follow. As the water was low, one of them ought to be dried up; but both looked to be of about the same depth and width. And the girl, when asked whether she remembered the joining of the streams here, did not.

“Makes no difference anyhow,” argued Senhor Tom. “Both of them are bound to flow into the Amazon, and that's where we're heading for.”

“True,” I said. “We head for the Amazon, but we also seek a certain place on the Amazon. One of these streams will take us there quickly. The other may wind about for many miles before reaching the great river, and then bring us out far from where we want to go. And——”

There I stopped, not wishing to mention before the girl that we had not much food. But my comrades understood.

“Quite so,” the blond man assented. “Well, we'll have to trust to luck. Unless you fellows have an idea on the subject I'll flip a coin before we start. Meanwhile let's smoke and—Miss Marshall, show me your hands!”

Surprized by the sudden command, she held them out, palms down. He turned them over. Swiftly she tried to snatch them away. But he held them firmly a minute before letting go.

“Thought so,” he nodded. “Blistered. Now I'll have to do all the paddling.”

“Indeed you will not,” she retorted. “A little blister is nothing——”

“No, a little blister is nothing,” he cut in. “But seven big blisters are something. You have four on your right palm and three on your left. All caused by trying to be smart and outpaddle us. You should know better.”

Her chin rose a little, but after an instant's search of his eyes she smiled.

“I'm sorry,” she said simply. “I thought I was helping, and now I have only made myself a hindrance. But these canoes are heavier than those at home, and——”

“And you haven't paddled for a long time and your hands are out of training,” Senhor Tom nodded. “You're forgiven. And you're a good sport to try to hold up your end, I'll say—and a good paddler besides. Where did you learn to push a canoe?”

“Oh, I spent several Summers in girls' camps when I was in school. And I have a couple of big brothers who are quite active outdoor men: one played end on the Princeton football team and sprinted for the track team, and the other stroked the Yale crew in his senior year. We-were always doing stunts when we were youngsters—I was a perfect tomboy myself in those days.”

“Ah, that explains a lot,” the blond man declared. “If all girls had a couple of regular fellows for brothers maybe they'd be more human. As it is, most of 'em are bum sports—either touch-me-nots or kiss-me-quicks, and ready to throw a fit if they have to do any real work.”

She smiled again, but it was a mischievous smile this time.

“And that, perhaps, is why you bury yourself in the jungle?”

“Huh? Me? 'Stricken to the heart, he sought the sighing solitudes to forget?' Not Tom Mack, my lady. I'm here because I don't like starched collars and subways and fat-headed office tyrants and the rest of the stuff the city slaves have to stand for. Thats all they are—slaves! Slaves to their bosses—slaves to business—slaves to pork-barrel politicians—slaves to selfish wives—bah! Ninety-nine per cent. of the men up home make me sick, and as for the women——”

“Grrr! Woof-woof!” she mocked. “Pedro and Lourengo, does he bite? His eyes are growing red, and I'm terribly scared.”

“Have no fear, senhorita,” my handsome partner laughed. “We are watching him, and when he begins to froth we shall knock him in the head.”

“And you'll have some job doing it, my merry men,” Senhor Tom grinned. “Beg pardon for starting an oration, Miss Marshall. But I assure you I'm no lovesick calf driven from home by a hopeless passion—or by anything else, for that matter. Old Patrick Henry said it. 'Give me liberty or give me death.' Them's my sentiments, and the only sentiments I've got. Let's go.”

He rose, looked at both of those puzzling streams, drew a coin from his pocket, and glanced inquiringly at us. We nodded.

“Heads to the right, tails to the left,” he said, and flipped the silver disc. I caught it.

“We go to the right,” I told him, handing back the coin. “That is where chance directs us.”

“Right's right,” he answered. His eyes went again to the girl, who was watching him with an amused expression. “Now, Miss Marshall, we'll just open those blisters of yours and then bandage your hands. After that you'll ride at leisure for the rest of the day.”

“But I'm going to paddle,” she protested.

“And ruin your hands completely. No, you'll rest them until tomorrow—or later.”

Her chin rose again. It was very clear that she had no intention of riding in idleness. But nothing more was said until the hands were bandaged. Then, after a keen look into her stubborn face, Senhor Tom spoke again in a cool but determined tone.

“With all due respect, Miss Marshall, I must remind you that I am the captain of my own canoe. The captain of any craft is the supreme authority on questions of the handling of that craft. I hereby order Tom Mack to paddle this canoe unaided until sundown or thereabouts. That is final.”

His eyes twinkled a little as he spoke, but his jaw was firm. They stood for a minute looking steadily at each other. Then she smiled again.

“Aye, aye, sir,” she answered. And she stepped into her place at the bow and settled herself comfortably—with her back to him. We grinned at him, got into our own dugout, and shoved off along the might-hand stream.

ALL through the afternoon we swung steadily down that winding creek. And all the time there grew on me a feeling that we went wrong.

Why I felt so I can not say. It was not because the stream seemed to bear more and more to the northeast—we had no way of knowing just where Viciado lay, for we were passing through an unmapped region and might be heading directly toward the town. There was no reason at all for my misgiving, except this: Somehow, when a man has roved much in the wilderness, he comes to feel that certain ways are the best to travel, even if he can not explain why. Perhaps it is the sense of direction which the birds and the beasts have, which draws them without fail to their nests or dens after long heedless journeys after food. At any rate, that afternoon something seemed to keep telling me that we were going astray.

Pedro too felt the warning. Once he looked back at me and shook his head. But we kept on; for neither of us, once started on a path on water or land, liked to return over it and begin anew. The pair behind us said nothing whatever to us or to each other. And so we put the slow miles behind us until the shadows grew long.

Then, on the right shore, we found a little cove, at the end of which rose a slope topped by big trees. The slanting sun-rays, shooting in among the tall trunks, showed that no undergrowth was there to hinder us and to harbor carrapatos or other insect pests, and that a clear little brook trickled into the creek along a groove in the clay. We turned into the cove, climbed the slope, and made camp.

“Now that your order has been obeyed, captain,” the girl smiled, “is your fragile passenger permitted to break the monotony by cooking the evening meal? Or must she still be little Miss Muffet and sit uselessly on a tuffet?”

“Why, since you've recovered the power of speech, you may cook if you like,” Senhor Tom granted. “You've been dumb ever since noon.”

“That was because you enforced ship's rules, captain. I believe one of the rules is that passengers mustn't talk to the steersman. So, not wanting to be thrown to the sharks, I had to hold my tongue.”

“Tough, very,” he laughed. “Hereafter you may talk as much as you like—unless you blister your tongue too. But speaking of cooking——”

He glanced at us.

“We shall try to find something to cook,” Pedro responded. “Why eat our dried rations if we can have fresh meat? Wait a while, senhorita.”

And we took our guns and slipped away into the forest.

Soon, somewhere off to the left, we heard low grunting sounds. Stealthily we crept that way, slipping around the big tree-butts, avoiding dry fallen limbs and other forest litter, making hardly a sound with our bare feet. The grunting became plainer. Then, peering over the edge of a root-buttress, we saw near us a couple of peccaries.

Our guns roared almost together. The pigs dropped. One lay still. The other kicked several times and squealed shrilly. Then it became motionless.

Before the second animal was quiet we had reached the pair, ready to shoot again if another bullet was needed. As the wild pig stopped screaming we lowered our rifles, drew our machetes, and cut out the scent-pouches from their loins in order to keep the meat sweet. As we sheathed the long knives again we started and whirled.

A rush of feet sounded near by. More grunts and squeals—many more—blended into a chorus of rage. Between the trees came a whole herd of peccaries, charging to aid their stricken mates. In the half-light their little eyes seemed to glow green with fury.

We fired one shot each and then jumped for safety. We knew peccaries too well to attempt to fight off a big band of them. Beside us loomed a tree corded thickly with big vines, and up those vines we went like a couple of treed jaguars. And we went none too soon.

Under us the maddened beasts jammed into a heaving mass, squealing and clashing their keen little tusks and watching us in hate. Some even stood up on their hind legs against the trunk, their teeth grinning at us like the jaws of death. And jaws of death they would have been if either of us had slipped or lost his hold on the treacherous vines. But we did not climb far and thus increase the risk of falling. We clung quietly a few feet above their heads and waited for them to go.

For some time we hung there, and still they stayed. They quieted somewhat, but those wicked eyes of theirs remained fixed on us. Our hands and toes, hooked over our shaky support, grew tired. I began to think of tales I had heard of peccaries waiting for days for men to fall from trees into their power. I never had seen such a thing myself, but—we certainly could not hold on there all night, and the pigs certainly were waiting. We commenced studying our surroundings.

“There is our chance,” Pedro said, moving his head upward. Then I saw that against our tree-trunk leaned a smaller one which at some time had fallen part of the way to the ground but had become lodged against a big bole above us. It did not look like a safe perch—indeed, it was likely to crash the rest of the way groundward if we put our combined weight on it—but we must go somewhere soon, and we had nowhere else to go. So, very carefully, we climbed toward it.

When we reached it our hands were so tired that we had hard work in getting up and on it. And when we were on it we found it so trembly that we dared not try to crawl down its long slant to the ground. It needed only a little more quivering to make it slip off the bole and smash with us among the peccaries, who would surely finish us if the fall did not. But we could stretch ourselves along its leaning trunk and rest our exhausted muscles, and we did so. Meanwhile we looked down once more at the pigs.

They were moving about in a disappointed, ugly fashion, grunting but no longer squealing. Stretched along the tree as we were, our bodies were hidden from them, and probably their eyes were not good enough to make out our heads. So, as we climbed up and disappeared, there was no good reason for them to remain longer. Resting and keeping quiet, we waited again for them to depart.

Then, back at our camp, sounded a single shot. We listened, but heard no more firing. Nor did we hear any other sound but the noises of the beasts under us.

“Senhor Tom has beaten us in getting meat,” Pedro“ grumbled. “Probably a monkey came along. Curse these pigs! Will they ever go?”

They did not go at once, but after a time some of them wandered off. Others followed. Soon all but a few had faded away among the tall roots. Then the last ones, seeming suddenly afraid to be left behind, broke into a run and were gone. Below us nothing remained but our guns, now trampled and foul, and the two dead.

We waited a few minutes longer to make sure they were well away. Then, with great care, I let myself over the trunk and grasped the twining vines by which we had come up. Pedro followed, not quite so carefully. He had just placed his toes and one hand on the vines when he slipped.

I caught him with one hand and shoved him back against the trunk. For an instant it seemed that my own hold would break and we both would go down. But he caught his balance again and clung to the vines with feet and hands like a monkey. While we were struggling we heard a grinding squeak, a rushing sound, a crash, and a heavy thump. Now we glanced downward. Below us lay the tree on which we had just rested.

“A close shave, comrade,” said Pedro. “It fell just as I got off. That was why I slipped.”

Down the trunk we worked our way until we stood safe on solid earth. There we wiped the sweat from our faces, breathed deep, picked up our rifles, shouldered a pig apiece, and turned toward the creek.

THEN came night.

Darkness swiftly blotted out all but the nearest trunks. Thankful that we had only a short distance to go, we felt our way toward camp. Before long we began to look for the glint of the-evening fire among the trees and to sniff for the smell of wood-smoke. But we saw no light, smelt nothing but the damp forest, heard no voices among the night sounds of the wilderness.

We began to hurry. We felt sure that we were going in the right direction, sure that the blurring dark had not confused us, sure that we were almost at the camp. And we remembered that shot.

All at once we stopped. Two strides from us loomed the little tambo we had thrown up for our night's shelter. But no fire burned before it. Nothing moved, nothing spoke.

“Senhor Tom!”' I called softly.

No answer came.

“Senhorita!” cried Pedro.

No reply.

We dropped our game and lighted matches. The tambo was empty of life.

With more matches glimmering, we moved across the small open space. We walked straight into the kindlings of a fire, carefully laid but unlighted. In a moment we had them ablaze.

As the light grew we circled about, fear growing in our hearts. What had happened to our North American comrades? Surely they had not deserted us.

Then Pedro made a harsh sound and dropped on his knees beside a high-rooted tree. Another match flared. As I stooped beside him we looked down at Senhor Tom.

Face down he lay, silent and still. His hat was off, and his blond hair was now red—deep, wet red.

He had been shot in the head.

III.

WE LIFTED him and bore him to the fire.

For the moment we forgot the girl and everything else except this stout-hearted, two-handed comrade of ours. We had seen him a prisoner, but defiant, in the power of savage enemies. We had watched him walk alone into the stronghold of another brutal foe and shoot that foe dead. We had traveled many a weary mile with him, endured all sorts of discomfort and danger with him, and found him always ready to laugh in the face of death and always able to defeat it. And now he hung limp in our grip, helpless, senseless, shot down by some sneaking coward.

Softly we laid him down on the ground and swiftly we examined him. Then the oaths that had frozen in our throats came tumbling out in the warmth of sudden hope. His heart still beat.

“Water!” I demanded.

Pedro seized a blazing stick from the fire and disappeared over the edge of the bank. Both of us had forgotten the little brook near by. While I waited I peered closely at the senseless man's wound, then felt it with my fingers. My hope mounted. The bullet had not gone through the skull.

It seemed that Pedro was gone a long time before he reappeared with the water. And then he brought it, not in a gourd from the canoes, but in his hat.

“Lourenço!” he breathed hoarsely. “The canoes are gone!”

“Gone?”

“Gone. Both gone. And—” he glanced swiftly around once more “—so is the senhorita.”

I sprang up. For a moment the only thought in my mind was that the girl had done the shooting and fled. Then, ashamed of myself, I knelt again beside our stricken comrade and commenced working to bring him back to life.

Pedro made two more trips to the water before Senhor Tom's eyes opened. When they did open, they rested on me with a blank stare.

“God be praised!” I cried. “You are alive again, senhor. Lie still a little while. You have a bad head.”

He made no answer. His eyelids flickered, he blinked a few times, and then his eyes stayed open. Looking down into them, I began to feel chilly. Something was wrong; something was missing in that blue stare.

Slowly I moved my head back, watching him all the time. His eyes did not turn to follow me. I passed a hand above them. He did not blink. Then I jabbed my fingers at them as if about to gouge him. Even then he gave no sign that he saw.

“Vive Deus!” Pedro swore softly. We stared at each other, as shocked as we had been by the discovery of the wounded man.

Senhor Tom was blind.

If we had doubted it we should have had proof the next moment. His lips moved.

“What's up?” he asked hoarsely. “What ails the fire? It gives no light.”

We looked at him pityingly. The firelight was bright on his face. He could feel its heat, smell its smoke, but he could not see it.

“We have concealed it with mud,” I lied. “It is almost out, too, and the night is black. What has happened to you?”

He wet his lips before answering. His face knotted as if from pain and thought combined.

“Don't know,” he said. “Something slammed me over the head, I guess. Seems as if I heard a shot, but can't be sure. I was getting wood—dropped a stick—bent to pick it up—head seemed to explode. Give me some water.”

He gulped down a long drink from the hat. When he spoke again his voice was stronger.

“Why the —— don't you fellows light a match or something? You must be owl-eyed. What's up, I asked you? Is Miss Marshall all right?”

“Not so loud, comrade!” Pedro cautioned him. “She is asleep. You have been knocked out for a long time.”

“Oh, that's it.”

Before we could stop him, he sat up. His face twisted and turned white.

“Gee, I'm sick!” he whispered, as we steadied him. “Head aches horribly.”

“I told you to lie still,” I scolded. “Now keep quiet and let us lift you.”

With that I motioned toward the tambo, and Pedro nodded. We raised him and carried him to his hammock. There I cut off my shirt-sleeves and bandaged the wound with one of them, after which I soaked the other in the last of our water and laid it on his forehead as a cooling pad to ease the ache.

“Now,” I said, “keep quiet and go to sleep. You are feverish, but sleep will do you much good. We are going away for a little while. Do not wake the senhorita.”

He was too sick from pain to say anything, and we left him there. Each of us carrying a fresh torch from the fire, we went down the bank to the place where our canoes had lain.

It was true—they were gone. Only the blank black water lay before us. In the clay bank were the marks of their bows, and other marks too: the prints of bare feet, and traces of something having been dragged down from above.

Saying nothing, we followed those traces back upward. We searched the ground, which was quite soft, and near the fire we found signs of a struggle. Over by the tree where Senhor Tom had lain we also found his short ax and the armful of wood which he had dropped when struck down by the bullet. And that was all.

We had moved very quietly, and Senhor Tom had not heard us prowling about. Now we went over to the little brook, let ourselves down and drank deep of its cool water, made cigarets, and talked low.

“The thing is clear, so far as it goes,” said Pedro. “Some man came here while we were away, shot Senhor Tom without warning, overpowered the senhorita, and went away with both our canoes and all our supplies. He caught them by surprize, or he never would have lived to leave here—Senhor Tom is lightning and death with that revolver of his, and the girl is no weakling; she would have seized Senhor Tom's rifle there in the tambo, and used it, if she had had time to reach it. As it was, she fought him with her bare hands until he struck her down or choked her senseless. Then he got away as fast as possible, knowing we were near. If only those devil-pigs had not treed us——”

He growled and stopped talking. Thinking of the blind man behind us and the girl somewhere out in the dark in the power of a murderous brute, I echoed the growl. We smoked fiercely until the butts burned our fingers.

“And now we have only our clothes, our guns, a few cartridges—and a blind man,” I said. “No boats, no food but two pigs that will quickly spoil——”

“And plenty of money, which is worth nothing.”

I had forgotten the money. It was true, we had plenty; for in the camp of the dead Black Hawk we had found much money wrung from the people of Viciado and from river-traders and plundered from dead men; and this we had divided among us as spoils of war. It was true also that it now was useless to us. But it gave me an idea.

“I wonder if the vile brute who did this was one of the Hawk's crew,” I suggested. “Some mongrel who knew we must have found money and has been following us to steal it and the girl.”

“No, I think not. Senhor Tom was not robbed—at least his guns were not taken, and a man stopping to loot his body would also take his revolver. Either the assassin was after the girl, or he was desperately in need of a boat and food. If it was the canoes he wanted, he took the girl because he saw his chance to get her too. We may learn when daylight comes. Until then we can do nothing. Come. Let us eat.”

So, though our appetites were gone, we went back to the fire and cooked peccary meat. Senhor Tom lay quiet, and we did not disturb him. After forcing down all the meat we could hold—for we did not know when we could eat again after leaving here—we squatted looking soberly at the dim hammock where our comrade lay in darkness. Finally Pedro, muttering another curse on the sneaking cur who had shot from ambush, rose and got the small ax.

With this, working as quietly as possible, we cut away sections of the thin but tough root-buttresses of a tall matamata-tree near the fire, and with our machetes we fashioned rough paddles. Neither of us felt like sleeping. To go stumbling through the unknown bush, dragging-our companion after us, was not to be thought of. We must go by the creek.

When the paddles were made, however, we could do no more until day. We were tired, too, and our eyes burned in our heads from strain and smoke. So we crept into our hammocks. Sleep came to me after a time, and I knew nothing more until the waking birds of the forest roused me by their screams at dawn.

PEDRO and I arose and stood silent beside Senhor Tom, dreading to tell him the truth. But we found that we need not tell him. His eyes were open, and as he listened to the noises and saw only blackness his face became like that of a dead man. He put a hand to his eyes, moved his head, and slowly let the hand fall.

“Pedro! Lourenço!” he gasped.

“We are here, comrade,” Pedro said gently.

The hand came groping out, seeking us. I took it.

“What time is it?”

“Daybreak,” I told him.

His jaw set. His hand gripped mine as if he were falling over the edge of a gulf. Then slowly his face smoothed out, though his teeth stayed clenched.

“So—I am blind,” he muttered.

“It will pass away,” Pedro tried to comfort him. “You were shot in the head, senhor. Your eyes were not touched. It may be a few days before you can——”

“Tell me the truth!” he cut in, his voice turning hard. “Tell me all of it! I heard you working and whispering in the night. You lied to me—I know it. Now come clean!”

We told him all.

“Now we start to find that snake who bit you from behind,” I finished. “We shall make a small raft, pointed at the ends. Paddles are ready, and we shall cut poles also. First we shall look for traces that may show——”

“All right, get going!” he snapped, sitting up. “Good God! Marion's got to be found quick! Jump out of here!”

Black though his world was, he had forgotten himself already. He staggered up out of his hammock, his right fist on his revolver-butt.

“Jump!” he roared. “Find her—and put me in front of the man! —— him, I'll kill him if I'm blind, deaf, dumb and paralyzed! What are you standing around here for? Move!”

“Sit down, comrade,” Pedro soothed. “We waste no time. We go now.”

And he pressed the blank-eyed man back into his hammock. When he sat safely we obeyed his command sand jumped to our work.

As the spot where our camp stood had no small trees and we could not spend time cutting down thick-bodied trunks, we went out along one shore of the cove to find suitable material for our raft. Having found it, we went on to the point where cove and creek met. We hardly dared hope to find any sign of the vanished canoes, but we did not neglect to look. As we had expected, the stream was bare. But as I turned back Pedro caught my arm.

“Look!” he exclaimed. “There in the mud!”

I looked, and gave thanks to Deus Padre. At the water's edge was a blunt dent in the wet clay, and beside it were a few footmarks. A canoe had bumped and stuck there, and a man had jumped ashore to shove it off. We knew the man had been in such haste to leave the cove that he had run too close to shore in making his turn, and one of the boats—probably the one towing behind—had struck. And by that sign we knew which way he had gone—down-stream.

This cheered us, for we had worried in the night because we could not tell where to turn when we should start in pursuit. Now we hurried back to the trees we had selected and attacked them with ax and machete. Swiftly we built, from logs and bush-rope, a raft that would hold all three of us. When it was done we stood a minute breathing and mopping our faces.

It was then that we smelt an old camp. In the damp air hung the odor of dead ashes and decaying flesh. We turned and cut our way a short distance from the water, sniffing the air as we went. Soon we found what we hunted.

A flimsy palm-leaf shelter at the base of a fallen tree, charred embers of secret fires, bones of small animals and birds, a blood-stained club, and the half-eaten body of a sloth—that was all. It was the camp of a man without a canoe and with few cartridges, forced to exist on what little he could kill by stealth. He had seen or heard us arrive, spied on our camp while we two were away, taken a desperate chance and succeeded.

Pedro, searching the dirt floor, picked up an old cartridge-shell. It was of the same caliber as our own. We looked at each other and nodded. The thief now had plenty of ammunition, for we had left most of our bullets in the stolen canoes.

Wasting no more time in the place, we went back to our raft, and with poles in hand we shoved it to the spot where our-canoes had floated. Up above, we found Senhor Tom fumbling around and trying to make a fire.

As we built the fire for him we told him what we had found. His teeth gleamed in a deadly grin.

“Cut his trail, eh? A measly bush-bum, playing a lone hand. Thinks I'm dead and you boys are left flat with no boat. He's got another think coming. He couldn't get far in the dark last night, and that extra canoe he's towing will hold him back some. We'll be right on top of him soon, with any luck. And then may the —— have mercy on him—we won't!”

“You have said it, amigo,” Pedro rumbled. “We have no mercy for snakes. Come. This meat is roasted enough to eat, and we can chew it as we travel.”

“Right! Let's go!”

Down the bank we guided him to the raft. Then we rushed our hammocks and meat and weapons from the camp to the logs and got aboard. A minute later we two were poling our sluggish craft out into the creek. Between us, silent and sightless, Senhor Tom sat grimly fingering his gun.

IV.

STANDING and shoving with the poles, kneeling and plying our paddles, we drove the raft over shallows and depths. The slow current helped us, and luckily we met no bends too sharp to let our clumsy craft pass. There were turns in plenty, but all were wide enough to allow us to swing around them. So, considering the awkwardness of the thing we rode on, we made fair speed along that winding waterway.

We ate as we worked, chewing mouthfuls of meat and washing it down with handfuls of water dipped from the creek. And all the time we kept watch for any trace of a landing by the man we followed. But the bushy, sloping banks slid past with no sign that any one had ever set foot on them.

After we had settled down to our working and watching I began to do some thinking. I tried to put myself in the other man's place and to judge what he would do.

If I had shot a man and dragged a girl from a camp, knowing that two other men with guns were near, I should do as he had done with the canoes—take both of them, so that the other men could not follow. Having gotten away, I should go as fast and as far as possible in the first few hours. Darkness would not stop me for the night; I should stay in my boat even if I could only drift with the current, knowing that the drift would carry me several miles before dawn. When day came I should keep paddling until I was too tired and hungry to travel farther without rest and food. Then I should go ashore at some inlet where I could hide my boat and leave no sign on the shore.

But within the first mile or two, while I was doing my best to make speed, I should learn that the second canoe dragging behind was slowing me up. Since it was worse than useless, I should rid myself of it as soon as possible. The natural way to do this would be to hide it in some side stream or cove. And if the two men behind me were on the right bank, I should conceal that dugout on the left shore, where it could not be found if they followed down the edge of the stream.

Having figured this all out, I spoke of it to my companions. Senhor Tom, who had not spoken since leaving land, nodded. Pedro dryly answered that he had been watching the left bank sharply all the time. I said no more. The idea which had cost me so much thought had been in his head before we started.

But it was sound sense, even if it had taken me some time to see it. We had not gone another quarter-mile when Pedro muttered something and peered keenly at a bush-grown hollow in the left bank. The rising sun showed us dark water under those bushes. And as we pushed our raft toward them we saw that some of them had been cut by a machete.

The same thought jumped into our minds—here was the hiding-place of our canoe. And in our eagerness to reach it we both forgot what sort of thing we were traveling on. We shoved hard with our paddles. The clumsy raft tipped. Before we could right ourselves, one side of it ran up on a dark snag hidden just under the surface. We were thrown sprawling into deep water.

All three of us could swim, and we came up at once. Senhor Tom rose beside me, and I steered him to the logs. The raft had floated clear of the snag and was drifting down-stream. When we tried to lift ourselves over its edge it tilted again under our weight. It took several attempts before Pedro and I could climb on the crazy thing, and then we had trouble in helping Senhor Tom aboard. When all three of us were again on the logs we sat panting and laughing in relief.

Then our laughter died as if somebody had grabbed our throats. We were safe on the raft. Our wet hammocks, too, still clung to the logs. But nothing else was there. Our paddles, our poles, our ax, had gone overboard. So had our guns.

For an instant I felt numb. The loss of our guns struck me like a sickening blow. We had drifted some distance during our struggles, tilting the raft time and again, and where those weapons. now lay was more than we could know. Staring around, I saw only the paddles and poles floating away ahead of us.

“Hold on, senhor,” Pedro said coolly. “We are going after the paddles.”

He jumped off. I followed. We let the poles go, but saved the paddles and swam back to the logs. With them we worked the raft back to the left shore.

“We have nothing left to lose now, Senhor Tom, except our lives—and that cursed money of the Hawk's,” I said bitterly. “And we may not be long in losing them. Our guns are gone.”

“Good ——!” he exclaimed. “Overboard? How deep is the water?”

“Too deep, I fear. It is black, and the bottom is probably mud and snags. We shall look, but I doubt if we shall find them. We have drifted.”

His blank blue eyes stared ahead at nothing. His right hand felt for his revolver. It still hung in its holster.

“Well, dang it, we've still got a few shots left here,” he said, with a faint grin. “What are you kicking about? Anybody'd think we were out of luck, from your croaking. Come on, let's find the rest of the guns. If we can't, let's go.”

Looking into his face, I felt ashamed of myself. Blind, helpless, he sat there and said, “Let's go!” And I, with all my strength and all my senses, was moaning because our guns were lost.

“I am an old woman, comrade,” I said disgustedly. “We shall go on and get our man.”

“Now you're talking! Remember, there's a girl somewhere down ahead.” His face tightened.

“We have not forgotten.”

Then, telling him to sit quiet, we attacked the bush with our machetes as savagely as if it had been an enemy. A few minutes of swift cutting brought us back to the hollow where the dark water lay.

“Ha!” said Pedro. “A bit of good fortune at last.”

There, shoved well up on the dirt, was our canoe.

It was bare as bone. Not even a paddle was in it. But it was our own stout, speedy canoe in which we three had journeyed all the way from the headquarters of our old coronel, back on the Javary, and it was undamaged. The thief had not spent the time, even if he had the tool, to cut through its bottom and make it useless.

Pedro loped back to the raft and got the paddles, and I heard Senhor Tom's brief comment on the news.

“Uh-huh. Luck's swinging our way again. Hurry up!”

But before we returned to our North American partner we made desperate efforts to find our guns. Both of us were poor divers, and both of us knew well that more than one kind of death or injury might be waiting under the surface; but we went down again and again by turns, clawing around down there in the muck until we had to rise exhausted. In some places we could not reach the bottom. In others our hands met oozy mud or tangles of sunken trees whose slimy touch was like that of snakes. That was all we found.

The guns were gone forever.

Taking Senhor Tom aboard, we settled ourselves to make speed—Pedro in his usual place in the bow, the blind man in the middle, and I at the stern. Pain was in Senhor Tom's face again, and he held one hand to his head, though he made no complaint. We told him to lie down, and when he did so we put wet cloths on his head. It was all we could do for him.

“Move on, move on!” he growled. “Never mind about me.”

“We are moving,” Pedro told him. “But before we meet further trouble, will you lend me your revolver?”

He hesitated. Then, with a grim laugh, he held out the weapon.

“Never handed over my gun before to anybody,” he said. “But here it is. Only don't waste a shot.”

Pedro shoved it under his belt, and we sunk our paddles in the water. Once more we were on our way—in a real boat, but armed now only with one revolver, which neither of us two Brazilians could handle skilfully. With rifles or machetes we both could do deadly work, but we were not accustomed to hand-guns. And the man we followed had a rifle and cartridges enough to kill us twenty times over.

But there are more ways than one of fighting in the bush; and before we could fight our man we had to find him. Now we leaned on our paddles and drove down-stream fast—though not too fast to keep watch along shore. We looked not so much for signs of a landing as for marks of bumps at the turns; for we calculated that the fugitive had not had time to go far from the place where he abandoned the canoe before darkness had fallen on him. Then, unless he had the eyes of a cat, he would be likely to hit the bank at times.

Before we found such a sign, though, we had rounded a number of bends, and I began to fear we had deceived ourselves. Pedro, watching keenly, knocked this fear out of my head when he pointed to a place on shore where something had struck. It was at a curve where the current ran close to the land, and a boat had grounded there so forcibly that its paddler had had to push hard against the bank to free it. I grunted in satisfaction. We put a little more speed into our stroke.

The sun-shadows had grown much longer when we slowed again. Time after time we had found bump-marks along the way, and we knew the canoe had gone on with the current all night. We knew, too, that after a night of constant strain the paddler of that canoe would be tired at dawn. Now the marks had ended, and we judged that from this point he had been able to see his way. And at the place where he had begun to gain speed, we began to lose it; for we then had to scan both banks carefully for the place where he would leave the creek. But we believed he was not far ahead, and that he thought himself safe from us.

IT MIGHT have been an hour later when our search ended. The sloping banks had sunk and drawn away from the water, leaving a rather wide hollow which, in the wet season, would be a lagoon, but which now was a mass of bush. Through this the creek wormed sluggishly, and several inlets led off from it into the rank growth. It would be a poor place for honest men to camp, but a good refuge for a man who must have a few hours of sleep and who must hide while resting.

Very quietly we slipped our canoe up the first little waterway and looked about. We came out again with no result. The next one also was blank. So was the third. But up the fourth, which was deeper and on the other side of the creek, we found something.

There, its nose on shore, lay the canoe we had hunted.

But nothing was in it. It was as bare as the one in which we had chased it. No sound came from the bush around it, except the mournful call of some unseen bird. No smoke was in the air. The place seemed empty of all human life.

In the mud beside the deserted dugout, though, were man-tracks. Bare feet had stepped all about the bow—the feet of at least half a dozen men. Mud was in the bottom of the boat, too: wet mud which showed that the men had come into it from the shore, leaving their tracks on the wood. And the tracks were fresh.

Breathing a warning to Senhor Tom, we two bushmen stepped ashore and, with the revolver and our machetes drawn, stole along the trail made by those bare feet. It led back for about a rod into the tangle. Then we halted as if shot.

Sprawled on the ground before us was a man.

Short, stocky, ugly, brown of skin, clothed in torn shirt and ragged breeches, he lay with eyes and mouth partly open, still as a log. The shirt was sodden with blood, and the ground around him was soaked with it. In his body gaped several big wounds. From his throat jutted a broken arrow.

We had run down our man. But now that we had him, we could do nothing to him. And the girl who had been his prisoner was swallowed up by the jungle.

V.

RAPID scouting of the ground around the dead man told us several things.

He had brought his prisoner ashore, taken food from the canoe, mixed up some chibeh in a couple of gourds, and started to eat. Then he had been attacked and killed by several Indians armed with arrows and spears. The wild men had looted the boat, and with their plunder and the white girl they had gone back into the bush.

We followed the footmarks of the killers a short distance before turning back to Senhor Tom, and found that they led almost straight eastward. We found also something very valuable to us just at that time—a bag of farinha, dropped or flung aside by some man who thought it not worth carrying. It was one of our own bags, and it held little enough; but we pounced on it as if it were gold. Returning to the dead man to pick up the two upset gourds, we spied a couple of chunks of our salt pirarucu fish which he had not lived long enough to eat. With these and our news, we went back to our comrade who sat patiently waiting.

We gave him the news first, of course, and half the fish and farinha next. Pedro and I shared the other half between us, glad that he could not see how we were favoring him—for he certainly would have refused to eat more than his portion. As it was, he devoured all he had before saying a word.

“I feel better,” he announced then. “Wish I could have manhandled that brute myself, but since I couldn't I'm sure glad the Indians did him up so thoroughly. And Miss Marshall is at least one degree safer with the Indians, even though they are killers, than she was with the scum who dragged her here.

“This isn't cannibal country, as far as I know. The Indians hereabouts are mostly Tucunas, and they're a pretty decent lot. Likely as not they're taking her along to protect her. They'll lead her to their chief, anyway, and she's safe until then or later. Now we'll just have to trail them and talk straight to the chief, and everything will be fixed up. Let's go.”

Pedro and I looked at each other and tried to grin. We knew, and Senhor Tom himself knew, that matters were not so hopeful as he said. For one thing, we did not know that the Indians were Tucunas, and the body lying near us certainly did not look as if the killers were a “pretty decent lot.” Even if they were Tucunas, the Tucuna race had made up the army of the dead Black Hawk, who preyed on whites and was a destroyer of women. True, the Indians in his gang had obeyed him because they feared him, and most of them were glad of his death. Still—no, the outlook for the girl was not at all bright.

Nor were the chances very good that three men—one blind, the others poorly armed—could peaceably rescue a prisoner from a tribe who had just shown such ferocity toward the strange man who had landed there that morning. But there was only one thing for us to do—to take the trail as Senhor Tom had said. And we could waste no more time in talking about it.

Yet, with the path plain before us, we found ourselves facing a new problem. Up to this point our blind companion had been no hindrance to us; but now, with stealthy bush-work ahead, a sightless man was likely to be the worst possible obstacle to either speed or silence. For a minute or so we pondered. There was no way out of it—he must come with us. We could not leave him alone there, even if we hoped to return soon. Many things might come about while we were gone, and if we failed to come back he could only die in misery.

“Are your eyes any better, comrade?” Pedro asked gently.

“No better. Can't see a thing. You fellows had better leave me behind. I'm no good any more.”

“We shall do nothing of the kind,” I refused. “We stick together. It takes only one eye to follow the track of those savages, and we have four eyes among us. I will go ahead, and Pedro will follow with you.'

“But——”

“But nothing!” Pedro cut him off. “We shall do just that. The Indians probably have not come far from their village, and we ought to find them before long. You are so well used to jungle travel that you can walk nearly as quietly as we, so long as you have a guide. I will cut a short stick, which you and I will carry in our left hands. I will move the stick to right or left as we turn, lift it if we have to step high, and push back if we must stop. If you feel me drop it suddenly, squat as low as you can and keep still.”

With that he cut a small stiff piece of bush and trimmed it to a bare stick about a yard long. With no more argument, Senhor Tom grasped the end Pedro gave him and stood behind him, ready to follow. I took the revolver from my partner and started away along the trail.

Once started, I gave little attention to the pair behind me. Pedro, I knew, would give all his care to helping Senhor Tom move quietly, and I could use my eyes and ears altogether for tracking the men ahead.

On the soft, watery ground of that low flat the footmarks were easy enough to follow. I judged that eight or more men had filed through that bush, and the tracks they left behind would have been plain even to a child—that is, a jungle child. Now and then I saw bootprints, but not often. This told me that the girl was walking with most of the men behind her. Nowhere could I find any sign of a scuffle or an attempt by her to break away from her new captors. This might mean either that she was not much afraid of them or that she knew any such effort would be useless.

The trail wound along in a rambling way, veering around dense or thorny patches of undergrowth—the path of men without machetes to cut their way. But it always swung back eastward, and I knew the men were going as straight as they could to their own little town. Either they were walking fast or they had left the creek earlier than we supposed, for I never got sight or sound of them. For that matter, my own gait was not speedy, for I paused at times to listen or to give my companions a chance to gain on me.

Senhor Tom was doing splendidly. Not once did I hear him stumble. As Pedro had said, the explorer was experienced in jungle travel and knew how to put his feet down, and with the pressure of the little stick to guide him he needed no words to make him step right. The couple walked so quietly that twice I waited until Pedro came into sight to make sure that nothing had happened to them. Both times Pedro motioned me onward, and after that I attended only to what was ahead.

The ground began to rise and become firm. Then the undergrowth thinned out and the light became more dim. Tall trees, their crowns thickly matted far overhead, towered around me. The trail became harder to follow now, as the tracks of the traveling band became much less plain on the harder dirt. Yet, by keeping keen watch of it, I remained on it until a smell stopped me.

It was the odor of wood-smoke, drifting on a little breath of air from some place not far ahead. As I stood quiet, shouting voices sounded faintly from a distance, and then came a sound which might be either the barking of a small dog or the yapping of a toucan. The Indian town was near.

Waiting until Pedro again appeared, I gave him a warning signal. He halted at once; and so closely was Senhor Tom attending to the movements of the guiding stick that they did not bump. I signed ahead, saw him sniff the air and listen, then come on more carefully; and I resumed my way.

Only a few steps farther on I found a path. Here the tracks which I had followed disappeared. But I noted which way they turned on entering that path, observed the direction of the path itself—and then avoided it. Drawing back from it, I signaled again to Pedro, then began traveling toward the place to which the path led, though keeping well away from the beaten track. I wanted to reach the town unseen, not to be met on the way by some Indian who might alarm the others and force a fight on us before we could speak. Fighting was the last thing we wanted just then.

The voices ahead became silent, but the yapping sound continued until it suddenly ended in a shrill yelp. There was no question now that it was made by a dog, which had just been kicked by some one tired of his racket. With the ceasing of the animal's noise all became quiet.

Soon the roof of branches before us gave way to open sky, and bright light struck in among the trunks from a space empty of trees. Slipping along between the tall columns, I reached their end. Beyond was a small clearing. In the clearing stood a long house.

And that was all I saw—the house. Not a man, woman, or child—not even the yelping dog—was in sight. Smoke rolled lazily from roof-holes, though, showing that the house was not empty. It was a maloca, or tribal house, and just then every one was inside.

While waiting for Pedro and Senhor Tom, I studied the shelter. I had seen the malocas of wild men farther south, but not until recently had I been in the Tucuna country, and this type of shelter was new to me. Instead of being circular in shape and walled with logs, it was oblong, with walls of palm-leaves; a place not built for defense, but the sort of house in which peaceable people ought to live. If those flimsy walls meant anything, these Indians were not warriors. Still, one can not always tell, from the appearance of a house, what sort of people are inside it; and men who were peaceful yesterday may be ugly foes today.

I took my gaze off the place to look at Senhor Tom, who now had come up and stood quiet behind me. His face seemed drawn, and I judged that the heat and the fatigue of marching without sight had made his head ache again; but he made no murmur. Quietly I told him what was before us.

“Uh-huh,” he breathed. “Regular Tucuna maloca. All inside looking at the prisoner. No use in our sticking here. What are you waiting for?”

I looked again at the house and back at him. Then I slid his revolver back into its holster and loosened my machete.

“If trouble comes, senhor,” I said, “your gun will not be of much use to me among half a hundred Indians. At close quarters I can do much work with cold steel. So you had best keep it.”

“If trouble does come,” he answered, his mouth tightening, “you fellows try to cut your way out with Miss Marshall and make your getaway. I'll guarantee to damage whatever is in front of me, and I'll make such a riot that maybe you can break out with her. You two chaps are wicked scrappers with machetes, and among the three of us we can make a sizable hole in this town's population—if we have to. But maybe a bold front will turn the trick without a row.”

Then, for the first time, he showed the strain of sightlessness. His blank eyes flickering, he blurted bitterly: “God! What wouldn't I give for a pair of real eyes just now?”

“Perhaps you will need no eyes, comrade,” Pedro soothed him. “Let us walk three abreast, with you in the middle. Hold your head high and look grim, and with us to guide you nobody need know you can not see.”

“Right! That's the dope. Run a bluff on them if we can. When you're dealing with Tucunas, even if they're friendly, it doesn't pay to look weak.

With that we stopped our muttering and walked out into the open.

Shoulder to shoulder we strode across the open space, steering the explorer's steps by slight touches on the arms, but never looking at him. With heads up and eyes straight ahead, we came to the narrow door of the tribal house, swung so that I was ahead of Senhor Tom and Pedro was behind him, and stepped boldly inside.

VI.

THE place was very dim.

So dim it was, indeed, that after our march through the brilliant sunshine I found myself almost blinded by the abrupt change to murky twilight. I had to halt a moment to let my eyes adjust themselves. And in that moment several things happened.

Senhor Tom, unwarned of my pause, bumped me hard from behind. I lurched forward and rammed my face into a stout pole upholding the roof. The unexpected thump knocked a grunt out of me and brought from my blind follower a sharp question.

“What's the matter there?”

At the same instant a droning voice somewhere among the Indians before us stopped suddenly. There came a hiss of indrawn breath, an outbreak of hoarse mutterings from men and squeals of fright from women, a voice of authority grunting commands, and a scuffling, shuffling sound which soon ended.

Silently cursing my luck, I drew away from the post and faced a number of Indian men advancing grimly up a small aisle between hammock-hung roof-poles. All the effect of our bold entrance was spoiled by that mischance; for instead of striding among the Tucunas before they knew of us we had bumped about like drunkards. We had lost our dignity at the outset; and to white men unexpectedly invading an Indian maloca such a loss may prove serious.

Now I saw that the men filing toward us held spears. A growling voice spoke, and the spears were leveled at our stomachs. I reached for my machete. But a quick thought made me halt my hand and lift it, empty.

“Hold, Tucunas!”?” I barked. “We are friends. Here is Tupahn the Thunderstorm, friend of Tucunas and killer of that Black Hawk who enslaved the Tucuna warriors. Is this your welcome to such a man?”

It was a shrewd shot. I remembered that Senhor Tom was known among the Tucunas as Tupahn because of the roaring voice he could use in giving commands, and that he held their respect because of his masterly ways and his straight dealings with them. Before this time I had seen Tucunas change from surliness to civility on hearing his name. And now that he had killed Black Hawk their former respect ought to have become awe.

And so it had. The menacing spearmen halted in their tracks as I stepped aside and showed them Senhor Tom standing straight and somber against the light from the doorway. My sight had righted itself by now, and, watching them peer at him, I saw how deeply impressed they were. Their spears did not waver, but they made no further move toward us.

Then from behind them sounded that same growling voice we had heard when the weapons were lowered. Speaking in the Tupi lengoa geral, it asked:

“Who comes with Tupahn? Why comes Tupahn to this maloca?”

“We two are the comrades of Tupahn—free men of the forest who stood with him when Black Hawk fell,” I answered gruffly “We come to talk with the chief. Stand back and let us pass.”

Now that our clumsy entrance was forgotten for the moment, I could use the bold tones most likely to be impressive. Besides, I was a little angered by the surliness of that voice, and when angered I am not meek. As I spoke I began advancing again.

The spearmen raised their weapons now, but before moving back to the central space where the fires burned they looked over their shoulders as if seeking an order from the growler. After a short pause it came, and they pressed back out of our way. I walked on with head up and jaw out. Behind me Senhor Tom, guided by a whisper and a touch from Pedro, stalked with the dignity of a chief.

As we walked I wondered briefly why we had heard no cry of welcome from the senhorita, who must be standing before the chief. Then I recalled that she knew nothing of the Tupi tongue, could hardly have seen us through the pack of Indians, and probably did not recognize my voice. While the crowd divided to let us pass through I looked ahead, seeking her. And when we entered the open space where the chief's fire burned I swept the circle of faces around us with swift eyes. Then I stopped, staring all about.

No white girl was there.

Wherever I looked, only Indian faces met me. Women were there, and girls; but all were reddish of skin, painted with the short straight cheek-lines of the Tucuna race, unclothed, and adorned only with bark bracelets and anklets. They were Indians all.

“You ask for the chief,” spoke the harsh voice. “You see him.”

Up to that minute I had not seen him. But now I had to take my eyes off the women and look at him. Again I was astonished. The voice was that of a strong, deep-chested man. But the man sitting in the chief's brightly feathered hammock was thin, shriveled, wrinkled, and bowed with age. His lips were sunken as if his teeth had long been gone, his eyes peered dimly from hollow sockets, and his neck looked like a stick.

As my gaze went down his withered frame I saw at his feet a small pile of things which cheered me. Failing to find the senhorita, I had felt an instant's doubt that we had come to the right place, though her trail could lead nowhere else. But there on the ground lay the supplies stolen with our canoes by the man who had shot Senhor Tom. With them was a rifle and a machete, undoubtedly taken from that man by his killers. The girl also must be here.

“Has Tupahn the Thunderstorm lost his thunder?” asked the voice, with a mocking note. “Has he no word for Andirah the Bat?”

This time I saw the man who spoke. He was not Andirah, the old chief, but a solid-bodied Indian who stood at the right hand of the ruler. His face, like that of the Bat, was painted with a scroll on each cheek instead of the usual short lines. His eyes were narrow and cold. His lower teeth showed as he talked, giving him an ugly sneering expression. His chest bore a snaky line of red paint, and looped across it from his thick neck was a string of teeth. I guessed at once what he was.

Andirah, the Bat, was head of the tribe by blood and by right. But this other man who spoke for him was the pajé: medicine-man, priest, wizard, and probably the real ruler here. And he was hostile to us.

“Tupahn gives greeting to his friend Andirah,” boomed Senhor Tom. “The Storm and the Bat are brothers.”

Everybody jumped. Even the ancient Bat started and the pajé blinked at the roar of the explorer's voice. Though blind, Senhor Tom was not deaf. He had caught the sneer in that priest's tones, and he gave back the thunder for which the wizard had asked.

In the silence that followed I spoke low but fast in Portuguese to the blind man.

“Turn your head as if looking at all faces. Then hold your eyes as they are now, toward the chief,” I directed. “The senhorita is not in sight. Our goods are here on the ground before the chief. So are the gun and machete of the dead man. The chief is old and dried up. The one who talks is the medicine-man—an ugly brute.”

Senhor Tom did as told, and did it well. I knew the pajé would ask soon what we wanted, and Senhor Tom must know the situation first. Every eye was on him as he turned his head, frowning as if he sought a face without finding it. All the Indians except the old Bat and his pajé stared unwinking at the great Tupahn. The chief sat like a post, and the medicine-man watched through lids narrower than before.

When the yellow-haired man faced again toward the chief's hammock he spoke out without awaiting a question.

“Tupahn comes to his brother for that which is his own,” he announced. “Tupahn finds on the ground certain things stolen from him last night by an enemy. He seeks, but does not see, his woman who was stolen by the same enemy. Tupahn asks Andirah to restore to him the woman and his other property.”

There was another silence. I looked around again, studying faces. None except the pajé looked hostile, but none looked very friendly either. Then I noticed that the men nearest the chief, one of whom probably had been talking when we entered, were looking sidelong at their ruler. And four of them held spears whose points were blood-stained.

They were the killers of the man on the creek. They had laid their plunder before the chief, and their tale was not finished when we arrived. Yet no girl was here. A cold fear began to grow on me. The blood on those spear-points—was it all from the veins of a man?

The shriveled lips of old Andirah opened. But before he could speak the pajé made answer, and the chief's words died.

“So Tupahn the Thunderstorm, killer of Black Hawk, was unable to keep his own woman? With two men to aid him, he is robbed of his goods—and a woman?”

The sneer this time was plain. Senhor Tom's face reddened. I bit my tongue to keep from making an angry answer.

“Tupahn was shot from behind,” barked Senhor Tom. “No man can guard himself against a snake that strikes from under a bush. His comrades were away in the forest. If Andirah thinks Tupahn weak, let him hear:

“Tupahn was shot in the head by a rifle. He was left without a canoe, so far from here that it took the men who shot him eighteen hours to reach the place where he was found by the men of the Bat. Yet, struck down by a bullet and with no boat, Tupahn and his comrades started this morning, followed and found that snake, trailed also the men of Andirah, and are here before the noonday meal.”

A mutter of astonishment passed among the listening Indians. Knowing nothing of our raft and our finding of the hidden canoe, they supposed us to have come through the bush. Some scowled as if they could hardly believe it. Others stared as if they thought us to be demons in the bodies of men. But the pajé refused to be impressed.

“Tupahn could not do as he says unless he rode on the back of the storm itself,” he jeered. “And have Tupahn and his men lost their guns also? We see none.”

The men with bloody spears nodded at this, and their eyes looked unpleasant. But Senhor Tom answered like a flash.

“We do not insult our friend Andirah by bringing our guns into his maloca. And if you hint that Tupahn lies you speak false. The Tucunas know that Tupahn tells truth.”

Now more men nodded; for Senhor Tom had a name for speaking straight. The old Bat himself looked pleased by the explorer's words, and his lips opened again. But the blind man, not knowing that the chief was about to speak, roared out at the pajé.

“And Tupahn comes to talk to Andirah, the chief—not to a dog-voiced pajé who snarls and growls. Perhaps the pajé thinks himself chief here? If not, why does he snatch the words from his ruler's mouth?”

This was straight talk in truth. The face of the priest seemed to bloat with rage, but he hesitated and shot a glance at Andirah. The mouth of the Bat set grimly. And this time he replied for himself:

“The Storm roars loud,” he said in a thin but firm voice? “but the Storm strikes straight. The Bat is chief. None but the Bat rules while the Bat lives. Tupahn and his men are welcome. They shall have what is theirs. A feast shall be made for them.”

There was no question that he still was chief. Old and weak, but all the more jealous of his power because of his age, he would not let the pajé make all his decisions for him. I gave that angry but silent medicine-man a nasty grin and began looking around again for the senhorita. But the next words of the Bat struck like a blow.

“But Tupahn seeks his woman in the wrong place. No white woman has come here.”

For a moment we stood like staring fools, shocked dumb. Then the thought came to me that the old man lied. But, studying his face, I doubted it. It was an honest old face, and his tone had the ring of truth. And, as has been said, we had found no white girl there.

Again I looked at those red spear-points, and I spoke out harshly.

“Then what have the men of Andirah done with her? She was taken by them from the place where the man was killed. We have followed the trail and we know. Are the men of the Bat like that Black Hawk who ruled them—destroyers of women?”

Senhor Tom growled. His right hand lifted to the butt of his revolver. But Pedro's hand closed over his, holding it down.

“Tupahn is wrong,” the chief answered evenly. “The man of Tupahn is wrong also. No man of the Bat ever followed Black Hawk. No man of the Bat hurts women. No woman has been brought here.

“The men of the Bat found at the water two men. One was a man of Black Hawk. That man had done evil to the people of Andirah in time gone by. For that evil he was killed today by the men of Andirah.

“The other man was brought here. It was his trail which came to this maloca. Tupahn has followed the wrong trail.”

Numbly we stood there after the chief's words ended. The Bat, honest as ever, looked straight at us. The priest and the other Tucunas stood wooden-faced. There was no sound but the soft hiss of firewood cooking the chief's dinner.

Then Senhor Tom made a choking noise.

“God!” he muttered: “Two men! They carried her down the creek—and last night while they drifted——”

He could not finish. We knew his thought: that before dawn the girl had been murdered—after those two brutes had their way.

I felt sick. Then I burned with sudden fury.

“Where is that other man?” I snarled. “Give him to us! He is our enemy. A foul, murdering dog who belongs to us. If he still lives, bring him here!”

Andirah sat a moment considering. While he hesitated the pajé growled again.

“Andirah, chief of the people of the Bat, does what he will with his own prisoners. He takes no command from any man.”

The priest had turned Senhor Tom's own weapon against us. As before, the old chief was quick to assert his power when reminded of it.

“The man is the prisoner of the Bat,” he agreed. “The Bat will deal with him at his own time. Tupahn shall have what is his. The Bat also shall keep what is his. Tupahn must hunt his woman in the forest. She is not here.”

“Bring that man here!” roared Senhor Tom.

But the chief repeated stubbornly.

“The man is the prisoner of the Bat.”

He was right. His men, not we, had caught that captive. And I saw that Andirah was growing angry and some of his men looked grim. To stay longer would be worse than useless.

So again I told Senhor Tom how matters stood. He gritted his teeth, but kept his head.

“Tupahn goes,” he said shortly.

As if giving us a silent command, he waved a hand outward toward the chief. We strode forward and gathered up our belongings. The rifle and machete of the dead man we threw aside, though we ached to take the gun also. But that gun was not ours, and every Indian was watching. Besides, we were supposed to have left our own guns outside.

Yet we got that gun after all. As we three turned away the Bat's good nature returned,

“Tupahn will not stay to feast with Andirah?” he asked. “Then let Tupahn take as a gift the gun that shot him.”

Instantly I stepped back and seized the weapon. Speaking low, I said:

“The heart of Tupahn is sore because his woman is lost. But he will take the gift of Andirah and remember his friendship.”

The sunken lips smiled faintly. With no more words, I returned quickly to my comrades.

Guided by secret touches from both of us, Senhor Tom went out as he had come in; head high, blue eyes straight ahead, giving no sign of the blackness in his sight and in his heart. Through the little door we passed without a bump, and on into the bright light of noon. Shoulder to shoulder we strode across the clearing to the edge of the forest. A few steps more, and we were lost to the sight of the men of the Bat.

VII.

WORDLESS, we passed along the a beaten path of the people of Andirah to the point where it was joined by the trail we had followed from the creek. Still silent, we turned off there and trod again on our own footprints, heading back toward the canoes which we had lost and found again. But when well away from the Indian path, we halted.

“I do not believe it,” Pedro asserted.

I looked at him. His face, usually ready to break into a smile, now was hard. His warm brown eyes had turned cold, and his jaws were shut like a trap. Through his teeth he repeated—

“I do not believe it.”

“Believe what?” Senhor Tom asked dully. `

“That the senhorita is dead, or even lost. I believe she is there in that maloca. Something tells me that we have been very near her, and that now we are going farther away from her at every step.”

“I wish to God I could believe that too,” muttered the blind man. “But that old Andirah's voice sure was that of a man talking straight.”

“And so was his face,” I added. “I watched him like a hawk, and I can tell when a man lies to me. Besides, why should he lie to us? We were three men, poorly armed, surrounded and badly outnumbered. He was not in the least afraid of us, and he did not want to be rid of us. He asked us to stay to a feast, gave us back all our goods, made us a present of this gun, and was more than fair to us throughout. If he is a liar I am a fool.”

Pedro nodded slowly.

“I too believe him to be honest,” he admitted. 'Yet I can not believe that the senhorita is not in that maloca. I think there is trickery somewhere, and that the pajé is at the bottom of it.”

Then he grinned faintly.

“Senhor Tom, you kicked that dog hard,” he went on. “He showed his teeth like a savage brute when you made the chief humble him before all the tribe. He will bite you if his chance ever comes.”

“He'll find me tough chewing,” was the explorer's reply. “But let's thrash this matter out right here. God knows I want to believe you're right about Marion, but I've got to have some reason for that belief. What do you base your hope on?”

His haggard face was so eager that I looked elsewhere; for I believed the girl was dead. Pedro, before answering, drew him down on a fallen tree which happened to be beside us and made two cigarets—one for Senhor Tom and one for himself. I sat down beside them and made a smoke of my own.

“If you ask for cold, hard reasons, comrade,” my partner said then, “I can give you almost none. For one thing, we have seen nothing to prove that two men were in this affair. True, the heel-tracks of the prisoner taken to the maloca were those of a man's boots; but we know that the senhorita was wearing your extra boots, and I believe the tracks are hers.”

That was true enough. As the time when the girl was saved from Black Hawk she had had no clothing except a long shapeless garment given her by an old Indian woman, and Senhor Tom had given her his spare kit to wear until she could reach a place where she could get something more suitable. She had had to stuff leaves into the boots to make them small enough for her feet, but she had worn them.

“If they are not hers, whose are they?” Pedro went on. “Boots are scarce in this bush. Lourenço and I wear none. Indians wear none. The two dead men we have found since leaving the camp of Black Hawk had none. I do not believe there are more than two pairs of boots within many miles of this spot; and both of those pairs are your own.”

“But,” I objected, too if those boots which went to the maloca were Senhor Tom's the feet of the senhorita may not have been in them.”

I meant, of course, though I did not say so, that after being murdered she had also been stripped of the boots by her killers. Such low brutes would not be likely to throw away new, stout footwear.

Pedro scowled as if he had not thought of that. After a few puffs at his cigaret, though, he said:

“Perhaps. But Senhor Tom's feet are rather small. The feet of such men as that one back on the creek are big and flat. I do not believe his partner—if he had one—would be able to wear Senhor Tom's boots. Yet the chief reasons why I believe the senhorita lives are because we were not allowed to see the prisoner, and because—I feel in my bones that she is in that maloca.”

As he had said at first, they were not good reasons. Yet both of them made us think before answering. To Senhor Tom, the fact that the captives had been kept out of our sight was the important thing. But I, who had known Pedro to uncover strange matters simply because he “felt in his bones” that certain things were so, was thoughtful because of the memories of those times.

“It sure looks mighty queer that the Bat kept his prisoner out of sight,” the explorer grumbled. “No reason why he couldn't have given us a look at him.”

“I think there were two reasons,” said I. “One was that he thought we would kill the brute. The other was that the pajé stopped him from granting our demands.”

Pedro nodded quickly.

“And that pajé, as I have said, is at the bottom of it,” he insisted. “He opposed us from the first. He sent those spearmen to block us before he even knew who we were. I heard his orders.”

“What were they?”

“You did not hear? I remember now—you were trying to knock down a roof-pole. He said, 'More enemies come. Stop them. Take this one away. Be quick.'”

“Then he called the captive an enemy?” asked Senhor Tom. 'Why should he call a helpless white girl that? I'm afraid, old man, that you're all wrong.”

“Perhaps,” Pedro said doggedly. “But, right or wrong, senhor, I am going to see that prisoner with my own eyes before I go on to the great river.

“By thunder, you're right that time!” Senhor Tom approved. “We've got to know who and what he—or she—is before we give up. And we've got to be up and doing, not sitting here like three bumps on a log. We'd better go on back to our canoe, get aboard, and pull out down-stream as if continuing our search; then land again at a good place and sneak up on the maloca. The Bat—or, more likely, that lousy priest—will send men after us to be sure we're gone, of course. So let's go.”

There was more snap in his tones than at any time since we left the tribal house. Hope was alive in him again, even if it lived on very scant food.

He flipped away his cigaret-butt and arose. We too stood up. As we got into line again I happened to glance back, and as I did so a head faded out of sight behind a big tree-trunk near by. True enough, we were being trailed and watched by the Bat's men.

Giving the spies no sign that I knew of this, I set my face toward the creek and passed on with my friends. Speaking low, I told them we were under watch, so that they would walk and act in the right manner. Not once on our return trip did we look back—not once did we hear a sound from the silent shapes stealing along behind; but we knew they were there, all the way.

At the creek we pretended to argue whether we should now go up or down-stream, pointing first one way and then the other. And then, as an excuse for taking both canoes, we feigned to disagree and separate. Senhor Tom and Pedro, in the bow and stern of one, shoved off in angry fashion and, at the mouth of the inlet, turned down-stream. In the other I went up the creek from some distance, then hesitated, looked back, scratched my head, appeared to change my mind, turned, and paddled fast to overtake my mates.

If the spies waited long enough to see me return they probably told their pajé later that I was a fool who did not know his own mind. But we had the canoes.

AFTER journeying around several a loops in the wandering creek we left the flat land behind and once more entered a stretch of steep sloping banks. A little farther on we found a break in them where we could slip out of sight. This we promptly did. And when we had scouted a little in the forest above we made a camp.

“Now, senhor,” Pedro said when we had eaten, “we leave you for a time. This morning we would not do so. But things have changed. You now have food and cartridges, your gun and your hammock and tobacco, and——”

“All the comforts of home,” Senhor Tom interrupted. “Go ahead, fellows. I'll be here when you get back. Only—bring back our lady.”

“We shall try,” I told him. “Be of good heart, comrade.”

And we left him; left him in a safe secret camp, but alone and in pain of head and pain of heart; left him to dreary hours of blackness. Yet it was the only way. We knew he was sick from headache and strain, and that he must rest. He knew we could move much more freely without him, and that on this spying trip of ours he would be worse than useless. So, with no adeos, we slipped away into the wilderness.

With us we carried the rifle given us by Andirah. It was a battered, dirty old weapon, badly in need of a thorough cleaning; but we had not taken time to do more than oil it a little and test the lever action. As long as it would throw a bullet it was good enough for our present use. We hoped we should not have to use it at all, but if we did we should undoubtedly shoot at such close quarters that we could not miss, no matter how worn and foul its barrel was. With it and our machetes we were well armed against anything likely to oppose us.

“A miserable old gun,” I said as we started. “Yet, from a chief, a princely gift. It is the first time I have ever known an Indian to give away a rifle. I wonder if the old fellow suspected that we had none?”

“Possibly,” Pedro granted. “If so, he is all the more a gentleman. Or it may be only that he felt it was fitting to give Senhor Tom the gun that had struck him down. An Indian has queer ideas sometimes.”

With that we stopped talking and gave all our attention to the task of finding the maloca again without being seen.

Though we now were hunting the tribal house from a new direction and had no trail to follow, we worked onward with good speed and confidence; for both of us had ranged the jungle too much to be easily confused in finding a place where we once had been. The slant of the shadows and of the scattered sun-rays boring through the leafy top overhead was all we needed to guide our course. And though we had traveled some distance down-stream after leaving the inlet where the dead man lay, we were little farther from the tribal house than before.

After threading the forest for awhile, hearing only a few scattered bird-calls, we almost jumped when a sudden outbreak of noise ahead struck sharply on our ears. Then we recognized it as the yapping of that cur which we had heard before. It seemed so close that I feared the brute was prowling the bush and that he now would run back to the house, barking so hard as to alarm the Indians. But a little more cautious advancing brought us to a point where we saw light beyond the trees, and we realized that the dog was only fussing around in the clearing. We had almost reached the maloca.

A few minutes more, and we were crouching at the edge of the open space. But now that we had arrived, we saw nothing worth looking at. One side of the building was toward us, the door was around the corner and out of sight, and all we observed was the noisy dog—a yellow pup—and some small children chasing him about.

Yet the fact that only a few children were outside was in itself worth noticing. Usually some women would be at work near a tribal house and men would be moving about; but no grown person was in sight here. That could mean only one of two things; either every one had left the place, or something inside the house was so interesting that the usual tasks of the tribe were being neglected. Since the children were here, their elders also must be here. So we began trying to find a way to look into the maloca without being seen by the children or the dog.

The best plan, we decided, would be to work around to the rear, creep along the ground to the thatch wall, and cut our way into it until we could see. Retreating a few steps, we slipped along just inside the edge of the trees until we found the back of the house facing us. The children and the dog were out of our sight now, though we still heard their cries beyond the house. We dropped to hands and knees and began crawling out into the clearing.

But our advance ended almost as soon as it began. Before we had gone a dozen feet we stopped short, listened, looked, and went swiftly creeping back to cover.

Around the maloca came the whole tribe of the people of the Bat. At their head marched the medicine-man. And they were coming straight toward us.

VIII.

CROUCHING behind a tree, we waited.

We saw that the coming of the tribe was not an attack on us; saw that nobody bore weapons in a threatening manner, though all walked quietly and there was no shouting or laughter; saw that nobody, indeed, seemed to know we were there. And then we saw something else—that in the middle of a knot of armed men just behind the pajé traveled a thing that seemed not be be human.

Just what is was we could not tell at first, for we were lying low and could not see well. But its head rose more than a foot above those of the Indians, and it was the head of a great bat—a hideous bloodsucking vampire, bigger than a man. Its mouth was partly open, red as blood, with wicked teeth grinning like those of demon of the great pit, and its eyes bulged as if glaring around for prey. Yet the Tucunas around it showed no fear of the awful thing, marching on as coolly as if it were not there at all.

Wondering, ready for anything, but keeping silent, we watched the thing and its escort approach. But they did not meet us. Not more than ten feet away from us they passed into the forest, giving no glance in our direction. The whole troop went by and was gone.

“Did you see that thing?” Pedro whispered.

I nodded. When it passed close to us I had learned what it was.

“A big mask of bark-cloth and sticks and dye, worn on some one's shoulders,” I muttered. “What do you make of it?”

“This: No white face was among those passing by, and I believe the captive is inside that bat-mask. That sneaking priest is doing devil's work. Come.”

He crept away toward the place where the Indians had entered the forest.

There we found a path—a plain, wide path which we had not found before because we had turned short of it. Peering along it, we found it empty. The crowd had gone around a bend.

We did not enter the path. Instead, we worked along beside it, keeping always behind trees. Soon we heard a single voice talking—a growling voice which seemed to be making a short speech, but which did not speak loudly enough for us to make out the words. We knew the snarling tones to be those of the priest.

Suddenly Pedro, a few feet ahead of me, sank low. I dropped. A slight rustle sounded at our right, and through the leaves I glimpsed the Indians trooping back to their maloca. As silently as they had gone into the forest, they passed by us for the second time and were gone. And this time neither priest nor bat-head marched among them.

When the last Tucuna had disappeared we arose and advanced swiftly toward the place where we had heard that voice. Only two or three rods farther on we found another clearing and another house.

Both the open space and the hut in it were small; but the house was built in the same style as the maloca—square-cornered, and thickly thatched from ground to peak. In it we could see no door. Nothing else stood in the clearing, and nobody was in sight. To all appearances, the place was bare of life.

Yet we were sure that the pajé, at least, was in that house. Quietly we stole all around the little circle of trees, seeking the door. But we did not find it. The thatch walls seemed unbroken everywhere.

Whispering together, we decided on a ruse. We wanted to look into that hut without letting the priest know of it. But our only chance to do so was to find the door; for the place was so small that any attempt to cut into the walls, as we had intended to do at the maloca, would be heard inside. So we separated, each finding a position where he could watch one side and one end at the same time. Then Pedro gave the wail of an owl.

An owl wailing in broad day was queer enough to make even a wizard look around him; but my partner gave the call twice to make sure it was heard. A long minute passed before any response came. Then, at the corner nearest me, a black crack opened. Through it came the head of the medicine-man, squinting in the sunglare and peering around the open space.

He looked even more ugly than usual, and I suspected that he thought some youth from the maloca might be joking with him. But he did not come out to investigate. After standing there a couple of seconds he stepped back. The black opening narrowed and vanished.

Pedro, who had been watching the other side, came along to the edge of the bush until he could see me and signal to ask whether I had seen anything. I pointed to the corner and motioned him out. Quietly but quickly, we crossed the bare ground to the secret door.

As we walked we heard a voice inside the hut—a voice low but harsh, which we knew to be that of the wizard.

“You will do what I tell you,” it said. “You will obey, or you die.”

If any one answered, we did not hear the reply. And we did not wait at the door to hear what might happen next. I grasped a handful of wall-thatch and pulled sharply, expecting the door to swing out and let us stride in. Instead, the dry leaves made a loud rustle and stayed where they were. No door opened.

Again I yanked, harder than before. Again the wall crackled but stayed shut. Inside we heard quick movements, something that sounded like a struggle, and a grunt as if a man strained at a weight. We wasted no more time trying to pull out the door. Drawing our machetes, we hacked at the palm-leaves.

“Open!” Pedro growled in Tupi. “Open, dog, or we will chop you apart as we cut this wall!”

No answer came. The door stayed barred. Furiously we slashed at the thatch and its pole framework, gouging out chunks of it but making slower progress than we wished. Then Pedro stopped, nudged me and said:

“Stop, comrade! Why toil so? Let us burn the place instead. It will blaze up swiftly, and the dog will roast in his own hole. It will be more fun to hear him scream while the red flame blisters his thick hide.”

This time an answer came—a startled grunt from within. I promptly replied:

“So it will. He is so fat that he ought to sizzle well.”

Then, as if speaking to others, I added:

“Move back a little, men. Fire the walls, but keep the place surrounded so that he cannot break out anywhere.”

While I spoke Pedro lighted a small bunch of dry leaf which lay near the wall but did not touch it. The blaze crackled, smoke floated into the holes we had made—and again came a quick movement and a grunt inside. A bar slid with a slithering rasp. The door jumped open. Out popped the pajé.

Instantly Pedro kicked the tiny fire several feet away, where it would die out with no damage. In the same move he swung to the wizard, whom I already was facing. The narrow eyes of the priest now were wide open with fear, and sweat was rolling down his cheeks and chest. Yet in one glance he saw how he had been tricked, and the fear in his face changed to a scowl of rage.

“So you do not fancy being toasted?” mocked Pedro. “Then back into your hole and keep quiet. If you should yell this machete might slip.”

The point of his machete was against the bare stomach of the other. After one look at my comrade's hard face the evil-eyed Indian backed. Almost walking on his retreating toes, we followed him into the dimly lighted interior. There we looked for the prisoner.

At one side, within reach of my arm, the horrible bat-head leered at me. It stood as motionless as if nothing alive were inside it. I grabbed the thing by the nose and gave it a sharp twitch. It fell over and lay leaning against the wall. Glancing down, I found that in truth no living thing was in it. It had been resting on a tall, narrow clay jar, nearly as high as a man.

Around us stood other jars, of queer shapes and different sizes. But, except us three men, no living thing stood among them. The captive whom we had expected to find was nowhere in sight.

The pajé, looking poisonous but saying nothing, stood as still as the jars, with my partner's knife still leveled at his abdomen. I stared straight at him, then searched the place more carefully with my eyes. As before, I saw nothing but the clay vessels.

“Where is the prisoner?” I demanded. “Answer quickly!”

“The prisoner of Andirah is in the maloca of Andirah,” he replied sulkily.

“You are a liar,” Pedro flashed. “Where is the one who wore that bat-mask to this evil den of yours?”

“He has returned to the maloca.”

“No more lies!” my partner warned. His knife hand moved a little. The pajé stepped back sharply, his skin pricked by the point of the blade.

“Who wore that mask here?” Pedro went on.

“A man of the tribe of the Bat.”

We gave him hard stares. He stared back without a flicker of the eyes.

“A man of Andirah?” I repeated. “He wore that here and then returned with his mates?”

“So I have said.”

“Then who was with you here after the men of the Bat left?”

“No man.”

“Have care, priest! We heard you threaten one with death.”

At that his eyes swerved aside. But at once they came back.

“I, pajé of Andirah, spoke to the spirit within that clay beyond you.”

His glance went back to the same place where he had looked before. There stood another of those big jars—an odd-looking thing, shaped like half an egg, with the pointed end up. It was perhaps three feet high, and its broad circular base covered a space nearly four feet wide. From its peak jutted a wicker plug several inches across.

“One of your mystery tricks, wizard?” I started to sneer, when it seemed that a slight sound came from that jar.

Stepping over to it, I pried out the woven stopper and was about to peer down inside, when something told me not to put my face too close. For a long minute I stood watching the hole. Then something moved.

Smoothly, silently, a pointed snout rose through the opening. Eyes followed. The whole head hung there, slowly swaying—the head of hideous death; the flat, vicious head of a huge surucucu, or bushmaster.

As I stepped back from the deadly thing a hard chuckle sounded. The voice of the pajé jeered—

“You have called forth the Spirit, bold hunter—now put it back again.”

With that he whistled softly through his teeth. At once the head slid out farther. The snake was coming out of its home.

Probably the wizard expected to see us turn and dash madly out and away from the thing. If he did, he failed to realize that we were hardened bushmen. I put that spirit of his back into the jar, but not as he would have had it.

ISWUNG my machete. The head flew off the creature. Its body jerked back into the jar, where it thrashed about with a muffled, sickening sound. Jabbing the point of my bush-knife into the severed head, I rammed it into the hole and shook it off. Then I ran the point into the ground several times to clean it of poison.

“So that is the thing you threatened with death if it did not obey you?” I asked.

A snarl was my only answer. The lower teeth of the priest gleamed as if he wanted to bite me. Perhaps he did.

Once more I scanned the place. The walls, I now noticed, were hung with things such as might be expected in the hut of a medicine-man—snake-skins, bones, spiders, many dried bats, and several skulls—animal and human. Nowhere in those walls, except where we had entered, was any sign of a door. None of the clay vessels was big enough to hold a man, unless it was built around him after death. Yet I went poking around among the jars and tested the walls before I would admit that no prisoner was in the place. Then I had to give it up.

“Pedro, perhaps you can find something,” I said. “Look.”

As he stepped away I took his place, guarding the wizard with drawn machete and giving him no chance to try any trick, human or devilish. And my partner, still unwilling to admit defeat, searched all about the one room of the house. He even probed and smelt at the other jars, finding diabolical messes and sickening stenches, but nothing alive—not even another snake.

When he too gave it up we both stood eying the pajé. The Indian's mouth still hung in a heavy sneer. Yet in his eyes was a look that puzzled me—a look of relief and triumph together.

“You know now that the pajé of the people of the Bat speaks truth,” he grunted. “If you seek the prisoner look in the maloca. Then go your way and trouble us no more.'

Pedro looked hard at him. Then he coolly answered:

“I will look in the maloca. Lourenço, hold him here until I return. Watch him every instant.”

The sudden scowl on the face of the pajé told us that this was not what he wanted. His idea perhaps was that we both would go, leaving him free to sneak around us and get us killed. Pedro laughed shortly and, before I could object, was gone.

For a long time—or so it seemed—I held that medicine-man exactly where he was. he tried several times to move, but when he found it useless he shut his jaws and stood motionless, glowering at me. Meanwhile I listened, dreading to hear some sudden outbreak that would show Pedro was caught. But none came.

At last the soft wail of the owl sounded outside, and soon Pedro came in again.

“Pajé, I have said you are a liar,” he rasped. “I say it again. No prisoner is in that maloca. I have looked inside and watched the people of the Bat long enough to know.”

The pajé answered never a word. His sullen stare did not waver.

“Now the day ends,” Pedro added, “and we must go.”

A grim light passed over the other's face. I read his thought—that now he could put men on our trail. But my comrade's next words brought to his forehead the blackest scowl I had yet seen there.

“Yes, we go. And since your spirit of the jar yonder is dead, we fear you may be lonely. So we shall not leave you alone. We take you with us.

“Lying priest, say farewell to the people of Andirah. Turn. Go out. Face to the east. Now march!”

IX.

NIGHT was almost upon us when we came again into the camp where we had left Senhor Tom. And, for two reasons, we were glad the day was ending.

For one thing, the coming of the dark would lessen the chance that the people of the Bat would discover the absence of their pajé and track us. Until morning, at least, they probably would think their medicine-man was staying in his den. And we wanted plenty of time in which to make our surly captive talk.

The second reason was that gloom would prevent the wizard from detecting the blindness of Senhor Tom. The dimness in the maloca and the bold acting of our stricken comrade had made it possible for him to deceive all the Tucunas; and, since it is always well to conceal any weakness from Indians, we did not want his condition to become known if we could help it. We intended to free the pajé when we were through with him—though that might not be very soon—and the less he could tell about us, the better for us.

But we gave the priest no hint that he was likely to be freed, or even to live. We remembered hearing Senhor Tom say once that “the way to handle Tucunas is to treat 'em rough,” and we could easily see that this sullen Tucuna wizard was not likely to respond to any other kind of treatment. So, though we laid no hand on him while we drove him on through the forest, we snarled at him now and then as if we were ready to chop him to pieces; and we forced him onward at such a pace that when we neared camp he was dripping sweat.

Just out of sight of our little tambo we halted him. Leaving Pedro to guard him, I went ahead and found Senhor Tom sitting up, gun in hand, listening closely to the slight rustle we had made in approaching. As briefly as possible I told him all there was to tell. Then I built the evening fire, not too close to the hammock where the blind man sat. As it blazed up, night came.

After waiting a little longer for the darkness to become thick in the tambo, I whispered to Senhor Tom. At once he barked—

“Bring that dog here!”

His voice was harsh enough to make the pajé shiver. And when that pajé came in and stopped where we told him to halt—across the fire from Senhor Tom—he was not the sneering, insolent priest of a few hours before. He stood stolidly enough, and he was sour and silent; but his pompous air was gone, and the black eyes peering through his sweat-soaked hair glanced this way and that as if he sought a line of escape.

In the shadows of the tambo Senhor Tom sat straight and motionless, his face dimly lighted by the fire and hard as stonewood. Even we, who knew his condition, could see no sign of it from where we stood; and the pajé, with sight weakened by the smoke rising before him, would have been a wizard indeed to guess that the eyes facing him saw nothing. However, he got little chance to stand and look in silence, for Tupahn the Thunderstorm opened on him.

“Dog of a Tucuna,” he boomed, “where is the prisoner you took this morning?”

“In the maloca of——”

“Do not lie to me! The maloca of Andirah has been looked into. No prisoner was there. Where is that captive?”

“I know not. Ask Andirah, the chief.”

Senhor Tom growled disgustedly.

“You call yourself pajé? You are the wise man of the Bat people? And yet you do not know a thing that is known to every child of your tribe? Then you are a fool, without eyes or ears or brain.”

The eyes under the greasy black hair glinted angrily. But the priest made no retort. Senhor Tom spoke to us.

“Men, he can not tell truth because his tongue is forked. If the fork were burned off the end of his tongue he then could speak straight. Heat your knives in the fire until they are red. Then slice away that thing that twists the truth in his mouth.”

I held my machete out over the blaze, though not in it. The Indian started, swung partly around, found Pedro's knife-point at his ribs, and turned slowly back. He licked his lips, stared at the gleam of the fire on my blade, and grunted rapidly:

“My tongue is straight. If it burns it can talk no more.”

“Better talk not at all than talk falsely,” was the grim answer. “But if your tongue now has become straight we will spare it—for a time. Why was the prisoner not given to us this morning?”

“Tupahn would have killed.”

“Ah. You did not want killing. Why?”

“Because more killing would follow. The men of Andirah would strike back. Tupahn and his men would kill more. Then they would be killed. Many killings over one worthless prisoner.”

There was a pause. The words sounded true. We remembered the spearmen with red-tipped weapons; remembered the Bat's jealousy of his rule. To slay the captive of Andirah would have been more than likely to anger the chief into ordering his men to attack us. In that case, as the priest said, we should have been killed, taking with us in death as many as we could. Yet—was the reason this man gave us the true one?

“Then this captive is not to be killed,” said Senhor Tom. “What is to be done?”

“I have not said he will not be killed. If he is killed it will be by order of Andirah, who alone has the power to command it.”

I sniffed, recalling how this pajé had given most of the orders that day. The memory aroused again my suspicion that he was steadily lying. Soon this distrust of him became much stronger.

“How does the prisoner look?” the North American demanded.

The reply was so prompt that it seemed as if the Indian had been expecting it.

“A tall man. Yellow of face. A thick mouth, the eyes of a boh—snake—and the nose of a hawk.”

For a moment we were quiet. Into our minds came the thought of the man whose bones we had found on the bank above the rusty rifle; the skull with the bullet-hole, the knife with four nicks, and the words of the senhorita. She had described just such a man as this pajé now told of. And the priest did not know that man was dead.

I expected Senhor Tom to roar out at the liar, but he did not. Instead, he acted pleased.

“So the men of the Bat have caught that one? It is well. A loud-voiced beast who carries a knife with a brown handle and four nicks on the blade? The mate of the dog killed by the men of Andirah? Is it so?”

“It is so, Tupahn,” the priest agreed. “Both have done evil to our people. The short one died quickly. The tall one may not die so fast.”

He talked more easily now, and held himself as if gaining confidence. Senhor Tom's eager tone had fooled him into thinking us deceived. And when the North American smiled as he spoke to us in English the priest began to swell with his usual arrogant look. He would not have felt so easy if he had understood the words.

“I've caught him,” said the explorer. “Caught him in a-cold lie. Now maybe I can jolt him.”

Changing back to Tupi, he roared:

“Snake-tongued priest! That man is dead! His bones lie beside a creek near the lake of Black Hawk. I myself have seen them. Now indeed you shall pay the price of your lies. Heat your knives, men!”

The pajé stood as if frozen. For a long minute he seemed not to breathe. Then he came to life with the suddenness of a bullet leaving a gun.

Straight through the fire he jumped. Straight on he bounded past the tambo. As we sprang after him he vanished among the trees toward the creek.

INTO those trees we plunged in pursuit. Twice we heard him stumble and fall, tripped by something in the dark, but before we could find him he was up and away. We too bumped trees and fell over roots. Then we halted. From the water came a loud splash.

“Gone!” Pedro panted. “Back and get lights!”

Scrambling back to the fire, we snatched blazing sticks and ran to our canoes. Up and down the stream we ranged until our lights went out. We saw nothing but black water, heard nothing but the little wash of ripples along the bank. The pajé of Andirah was gone as if swallowed by some water-monster.

“I am afraid the fool has drowned,” Pedro grumbled. “Not that I care what became of him, but now we can not make him talk.”

“We could not make him talk anything but lies while we had him,” I replied. “So we have lost nothing.”

But I was down-hearted because that Indian had escaped from us before we could scare him into telling what he knew, as well as angry with myself for letting him get away. We knew no more than when we had taken him from his hut—except that we now were certain he was a stubborn liar. Yet, as I thought of this, I realized that even that small knowledge was a gain; realized too that he must have some powerful reason for lying so doggedly when he believed we were about to torture him. And, thinking further, I felt that his reason must be this—his fear of the consequences of falsehood was less than his fear of what we might do to him if he told us the truth.

When we reached Senhor Tom again I spoke out this thought. He nodded slowly, and for a little time he said no word. When he did speak he did not reproach us for our carelessness. It was never his way to fume over what was past and done.

“You're right, Lourenço,” he said. “And so were you right, Pedro, when you said the pajé was at the bottom of some trickery. Now let's boil down events so far.

“We know a prisoner was taken. And in spite of the word of Andirah and his pajé, we have every reason to suppose that the prisoner was our Lady Marion. She must have been somewhere in the maloca when we were there. She must have been there when you fellows returned this afternoon and found the tribe all inside. She may have been inside that bat-mask you saw going to the priest's house, or she may not. If she wasn't, she must have been tied up tight in the maloca when the gang went into the woods. In that case she certainly would be there when you, Pedro, spied into the maloca soon afterward. And you saw no sign of her.”

“No sign, senhor,” Pedro echoed. “I crawled up to the rear, worked a hole in the wall, and stood there watching. I saw only Indians; and those Indians did not act as if any one else was there. They were doing the usual things—cooking, resting, working on weapons, talking. What they talked about I do not know, but they showed no excitement or sign of anything unusual.”

“So. Then she must be in the hut of the pajé or——”

He hesitated and shut his teeth.

“—or dead,” he finished. “And I don't believe she's dead. I won't believe it until I have to. Tucunas aren't butchers. They're a good bunch, on the whole, and friendly to whites. Of course they differ among themselves, just as any people do—some good, some bad; and things are upset now because of the anti-white war that measly Black Hawk tried to start. But I'm betting our girl is alive and in that priest-house.”

“But where?” I protested. “We both looked everywhere——”

“Maybe not everywhere. Remember that house belongs to the pajé, who is a wizard and so on. A house of that kind is likely to be full of tricks. I want to go over that house inch by inch, move everything around, poke into the walls and the roof and the ground and—I was going to say 'into the jars,' but you tell me you looked into all of them. Come on, let's go.”

He arose with as much snap as if it were broad day and his sight were perfect. We looked at him, at the black jungle around us, and back at him. To travel through the darkness would be slow work for us, though to him night and day were all the same now. Yet, after reaching the house of the pajé, we should have all night in which to search it undisturbed; for none of the Tucunas was likely to come there. And we too, though we could not imagine how that hut could conceal a captive, became eager to search it more carefully.

So we gathered bamboo torch-wood, killed our fire, and started.

Though we had our own trail to follow on this second journey, our progress through the gloomy forest would have been slow even without Senhor Tom. As it was, we advanced only by using the same plan as on our first trip to the maloca; I went ahead, bending over to watch the footmarks, while Pedro led our companion.

Around us the night noises resounded, and from time to time eyes gleamed at us in the torchlight. Twice we saw eyes so widely spaced that they could belong only to one kind of animal—a jaguar, slipping along through the forest and watching us. But the brute did not attack, and when we drew near the Indian settlement we lost sight of him—though he gave a snarling, coughing roar after he disappeared, and we knew he was not far off.

At last we came out in the little open space behind the hut of the pajé. Just at the edge of the bush I had to drop one of the torches, which had burned down so that it was almost blistering my hand; and, though I still had a couple of sticks left, I did not light another.

Now that we were in the open it was just as well to approach stealthily, even though we believed all the Tucunas to be in their tribal house.

Stepping carefully, we crossed the bare ground with ears strained and eyes peering through the gloom. Overhead the stars gleamed bright, and as we neared the hut its roof loomed plainly against the sky. Past the end of the place we went, along the side, and around the corner where the torn door hung partly open. There we paused, listening hard.

No sound came from within the priest-house. Beyond the doorway all was black and still. From the direction of the maloca came no noise. I stepped into the hut, Pedro following closely. Again we listened, hearing nothing near us.

Without waiting for the door to be shut, I struck a match and glanced about. While the match burned I saw nothing new. But as the flame dwindled and died Pedro sucked in his breath sharply and I realized that he had seen something.

“The jar!” he whispered excitedly. “The jar of the snake!”

Swiftly I scratched another match. As its little blaze flared out I saw what he meant.

The broad-bottomed jar holding the dead surucucu had been moved. It still stood on its flat base, and its wicker plug lay near, just as I had left it. But the vessel now was more than two feet farther to the right than it had been.

And in the ground which had been covered by that wide bottom gaped a black hole.

X.

THE match went out.

Once more I scraped a fresh fire-stick, and this time I gave its flame to a new torch. By the larger light we looked down into the cavity.

It was empty.

But it had not been empty long. At its edge dirt was broken away, and at the break showed fresh finger-marks; marks made by the hands of some one pulling himself up out of the pit.

Lowering the light, I examined the hole itself. It looked about five feet deep, and its sides were lined by a tube of woven sticks which would keep them from caving in.

“What is it?” asked Senhor Tom.

We told him what we had found. He nodded shortly.

“That's one of the things I thought of,” he said. “I'll tell you why after you look around some more. Get busy now, and move everything.”

But before we began a thorough search Pedro noticed something else.

“That cursed bat-mask is gone,” he pointed out.

So it was. The hideous thing had vanished.

“A queer thing for an escaping prisoner to carry off,” I said. “Perhaps, though, some one else took it. Before we go, let us see if more holes are here.”

Swiftly we moved every jar, stamped on the ground, explored the walls and the roof with our knives. We found no other hiding-place.

“Uh-huh,” said our comrade when we told him. “That ends our visit here. I thought of the possibility of a ground-hole for this reason—the Tucunas have a habit of burying their chiefs in big jars under their houses. Knowing this, it occurred to me that the medicine-man might use a burial jar, or anyway a hole in the ground, to conceal something that wasn't dead.

“If we'd come here a little sooner we might have found what we've been hunting for. Now we haven't much chance of trailing anybody until morning. No one knows what may happen before then.”

We said nothing. But I thought of that jaguar which had slipped along beside us, not quite willing to attack three men carrying fire. If he should meet a lone wanderer with no light, he might be more than willing to make his kill.

I turned toward the door. But Pedro took the smoky torch from me, lay down beside the hole, and lowered the light to the full length of his arm. Before I could puzzle out what he was doing he arose again.

“The dirt in the bottom of that hole has boot-tracks in it,” he told us. “Now if we can—”

A noise stopped him. Shouts were rising in the clearing beyond us, where the maloca stood. One voice yelled so loud that we caught the words “anyi” and “andirah”—devil and bat.

“Bat-devil,” Pedro repeated. “The bat-mask is there at the maloca! Come!”

Grasping Senhor Tom's hands, we lunged out of the place and ran for the path leading to the tribal house.

Luckily we found it without loss of time, and very soon we had passed through the forest and emerged into the larger clearing. At the farther end of the tribal house lights flared, and it was there that the commotion was loudest. There was no doubt that the Tucunas were awake and that many of the men were outdoors with lights and weapons. But we ran on, determined now to see that prisoner in spite of Andirah and all his tribe.

Yet even as we ran we realized that the lights were fading out and that the noise was passing into the house. When we reached the farther corner and turned toward the door we saw only a number of Indians who seemed to be awaiting us. They peered at us in the light of our flickering torch. Into their faces came blank surprize.

“The whites! Tupahn!” they grunted.

No doubt they had thought our torch to be that of their pajé, running from his hut in pursuit of the escaping prisoner.

“Tell them to let us pass, senhor,” Pedro muttered. “Most of them have gone inside, and the mask also.”

Senhor Tom, though nearly out of breath after his blind run between us, had not lost his voice.

“Aye, Tupahn!” he boomed. 'We come again—to tell the Bat his pajé is a vile liar. Stand aside and let us enter!”

Staring at us, peering beyond us to see whether their priest followed, they gave way.

Through the doorway we crowded and toward the chief's fire we strode. Tucunas in our way got shoved roughly aside. The clatter of voices ahead of us quickly died. By the time we had forced our way to the central space the whole big house was quiet.

The silence was broken by Pedro's shout.

“At last! The senhorita!”

THERE on the ground before old Andirah, who sat in his hammock just as we had last seen him, lay a small figure in khaki. Our Lady Marion was there, yes; but whether it was the living girl, or only her body I could not tell. Straight and still she lay, her wonderful eyes closed and her face seeming dead white against her closely coiled black hair and the dark ground beneath. At her feet, looking like the head of a demon protruding above the ground, the bat-mask stood leering wickedly.

“Thank God!” Senhor Tom cried in a choked tone. “Marion! We are here! Speak up!”

“She seems to be in a swoon, comrade,” I told him. I fervently hoped it was nothing worse. “She lies quiet before Andira——”

“By the Almighty, if she's dead—” he rasped, his hand going to his gun.

But Pedro grabbed that hand.

“Not too fast, senhor!” he warned. “Slow haste goes farthest. Have care.”

The North American gulped and nodded. Then he asked—

“Is the chief in his hammock?”

“Yes.”

“Andirah, chief of the people of the Bat!” thundered Senhor Tom. “I come again for my woman. That is she on the ground before you. You said no woman had been brought here. Yet here she is. You hid her from me! You handed her over to that stinking dog of a pajé! Your tongue is forked! Now that I find her again, I will have her!”

The old chief sat as if struck dumb. His hollow eyes rested on us without a blink. Then, slowly, he bent a little and stared down at the white face upturned to him.

“Alive or dead, I will have her!” our comrade raged. “And if she be dead, you too go to death! Bat? Chief? You will be chief among the bats of —— if you have destroyed her!”

He choked again. His hand tugged once more at his holstered gun, and once more Pedro gripped it hard. As slowly as he had bent, the old man sat up. His thin voice spoke.

“The eyes of the Bat are old and dim. They see not as they saw in the years that are gone. Yet they see. They see here a man with beardless face. If this be no man but a woman, why wears the woman the clothing of a man?”

For a moment we looked hard at him. As ever, his face was honest as the day. Suddenly our minds found light.

“Por Deus! That is it!' Pedro cried. “He sees dimly, as he says. The senhorita wears your clothing, Senhor Tom. She speaks no Tupi, could not understand what was said to her, made no answer. That rascally priest must have told the chief she was a man, an enemy, partner of the one who was killed. And the Bat, half blind and seeing what seemed to be a man, believed it all. Let us see if I am right.”

Stepping close to the chief, he went on:

“Tell us, heramuhm—grandfather—did your pajé say this was a man?”

He smiled as he spoke; and that handsome, boyish partner of mine could almost smile a bird into his hands if he tried. After a tight squint into his face the old man also smiled a little.

“It is so, herayi—my son—. Do you tell me he spoke false?”

“I do. He is crooked as a snake, and his tongue is split at both ends. If you believe me not, the proof is plain. Ask your own people to look on this one and say whether the face and hair are those of man or woman.”

“So shall it be,” the Bat agreed. He spoke to those nearest. But none of them needed to look. Their eyes were better than his, and they had known what he was just learning. A droning chorus of voices answered—

“Kunyim buku.” (Young woman).

While the voices still sounded I stepped forward, dropped on one knee, and made a swift test of that still body.

“She lives, comrade!” I called. “She is not hurt.”

Before Senhor Tom could answer, the voice of old Andirah rose in shrill rage.

“You dumb beasts! Why did you not say before that this was a woman?”

His people stood dumb indeed, looking at him and at one another. Finally a man said sullenly—

“The pajé——”

But he did not finish. At that instant a murmur ran through the crowd—the same words he had spoken, but in a different tone.

“The pajé!”

Turning, I saw coming toward us the priest himself.

He was streaked with mud, scratched by thorns, limping from some hurt received in his struggle homeward through the black bush. But he was uglier than ever. His under teeth showed now in a long line of yellow fangs, and through his wet hair his eyes gleamed like those of a mad animal. He was coming from the door in a lurching scramble, and evidently had heard only the last words spoken—his own title. So he a himself still the power behind the chief.

At sight of us he snarled. And he lost no time in denouncing us.

“Andirah,” he growled, “these men come to kill you! They have tried to torture and murder me, pajé of your people, but by my power I vanished from them. Now slay them quickly, before they strike at you! Warriors, spear them!”

In that moment it was easy to see that the men of the tribe had long been used to obeying the commands of the priest. Several spearmen near us promptly lowered their weapons. But then their hands halted, and no man moved toward us. Instead, all glanced at their chief.

“It is well for you, Tucunas, that you hesitate,” Pedro said grimly, holding our one rifle leveled at the nearest man's body. “We do not die meekly. And it is well for you that you look for orders to the chief. This false priest of yours already has deceived your ruler as well as us; has made a fool of the Bat and brought down on him the wrath of the Thunderstorm. Andirah will no longer allow such a traitor to speak for him.”

The speech, like a double-edged knife, cut two ways. It made every Tucuna realize that it was indeed unsafe to obey their pajé without thinking; and it maddened their chief against the medicine-man. The thin old voice broke out in a screech of fury.

“Down with those spears!” The weapons sank to the ground. “You snake! You split-mouthed vulture! You filth! No more are you pajé of the Bat! You shall be the dog of the women! You shall be spat on by the children! You shall work in the crops, a slave, a beast! You shall——”

His shrill tones cracked. Then they were drowned by the roar of Senhor Tom's voice.

“Give him to me, Andirah! He is my enemy and yours. Tupahn the Thunderstorm will give him his punishment!”

As he spoke he swung toward the place where he had heard the priest demand our lives. But the pajé had stepped a little aside. So, though Senhor Tom spoke to him, his unseeing eyes rested on a post.

“Come here to me, stealer of women!” he snapped. “With my bare hands alone I will break you!”

With the words he unbuckled his gun-belt and held it out toward us. To keep it from falling, I grasped it. But I whispered:

“Are you mad, comrade, to fight a man you can not see? He is heavier than you. Let me fight him!”

“He's my meat!” was the hoarse answer. “Hands off!”

The pajé, who had taken a backward step, now was watching him like a hawk. Suddenly he broke out in a jarring laugh.

“Tupahn?” he jeered. “This man Tupahn? No! Andirah, these three make a fool of you indeed. This is no Tupahn, killer of Black Hawk. He is only a loud-mouthed pretender. He can not even see! He is blind!”

But before the Bat could waver and grow suspicious of us, Senhor Tom echoed the words.

“I am blind. My eyes see not. The bullet of the man caught by the Tucunas killed my sight. But I am Tupahn! And, blind or not, Tupahn can punish his foes. Unless you fear a blind man, you skulking pajé of a brave tribe, come and fight!”

A hoarse mutter of admiration went around the big house. Old Andirah cackled.

“Tupahn speaks well,” he cried. “Better blind eyes and a straight tongue than a twisted mouth. Let Tupahn break his foe as he has promised! Men, put them together!”

This time the men of the tribe did not hesitate. Those behind the pajé gave him a sudden shove. Stumbling, snarling, he lurched forward at our comrade.

“On guard, senhor!” I warned.

INSTANTLY Senhor Tom struck out with both hands. One blow missed. The other caught the Indian solidly under the heart. The crack of fist on flesh was like a pistol-shot. The pajé gasped, staggered, then clutched with both hands for his foe's throat.

But the white man, having once felt his enemy, leaped and grappled. The clutching hands missed his throat, scraped past his neck, curved around behind him—then the Indian's arms clamped tight and he strove to crush our comrade down.

For a moment they strained there, the priest hissing through his teeth and slobbering like an animal, the blind man feeling for some arm-hold he wanted. All at once he gave back and stepped aside in the same instant, heaved—and the fight became a whirling tangle out of which came gasps, grunts, groans, and a sudden yell of pain and fear.

Down they thumped on the dirt. A gleam of yellow teeth, and from Senhor Tom came a short grunt. The pajé, like the dog he looked to be, was biting. But then came the lightning sweep of a hard fist, and the priest's head jolted as if hit by a club. Again the fist struck, and the red scroll of paint on the Indian's cheeks was blotted out by a swift rush of deeper red. He sank his head into his chest to avoid more blows.

Over they turned, and over, the pajé clawing and kicking and straining with sudden sobs for breath, the white man fighting with less struggling but more damage to his enemy. They wrestled up to their feet and fell again; they got each other down; only to be forced under in turn. They struck their heads and arms and legs against roof-poles so hard that it seemed they must be knocked senseless or break their bones. Yet they fought on.

Time and again Pedro and I had to grab them both and throw them, still locked together, away from the chief's fire. They kicked over the bat-mask, crumpled it under their rolling bodies, knocked it to pieces with feet and knees and elbows. They fell on hammocks, tore them from the lashings, and tangled themselves until they could hardly move. But not once did they pause to free themselves. Somehow they fought out of their entanglements as they had fought into them.

The end came all at once. They had fallen again across a hammock. It was tied up too stoutly to give way under them. Striking it almost at a run, they were thrown headlong to the ground on the other side. A violent thump sounded, and a roof-pole quivered with the shock. Then both were still.

For a little time no man touched them. We waited for them to renew their duel. But the minutes dragged away and neither moved. Their heavy breathing, too, seemed to have stopped.

Pedro and I looked at each other. Then we moved forward, straddled over the hanging net, and stooped over them.

Their grip on each other was broken. They lay slightly apart, with the roof-pole between them. I put a hand on that pole to steady myself, and took it away smeared red.

Senhor Tom lay sprawled along on one side, his face partly in the dirt, his clenched teeth showing faintly between his parted lips. I felt for his heart.

“He lives,” I told Pedro.

With a nod he turned and stooped over the pajé. After a sharp look he lifted the Indian's shoulders. Then he dropped him and stood up.

“Andirah and men of the Bat,” he said coolly, ““Tupahn the Thunderstorm always keeps his word. As he promised, he has broken his enemy with his bare hands. Your pajé will lie to you no more. His head hangs from shattered bones.”

XI.

THE maloca was very quiet.

Men stared at us, at the two motionless fighters, at the chief. The Bat himself sat hunched up, his dim. eyes fixed on the huddled forms lying beyond the hammock. Now that the fight was ended, it took them a little time to realize fully that the arrogant creature who had been almost their ruler was now only a lump of flesh with a broken neck.

In the silence we raised Senhor Tom and carried him to the other side of the fire. There, beside the girl, we laid him down.

“They sleep together, heramuhm,” said Pedro. “Now let us wake them together, while that one yonder who would have destroyed them sleeps on forever.”

The gaze of the Bat rested on them, and a little smile came again on his sunken lips.

“So shall it be,” he said. “Bring water for these two. Carry that dead dog to his house and let him lie there until the sun rises. Andirah hopes his brother Tupahn is not broken also.”

The staring crowd around us came to life. While water was brought we examined our comrade more carefully. He was battered and bruised and bitten and scratched, his head-wound was torn open and oozing red, and his clothes were ripped half from his body. But nowhere could we find a broken bone.

“He is whole, heramuhm,” Pedro assured the Bat. “Blind though he is, it takes more than a rascally priest to break Tupahn. If his head had not struck that pole he now would be standing before you and roaring for another liar to kill.”

This was good talk for the Indians to listen to, but not very near the truth. Though neither of us was sure of it—and I am not sure of it even now—I thought it might have been the priest's neck, not Senhor Tom's head, which had struck that post so hard. And we both knew well that if our comrade were now on his feet he would be attending to the senhorita, not yelling for more blood. But, as I say, it was just as well to keep the Tucunas in awe of the great Thunderstorm.

The water came; and with it came more than water—a jar of raw Indian rum, which some wise old woman brought up. I gave all my time to Senhor Tom, bathing his head, forcing some of the fiery liquor between his teeth, and bandaging him with a strip of bark-cloth which somebody passed to me. Pedro, who had calmly sat down and taken the girl's head in his lap, worked on her much more successfully than I could have done—for I am shy of women, awake or asleep. Above us the chief squinted downward, eager to see both awake at once.

But it was the girl whose eyes opened first. I heard a gasp and a choking cry—

“Oh, don't!”

Glancing aside, I found her pushing away the rum, with which Pedro perhaps had been too generous. Coughing, she sat up and gazed around as if lost.

“You are safe now, senhorita,” my partner soothed her. “We are here, and these Indians are friends. Do not fear.”

“Oh—oh, it is Pedro!” she cried. “Pedro and—and Lourenço?”

My back was toward her, and she saw only the side of my face.

“Yes, Lady Marion, I am Lourenço,” I told her. “And Senhor Tom too will soon speak to you.”

At that her deep blue eyes widened and she caught her breath.

“Tom? Tom Mack? Why—oh no, Lourenço! It can't be! He is dead—murdered——”

Then her voice stopped. She stared at the knee-boots and khaki breeches of the man lying beside her. With a bound she was up and leaning over me, looking down into the yellow-bearded face on my knees.

“Tom!” she cried. “It is true! He is here—he is alive—but I saw him killed! I saw him——”

“You saw him shot down from behind, senhorita,” Pedro corrected her, “but not killed. Yet he is not as he was, my lady. The bullet killed his sight. He is blind.”

“O-o-oh!”” she breathed, her voice full of pity. “Blind!”

“It is true,” I nodded, continuing my work on him. “And yet, blind as he is, he brought us——”

Before I could say more, Senhor Tom came to his senses. And then for a few seconds I had my hands very full.

He had gone down fighting. He did not yet know his fighting was over. He clutched me, heaved, twisted himself over, and nearly forced me down. But then, as suddenly as he had attacked, he relaxed his hold.

“Lourenço!” he muttered. Shoving himself back, he rested on his knees. His face turned upward to the girl.

“Marion!” he cried out.

“Yes, Tom, it is I,” she answered. “Be careful. The fire is behind you. Give me your hand and let me help. you.”

He stared, blinked rapidly several times, ran a hand across his eyes, stared again. Then he laughed out so wildly that for an instant I thought him mad.

“I can see!” he shouted. “I can see! Lourenço—Marion—Pedro—Indians—fires and hammocks—everything is clear!”

And, wild with joy, he slapped my shoulder so hard he nearly knocked me flat, jumped up, seized the girl, and kissed her.

Almost at once he let her go and stepped back, red to his hair.

“I—shouldn't have done that,” he stammered. “I—I'm sorry. Pardon me if you can, Mari—Miss Marshall. I'm sort of crazy, I guess.”

She made no answer. She stood motionless, a little pale, her wide eyes on his flushed face; and on her own face was an expression I could not read. I could not call it anger or sorrow or joy or pain, though it might have been any or all of them together. It was more like the look of a girl awaking to something she had not known before; as if that sudden kiss had dazed her, yet aroused her at the same instant. At length she turned slowly from him and gazed around the maloca as if seeing nothing at all in it.

“Where is that pajé?” roared Senhor Tom, glaring around as if seeking something to fight. When we told him, he scowled as blackly as before. Pedro chuckled.

“You need not break another neck just because you have kissed a lady,” he teased. “And let me advise you, comrade—after kissing a girl, never tell her you are sorry you did it. That is a poor compliment.”

“Shut up! You poor fish, you don't understand——”

“I understand much better than you do,” was the laughing retort. “But if you must roar, roar at Andirah.”

But the old chief, with a toothless grin, spoke first.

“It is as you said, my son: Tupahn looks for another man to kill. Now he is whole again in truth. His eyes see his woman. Is it not so?”

“It is so, heramuhm,” answered Pedro. “His sight is clear and his heart has dropped a heavy load. And now for the first time Tupahn looks on the face of Andirah.”

At the moment Senhor Tom was not looking at Andirah. His gaze rested on the girl. But, hearing Pedro's hint, he turned to the chief.

“Tupahn gives thanks to Andirah,” he said heartily. “The Bat has proved himself truly the friend of the Storm. Tupahn is sorry that in his blindness he thought Andirah not a friend. Let the Bat now tell his brother how that pajé deceived his chief, and what would have been done with this woman if she had not been saved.”

The old chief smiled again, but this time his face held a touch of cruelty. Yet he answered readily enough.

“The dog of a priest brought her before me as a man, knowing my eyes were dim. He called her apuyah—man—and none of those who came with her said a word of a woman. He said the captive was companion of the man killed, and evil as the dead one. So I gave her to the bat-demon of our tribe.

“Tupahn, we are a peaceful people. We make no war. Though many of the Tucuna nation followed Black Hawk, no man of the Bat went with him. We are friends to white men. Yet we are free men of the forest, and when we are used evilly we remember the evil, and if the doer of evil comes again into our hands he goes not out again. Whether his skin be red or white, if his heart be black he had best beware of the vengeance of the Bat.

“Whenever such a one has come back to us he has been accused of his evil and given his chance to speak for himself before me. Then he has been put into the mask of the bat-demon and given over to the pajé for punishment and death. After death his body was used by the wizard for his magic. His skull also was kept for making spells against further evil. On the walls of the house of the pajé those skulls hang.

“That one who was killed beside the water had in days not long past done evil to young women of our tribe. When he was found again near here he was killed at once because he reached for a gun. The one with him—the young woman—was seized and brought here. Because I thought her a man, because she said no word when my pàje called her a companion in evil of the dead one, because he demanded that the bat-demon be given his due, I allowed him to put on her the mask of the bat and take her to his house for punishment.”

He paused. Then firmly he went on:

“Now that the pajé and his demon-mask both are destroyed by Tupahn, there shall be no more punishment of that kind in the tribe of Andirah. When next the sun rises the house of the false pajé shall be burned. With it the pajé also shall burn. And from now until Andirah goes down into the ground with his fathers there shall be no priest among the men of the Bat. Andirah has spoken.”

“Andirah has spoken well,” the Thunderstorm approved. “Let Andirah alone rule his tribe, and it shall be ruled well. Let no priest again twist the words in my brother's mouth and the thoughts in his brain. Yet why did not the men of Andirah tell their chief the truth? Why did they stand mute when the pajé called this woman apuyahe?”

The old man's eyes narrowed still more. And of the men around him he demanded:

“You hear the words of Tupahn. Why were you dumb?”

The men shifted uneasily and looked at one another. After a short silence one replied:

“We feared the pajé. The woman said no word. Why should we speak when she was silent?”

“She was silent because she knew not your tongue, fool!” Senhor Tom growled. “She knew not what was said or how to answer. She knows only the language of her own land.”

Yet I wondered, and I knew he wondered, why she had said nothing at all before the chief. Even a few words in an unknown tongue would have told the ruler that her voice was that of a woman. But soon we learned that there had been a reason for her silence.

While we men talked she had stood quietly watching, and during the long speech of the chief she had not taken her eyes from his face. Now, in the silence following Senhor Tom's curt reply to the Tucuna, she turned to me. Without a glance at the explorer, she asked me to tell her what all the talk was about.

I let her know most of what had been said, though I left out the fact that the pajé was to be burned—indeed, I neglected to tell her he was dead. Then I asked why she had kept silence after her capture by the Tucunas.

“Because that naked leader of the Indians—the stout man with the red curves painted on his cheeks—told me to be still,” she explained. “He tried to talk to me soon after we left the water, but I couldn't understand. Then he made the rest stand back a little, where they couldn't watch him well, and made many signs. He pointed ahead, put his finger to his lips, shook his head, and did other things to show me that I must say nothing when we came to some place beyond us. He was awfully ugly-looking—and I learned later that he was uglier than he looked—but then he seemed to be trying to be friendly. He gave me the idea that if I talked I should be killed, but that if I said nothing he would get me through safely. And when they brought me in here this old man looked terribly cruel. So I stood as still as I could-and never said a word.”

Senhor Tom growled.

“The swine! He started double-crossing you and the chief before you even got here. You see that now, of course.”

“Yes, of course.”

She looked around her at the crowding faces. Then she asked:

“What has become of him? I haven't seen him since this afternoon, when he threw me into a hole and buried me alive.”

We all had forgotten that she did not know of the fight. I spoke out promptly—too promptly.

“Senhor Tom has just killed him.”

I have never understood women. Knowing that I am ignorant of their minds, I try not to be surprized by anything they do. Yet I was amazed and bewildered at the result of my words.

Only a little while ago our Lady Marion had been a tender, pitying girl who called our comrade “Tom” and tried to help him rise. Even his sudden kiss had not angered her. But now, hearing my abrupt news, she paled and stepped back as if he had become a monster. Into her face came the same look I had seen there when he spoke so carelessly about the death of the man shot in his sleep. Then she turned her back on all of us and walked slowly away, looking down at the ground.

XII.

WE THREE looked at one another, and Pedro and I shrugged our shoulders. Senhor Tom reddened again; but this time he did not look confused. He resented her puzzling attitude. Considering what he had endured on her account, it was hardly to be wondered at.

“If it's not too much trouble, Miss Marshall,” he said coldly, “we should like to know just what has happened since that sneak got me from behind. Naturally we're a bit curious.”

She sank into an empty hammock near the chief, looking suddenly weary. For the first time I noticed the little hollows under the dark eyes and the tired droop of her lips. If we had passed through much since last we saw her, so had she. In fact, she must be near the end of her strength.

“Never mind about it now, though,” the blond man added after observing her a minute. “Better lie down a while first.”

But she shook her head.

“I'm not too tired to talk, and you may as well hear it all now,” she said. “There isn't so very much to tell.

“You were collecting wood, you remember, and I was unlacing one of these boots to see if I could make it set more comfortably. There was a shot. I looked up and saw you on the ground. We had heard Lourenço and Pedro shooting once before, and my first thought was that one of them had fired again and accidentally hit you. I started to run toward you, but then I heard something spring from the trees, and when I turned I found that man running at me.

“He was one of those two who carried me to the Hawk after I was caught at Viciado. He grinned horribly, and when I tried to run to the hut where your gun stood he got in my way and threw me down hard. It dazed me a little, but I rolled over and got up again, and then we struggled around until he hit me with his gun. After that I didn't know much for a few minutes.

“About the next thing I did know was that I was being thrown into a boat, and then I saw him paddling like mad and the treetops sliding past. When my head was clear again I tried to get up and jump overboard—I can swim well—but he knocked me down again and tied me so tightly that I couldn't get up any more.

“He stopped once and went ashore a minute, and I managed to see he was hiding our other canoe. I hadn't noticed before that he had taken both of them, and when I found he had left you men without any boat I just shivered—I thought that now none of you could follow him. But then I thought if I could only get his gun away from him I would drive him off. And so I began trying to loosen my hands. But I couldn't. They only became numb.

“It grew dark, and he kept on going. He worked all night, growling every time the boat hit anything—it bumped every now and then, and sometimes it stuck. It was long after sunrise when he finally stopped paddling and went ashore to eat and rest.

“By that time my arms were so dead I couldn't use them, and my feet were like lumps of lead—I couldn't get out of the boat when he untied me. He dragged me ashore and made a little breakfast, grinning that terrible grin at me while he worked, and keeping his rifle behind him. And then the Indians jumped out.

“They speared him and shot him—oh, it was horrible!”

She glanced around as if seeking the men who had done the killing.

“But after he was dead you were glad,” I said.

“Well, I—I was relieved, and glad to be free of him. I wasn't half as much afraid of the Indians. They didn't look mean, though they were awfully savage for a few seconds. When they took everything out of the canoe and pointed for me to go into the woods I went right along. I had to, anyway.

“I've told you how the leader tried to talk to me, and why I kept still after reaching here. The Indians hadn't been talking long when some excitement started at the door. I couldn't see what it was, for the Indians were all around me. Then several of them grabbed me and ran me over there to the rear of the place, where they made me lie down among some big clay jars and things.

“I heard loud talk, and one voice roaring so that I thought it must be you, Tom—Mr. Mack—though the words sounded like Indian language. I started to jump up and call, but one of the Indians put a hand over my mouth and the others forced me down; and then I remembered you were dead and thought Lourenço and Pedro couldn't possibly have come without a boat. After a while the talking stopped and men went out, but I was kept there among the jars for a long time after that.

“Then at last the Indians took me back, and there was a great deal of slow talk that dragged on and on. Finally they put a horrid-looking hollow head over my shoulders and led me out. We all went out back to another house, much smaller, and then all went away except the one who seemed to be friendly. He took the hollow head off me and began trying to talk again.

“I began trying to talk back, by making signs—trying to tell him if he would take me to the Amazon he would be well rewarded. Some kind of a cry sounded outside, and he looked out. I looked too, but couldn't see any one. When he came back I started making signs again. But then he began to threaten me. I don't know what he said, but his face and voice were so ugly ——”

“He said you must do as he willed, or you would die,” I told her. “We were outside listening.”

“You were! Oh, if I had only known! Then it was you who made such a loud rustling noise at the door?”

“Just so, senhorita.”

“I didn't know. I was afraid this old man had decided to kill me and sent his men to get me. Somehow when I'm scared I seldom scream, like some girls: I usually keep very still. So I kept still then, watching the door. The stout Indian—you say he was a medicine man?—he grabbed a big jar and rolled it aside, then seized me and threw me into a hole in the ground. I struggled, but down I went. Then everything turned black.

“I heard some sounds overhead, but couldn't tell what they were. After a while I must have gone to sleep down there in the blackness; or perhaps I fainted; I was dead tired. But finally I felt as if I were suffocating, and I began trying to get out.

“By straining as hard as I could I managed to lift the big jar away enough to get some air. And after a long time, moving that heavy thing inch by inch and resting often, I worked it over far enough to pull myself out. Then—I guess I really did faint then. I hadn't eaten anything for more than twenty-four hours. For that matter, I haven't eaten yet.”

“What!” exclaimed Senhor Tom. “Good Lord! We'll get you something——”

She raised a hand, smiling faintly.

“Just a moment. Let me finish. When I came to myself it was so black that I had to feel my way around to find the door. While I was groping about I felt that horrible hollow head, and I put it on again, thinking that if I met any Indian outside he would believe I was some demon of the night and would run from me. Then I went out and started for the woods, but I heard a jaguar somewhere ahead and thought I'd better go the other way. So I did, and found a path, and came out in the big opening around this house.

“It was all dark and quiet, and I went by and tried to find the way I had come from the creek, so that I could get back to the canoe. I dreaded to go back there where that dead man was, but it seemed the only thing to do. But I couldn't find any path. Then suddenly something hissed near me—a snake of some kind. And by that time I was so nervous that I turned and ran toward the house, and I must have cried out, though I don't remember it.

“Men came out with lights, and when they saw me they—began to yell and shout—and—they——”

Her voice died away. She went limp and dropped sidewise in the hammock.

We sprang to her side, lifted her, and worked again with water and rum to revive her.

“Plucky little kid!” muttered Senhor Tom. “Starved and plumb worn out, but never a whine. Dog-gone it, I'm a bum and a brute to get snappish the way I did.”

Then, as the long lashes fluttered a little against her pale face, he turned to the chief.

“Andirah, my woman has had no food since the sun twice has stood in the middle of the sky,” he said. “She dies from hunger and lack of sleep.”

The girl was not dying, but the response of the Bat could not have been quicker if she had been. He snapped at women who seemed to be his wives and daughters. They hastened away.

“Food shall be brought to the woman of Tupahn, and to the men of Tupahn, and to Tupahn himself,” the old man promised. “And much rum shall be brought also. Once today Andirah has offered a feast to his friends, but they would not stay while the woman was unfound. Now she is here, and my brother sees again, and the serpent who would have worked evil has been cast out. So let the friends of the Bat and the people of the Bat rejoice together.”

A hum of approval went among the Tucunas, and their eyes glowed at the prospect of an all-night revel. But Senhor Tom shook his head.

“Tomorrow let it be, my brother, but not tonight,” he said. “We are worn from toil and travel, and we would sleep.”

With that he turned back to the girl, who now was looking up at us but lying quiet. The hum among the Indians ended, and all looked sour. But Andirah, after a minute's thought, nodded.

“It is well,” he agreed. “So shall we have more meat. At dawn the hunters shall go out and kill many birds and beasts, and the feast shall be the greater. Until then all shall rest in the maloca, safe from the things that prowl in darkness.”

AND so it was. Among the Indians who had met us men with spears and had handed the senhorita over to their priest without a word to save her, we ate at the chief's fire and slept in the hammocks nearest the ruler of the tribe. There was little talk. Our Lady Marion ate heartily, yet daintily, of the food brought by the chief's women, and then fell asleep without a “good night” to any of us. Senhor Tom lay down next and relaxed with a long sigh. Pedro and I, after a look into the rum-jar, took a stiff drink apiece, coughed, grinned at the men of the Bat, and soon were sleeping like dead men.

Yet, in the little time between lying down and falling asleep, I looked at the dark-haired girl and the blond-bearded man and wondered. I marveled over the queer course of things since they had met, and wondered what might be the end of it all.

The two beast-men who had carried the lovely little lady as a victim to Black Hawk had never lived to return to Viciado. One, murdered by his partner in fear or fury, had gone out in his sleep. The other—how had he come to be caught in the bush with no canoe? His boat might have floated away during a sudden night rain, or he might have been discovered while ashore and chased through the bush by vengeful Indians until he succeeded in dodging them. But he had lived only to commit two more crimes and then to be killed by the enemies he had made through earlier evil.

The vile priest, who would have held the girl captive until he tired of her and would have driven us three out or killed us, had only wrecked his own power, restored the sight of his bitterest foe in a final grapple, and found death for himself. It was a good joke on that medicine-man, and one that made me chuckle.

And we three, seeking the girl—how we had blundered about! Four times we had been almost within reach of her, yet never seen her: once in this maloca, again at the edge of the clearing, a third time when we stood above her head in the priest-house, and last when we came again to that house by darkness. If that jaguar had not turned her back tonight she might have met us. Yet, if she had, we should have turned back at once; and so Senhor Tom still would be blind and the pajé would be alive to lead killers against us at dawn.

An odd set of twists and turns, indeed. And now what lay ahead? We had not yet reached Viciado. Before we arrived there, what more might happen to our senhor and senhorita?

If I had stayed awake. long enough I could have thought of many possibilities. But even if I had thought all night I should never have imagined the thing that really did come about.

XIII.

FAR more tired than we had realized, and secure in the protection of the Bat, we four slept until long after sunrise. When at length we did awake we found the maloca almost empty of men.

The few Indian men who were there lay or sat in their hammocks as if resting after work well done. Around them women were cleaning birds or beasts and putting them into clay pots and pans over the brisk fires. We saw that the killing and cooking of meat for the great feast were under way, and that the men now resting were the first hunters to return from the forest with their game. Even as we looked around us the doorway was darkened by several other Tucunas who brought more furred or feathered prey.

They padded in, dropped their kills at their own fires, hung up their weapons, got into their hammocks, and took their ease. The women worked with unhurried steadiness, some who had nothing to cook rolling up heavy jars which the men eyed thirstily. By the time we four had eaten a hearty morning meal the house was well filled with toiling women and lolling men.

The senhorita, her eyes aglow and her lips red again after her long rest and strengthening food, watched the scene thoughtfully. Senhor Tom, still a little sleepy of eye and more than a little lame of muscle, smoked and blinked lazily at the roof. Pedro and I loafed and observed all around us.

“Those jars look horribly heavy,” said Marion, as a couple of women tugged another clay vessel into place near the silent chief. “Why don't the men move them? What's in them?”

“Booze,” yawned Senhor Tom. “There's going to be a regular party, and you can't have a regular party without joy-juice; not down here, anyway. And the men let the women roll the kegs because they're saving their strength for the heavy job of emptying them. When they once start in they'll show you some endurance that'll make your eyes pop.”

She smiled, but frowned too.

“They're just animals, aren't they? They think only of their appetites—hunting and drinking. The women do all the work.”

“Oh, I wouldn't call 'em animals,” he objected, sitting up. “Not in that tone, anyway. We're all animals, more or less—we've got to eat, and we kill weaker animals to feed us. We prowl around and fight to get things away from other man-animals, and the weak get crushed and mauled and maimed by the strong, as they do in the animal world. And real animals are a lot more respectable than a good many humans; they're not hypocrites. In the animal world you never find a skunk pretending to be a lamb, but you sure do find that very thing in the highest circles of human society.

“Same way with Indians, mostly. The more uncivilized they are, the more honest and straightforward; tricky toward enemies, of course, but pretty much on the level to folks that treat 'em right. I've known many an Indian whom I could trust to the limit, but darned few white folks—male or female.

“And as for women working, why not? Maybe you think these fellows haven't done anything today. Believe me, they've worked hard to find and kill this meat, and the women haven't done a thing while they were gone but hang around the house and talk. Now they're doing something besides clack their tongues, while the chaps who have brought home the bacon rest up.

“Up home it's different, of course. There the big idea is that a man must not only bring home the aforesaid bacon but serve it on platinum plates to some pampered doll who spends her life powdering her nose. And then he's supposed to grovel in ecstasy because she condescends to honor him by eating it as fast as he can get it.”

Again she laughed; and this time she lay watching him with a mischievous twinkle under the long lashes.

“Poor men! They have a terrible time, don't they?” she mocked. “Do you really believe all the girls up home are like that?”

“Oh, no. Only the majority of them. Some of them are real women, thank God! But the kind that will stick and carry their end of the log are mighty few. Most of 'em are bum sports, as I said once before. Me, I like the jungle idea better—everybody pulling together, male and female alike, without any idea that they're horribly abused by having to do something.”

She watched him thoughtfully a little longer. When she spoke again she did not smile.

“Yes, you are of the jungle, I'm afraid. You have the jungle ways and the jungle thoughts. You'd never be content in the States. So I suppose you'll stay here in Brazil until the jungle kills you, as it seems to kill everything in time.”

He stared at her soberly, dropped his cigaret-stub in an absent way, and looked around the maloca as if comparing it and its unclothed inhabitants with the homes and the people of the North.

“Maybe you're right,” he said soberly. “I've been up home twice since I first saw the jungle—and I've come back each time nauseated by the smugness and the smallness of the lives all my old friends were living.

“They weren't my friends any more. They tolerated me, that's all. They looked on me as a ne'er-do-well, a vagabond, a tropical tramp. The men four-flushed about their success in business—poor boobs! Most of 'em were salaried men, chained to their jobs for life—and some of the women acted as if they were afraid I'd contaminate their precious hubbies by my yarns about the jungle. They were getting smaller and narrower every day of their lives; and they looked down on me because I wasn't living the same picayune life they were.

“One chap told me right out that I'd better get back to the wilds—that I didn't fit any more in the States, but maybe I'd 'make good' down here if I worked hard enough. 'Making good,' of course, meant making money. That's the only rule they measure you by up home: 'How much have you got?'”

He glanced around again and then went on:

“And yet I'm not crazy about this jungle life. As you say, it kills. I like it only because of its freedom, its absence of nagging conventionalities—because, rough and brutal as it is, it's real! And I'd go back home gladly if I knew where I could find real things, real folks—and the right kind of a pal.”

“I've had a number of pals at one time or another—men or girls—but every one of 'em dropped away after a while. Why? Because sooner or later they wanted to be boss, and I couldn't see it that way. I'll go fifty-fifty with a partner on everything, but——”

“But you must be the boss, as you term it.”

“Nope. Not unless it's necessary. The right kind of a pal, mind you, will meet you half-way, and no bossing is needed. That's the sort of partner I've wanted—and never found. So when it's come to a question of whether I was to boss or be bossed—as it always has—why, I made it clear that I wasn't going to be the under dog in the combination. So the combination busted up. I'm still my own master, and, believe I'm going to stay so.”

“I believe you,” she said—and arose.

We three also stood up. Pedro and I stretched ourselves again and grinned at Andirah, who sat as if wondering what all the talk was about. Senhor Tom, with a little laugh, added:

“Pardon the oration concerning myself. I don't often shoot off my mouth so much.”

“You're pardoned, I'm sure,” she smiled. “It was most—⁠Oh, what is that frightful thing?”

After one look I did not wonder at her sudden question. From the rear of the maloca was advancing a great, horrible face, seeming in the smoky dimness to be a demon which had risen through the floor. But, having seen the bat-mask of the pajé, it did not take us long to realize that this was another hollow head, mounted on a man's shoulders.

“Jurupari?” asked Senhor Tom of the chief, pointing.

“Jurupari,” agreed the Bat after a look.

“That's the Jurupari, or great jungle demon of the Indians,” the explorer explained. “Or, rather, a mask representing him. Guess the Tucunas are going to have a masquerade along with their feast. If so, you'll see a weird collection of nondescripts prancing around after the booze gets to working.”

“Does the Jurupari demon drink, senhor?” I asked.

“Sure does. Gets as full as any of them, or fuller. I've seen a couple of these masked parties in other Tucuna malocas, and the Jurupari got spifflicated along with the rest of the gang. He's not such a bad demon, you know—just a mischievous rascal who gets blamed for all the little accidents that happen; they think all their mischances are caused by his playing tricks on them.”

The coming of the false-faced demon seemed to arouse all the rest of the men, and some of the women too. There was much moving about, and new heads began to appear. Some were those of huge monkeys, others were of parrots and tapirs and jaguars, and one was that of a very thirsty-looking fish—at least, the mouth was wide open. All-were so cunningly shaped and painted that in the vague light they looked surprizingly natural. And the wearers of them made them seem even more real by making noises like the calls of the birds or beasts they imitated.

From the heads, which were made of woven bark-cloth, long cloaks of the same material hung down below the knees of the men inside. Others of the Indians who wore no animal-heads appeared in loose hooded garments shaped like long sacks with eye-holes cut in them. Still others clothed themselves only with bright feathers saved from the birds now cooking in the pots.

For a little time we were busy watching the shifting forms. When we happened to glance back at Andirah we found that he too, old as he was, had blossomed out in gay colors. On his head his women had placed a gorgeous cap of toucan-feathers, from the top of which rose tall plumes of the macaw. Vivid bands of feathers also were fastened around his arms and legs. The curling lines of paint on his face had been freshened, and all in all he was a very gaudy old man. And his toothless mouth was stretched wide in a tickled grin.

“My brother the Bat looks like the noon-day sun,” Senhor Tom complimented him. “Let the young bucks beware, or the girls will forsake them for the chief.”

“The heart of Andirah is young again,” piped the chief, “yet not so young as to be foolish about women. If girls come toward me, let my mighty brother Tupahn stand between them and me, for their name is Trouble.”

“Wise words, heramuhm,” Pedro chuckled. The old man squinted at him and grinned again.

“It is you who speak, herayi?” he answered. “You talk like one who knows women. Keep them from you, my son. So shall your days be long and free from care.”

I looked at Senhor Tom and found a queer expression on his face. I snickered, then saw Marion looking at me, and coughed.

“What is the old man saying?” she asked.

“He says—er—everybody but us is all dressed up like a fire-horse, or words to that effect,” Senhor Tom dodged. “Too bad we didn't fetch along some party frocks, isn't it?”

“Most unfortunate,” she laughed. “Really I'd like to wear one of those masks. It would be fun.”

“Better not. They've been used a lot more than that bat-mask you had, and they'd be—well, smelly. But if you want to join the crowd, how about showing these boys and girls a real American waltz? I'm all out of practise and my muscles are mostly dislocated this morning, but maybe I can dance on my own feet and not on yours.”

“A waltz without music? And with these boots on? Impossible! But—I'll do it just the same!”'

And before any of us knew just what they were about, they were drifting in each other's arms around the chief's fire. At first she hummed a little air to set the step, but soon she grew silent. Around and around they swung, wheeling slowly as they went, and seeming to move like two beings blended into one. And while they stepped along their eyes clung together and a deeper color rose into their faces. When at length they stopped they stood looking silently at each other for a long minute before she turned away and sank into a hammock.

Then I looked around and found the Indians gaping in vast astonishment. And up rose the voice of the Bat, who had been peering like a real bat let loose in sunlight.

“Tupahn is too gentle with his woman. Why does he not strike her or kick her? To twirl her around the fire will do no good.”

We snickered.

“That was no struggle, heramuhm,” Pedro explained. “It was a dance.”

“A dance!” The old man's tone showed disbelief. “To clutch a woman about the middle and drag her around the floor? Truly the white men and women are a queer race. Let them learn to dance from the people of the Bat.”

And the people of the Bat, still looking queerly at Tupahn and “his woman,” drank deep of the rum and began showing them how to dance.

Their dance, of course, was no dance at all, but a trotting and hopping around in a circle, stopping often for more drink. Somewhere near by a couple of log drums boomed, and old Andirah in his hammock grinned and nodded his tall plumes, as if to say that this was dancing. Senhor Tom and the senhorita sat and laughed, Pedro and I chuckled and helped ourselves at the big jars, the Tucunas forgot us and gave their whole minds to their festival, and the house shook with the shouts of the merry-makers and the thunder of the drums. We stopped trying to talk. In that uproar it was useless.

So the time passed until the feast, which the older women tended, was ready for eating. We four squatted on the chief's mats and ate our fill. After a rest, the festa started up once more.

Tiring of the scene, Pedro and I went strolling around the place, looking at the great jars, some of which would hold twenty gallons each; at big bags knitted from fiber-twine, hides of jungle beasts, blow-guns and spears and arrows, and anything else that happened to catch our eyes. Nobody paid the least attention to us now, and we examined every sort of thing the tribe owned. While we were doing this the drumming stopped and some sort of ceremony took place at the chief's place. By the time we lounged back there it was over.

Much shouting and laughing followed. We found Senhor Tom and Marion standing before Andirah and smiling as if they did not know what it was all about but were willing to help the fun along. As the crowd swarmed again around the liquor-jars I asked Senhor Tom what had been done.

“Oh, I don't know,” he said. “Making us members of the tribe, I guess. The old boy held our hands and mumbled some stuff I didn't make out, and everybody held a hullabaloo. I never saw it done before, though I've been among Tucunas quite a bit. Hope this celebration ends today, so we can get back to camp and start on to Viciado. I'm getting tired of sticking around here.”

He yawned, turned away, and went strolling about the house with the girl.

“Tupahn and his woman are now truly the brother and sister of the Bat. Is it so, heramuhm?” Pedro asked.

“It is so, herayi. With his own hands Andirah has taken them into the tribe and put them together according to the custom.”

We looked hard at the old man and at each other.

“Put them together?” Pedro repeated.

“So the Bat has said, my son. As he has put together for life many a young man and his mate, so has he done with these new ones of our tribe, Tupahn and his woman. Let them struggle no more before me as they did.”

Again we stared. Then we roared with laughter.

“Senhor! Senhorita!—I mean Senhora!” Pedro shouted. “Come here!”

“Well?” boomed Senhor Tom. “Don't get fresh, old chap. Just remember this is Senhorita Marshall.”

“She is not, comrade! She is now Senhora Mack! With the proper ceremony, you two have just been married by the Bat!”

XIV.

THE long shadows of another morning stretched across the clearing when we four came out through the narrow doorway of the Bat's maloca and walked around the corner on our way to the forest.

Behind us most of the Tucunas still were asleep. They had kept up their noisy festival until late at night, pausing only when they were too tired—and too drunk—to continue longer; and now the tribe-house was full of snores. The old chief, though, who had stayed in his hammock and taken little of the rum, was wide-awake and unwilling to have us go so soon. He had told us the holiday would not end for two or three days more, and protested stubbornly against our leaving today. But Senhor Tom had finally pacified him by saying he must settle with certain enemies at Viciado, and that the foes of Tupahn could not be allowed to escape. To this the Bat agreed.

He had told us, too, what Pedro and I had suspected—that the creek where our canoes lay did not run to Viciado. But he had also told us, after we explained where our camp was, that we could reach the right stream without going back to the fork. A short half-mile below our camp, he said, a very narrow but fairly deep arm of water connected this creek with the one on which we must travel. He would have aroused men and sent them to guide us, but we told him to let them lie; we needed no escort.

And now, with our farewells said and the new day bright around us, we walked across the open space and once more entered the shady path behind the maloca—the path where Pedro and I had lurked and seen the bat-mask go by on its way to the hut of the foul priest, and where we later had run through the night dragging a blind man. This time the blind man walked ahead, taking his first view of the place where he had stumbled along in blackness. The girl walked silently beside him, also looking about as if seeing the path for the first time. Pedro and I, following at a little distance, watched them

“She should be told, ” Pedro muttered. “Senhor Tom is unfair to himself and to her.”

I agreed. For she still did not know of the marriage. More, she did not know the part her blond companion had played in saving her.

Dazed for an instant by the news of what the ceremony meant, Senhor Tom then had forbidden us to tell her. He declared the marriage meant nothing, because neither of them knew what was taking place and such a proceeding would not hold in “white man's law.” She would be humiliated if she knew, he said, and she must not know. And when she asked the reason for our shouts and laughter he invented a joke which he said the chief had made, telling her that we had only wanted to pass the joke on to them. She looked as if she did not quite believe the explanation, but she asked no more questions.

And we knew that though he had told her something of our search for her, he had given all the credit to us and let her think he had been only a useless blind man who owed his life to us. We suspected—and we later learned it was true—that she thought the killing of the pajé was due to a sudden quarrel and fight which had little to do with her own position as prisoner of the tribe. Even her rescue from Black Hawk, he had told her, had come about only because we “just happened around at the right time.” She knew nothing of the many miles of hard travel and the long days of lurking in ambush which had made it possible for him and us to be there at the right time.

“He does not wish her to feel obliged to him,” I said now.

“Of course. He is so anxious to avoid gratitude that he makes himself seem a headstrong, reckless fellow who would as soon kill a man as smoke a cigaret. He cuts his own throat. Perhaps it is his right to do so, but I do not like it.”

“Nor I. It is his right to conceal his real nature if he will. But it is her right to know the truth of what has been done for her—and the truth of the Indian ceremony yesterday.”

Then I stopped talking, for the pair ahead had halted and we were near enough to be overheard.

“Why, it's burned down!” cried the girl.

“Sure enough,” was Senhor Tom's answer. “Fellows, the priest-house is gone. Maybe we accidentally set it afire when we came out.” He gave us a swift wink.

“Perhaps so, senhor,” Pedro replied coolly. “It is no loss to any one.”

And we passed on, three of us knowing the Bat's command to burn the pajé in his own house had been obeyed.

At the farther edge of the bush we found our trail, and through the forest we passed silently to the camp. Soon the canoes were loaded, and out into the stream we shoved.

“All aboard once more, and bound for Viciado,” Senhor Tom sang out. “Traveling again two by two, as the animals came from the ark. And thus endeth this chapter of our little story.”

He sunk his paddle, and the canoe moved on.

“How many more chapters are there, do you suppose?” Marion laughed back at him. “Every well-regulated story has a happy ending, at least.”

“Maybe so, up home. But here in the jungle a lot of stories aren't well regulated. The ending is just as it happens.”

Her face became very sober. She looked away again, down-stream. Her paddle began to swing. So did ours.

And as I heard this and watched them, I determined to say something myself in their story. But I did not say it then. I waited for the right time.

Soon Pedro spied the narrow water-lane of which Andirah had told us. We turned into it, and until nearly noon we worked along it. Then we came out into the other creek and pointed our bows toward Viciado and the Amazon.

It was nearly night again before my chance came. I made the chance myself. Knowing we now were not more than one day's journey from the river-town, I told Pedro, before we landed—

“Take Senhor Tom hunting and leave me to make camp.”

He gave me a shrewd look.

“Right, comrade. And while you work, tell the senhorita a tale.”

“I will,” I promised. And I did.

It was dark when Pedro brought the North American back with a fine fat mutum turkey. By that time our Lady Marion knew the whole truth. She knew how we had come to be at the camp of Black Hawk; how, after her second capture, Senhor Tom, wounded and blind, had hung doggedly to the search for her and had shamed us and heartened us when we wavered; how he had trapped the pajé in a lie, started us back through the black jungle when we would have waited until morning, broken the power of the priest and then broken the priest himself. She knew, too, that according to the unwritten laws of the Bat people she now was a wife. And she knew that Tupahn the Thunderstorm was only a hard mask concealing a very lovable Tom Mack.

“What a man!” she breathed when I was through. “And I thought him callous, hard-hearted——”

There she stopped.

“A man indeed, senhorita,” I echoed. “A gentleman who does not make a show of his gentleness, but hides it. A clean-hearted man who does not wear his heart on his sleeve. A lonely man who roves deadly places because, as he himself admits, he can not find his mate. But I am speaking now of the man himself, where I meant only to tell you the bare truth of what has been done—the truth which you have every right to know. I shall say no more.”

Nor did she say more. She looked long at the forest where he and Pedro had disappeared. Then she lay down in her hammock, as if to rest; but when I passed near her again I saw that her eyes were wide.

When the two came in she pretended sleep. When I called her to the night meal she came as if drowsy and ate in silence. Then, with only a few words, she returned to the tambo. Senhor Tom looked after her as if wondering what she was displeased about. I managed to keep from grinning until I was in my hanging bed.

UP AT dawn, we pushed speedily on the last miles of our journey to the big river. Still the girl gave no sign of what was in her mind. At her place in the bow of Senhor Tom's craft, she kept her eyes steadily ahead and plied her paddle as if thinking only of reaching the end of her journey. I began to wonder when and how she would let Senhor Tom know what she knew—or whether she would let him know at all.

Suddenly around a turn swept another canoe. Behind it came another, and another. Pedro snatched up our one rifle. Senhor Tom made a quick move toward his thigh.

“Alto lá!” came a sharp command from the first canoe. Rifles sprang up and covered us.

“Halt yourself!” roared Senhor Tom. “Back up, you Viciado bums!”

There was a moment's silence while we drifted and the men beyond squinted at us under their hands. Then came a voice.

“Por Deus! It is the North American explorer, Thomaz Mack—the one who is called Tupahn! Advance, comrades.”

The dugouts came on, and behind them still more appeared. In the first to reach us were Indian paddlers and several hard-faced Brazilians.

“Who are you?” Pedro demanded, his finger still on the trigger.

“River-traders, amigo. What news of Black Hawk? How come you to be alive in his land? And—Nossa Senhora! A woman! A white woman! What does this mean?”

“It means that Black Hawk is dead,” I answered. “Senhor Mack killed him days ago. His army of Tucunas is scattered.”

They stared. No man spoke.

“Do you go to trade with him?” I added.

The traders laughed harshly.

“Si! We go to trade him lead bullets in return for his robbery of many of us and murder of some of us. Since no one else would go against him, we have banded together to end him. Dead? Killed by one man? Ho-ho-ho!”

“Go on and see for yourselves. It is as I tell you. What news of Viciado?”

“Viciado has been cleaned,” was the grim answer. “You will find it safe as a church. The Hawk's tools in that town have been so well plugged with lead that they will work no more. We shall go on, friend, to make sure your tale is not a dream. We want no mistakes. But who is this woman?”

Bold eyes centered on the senhorita. They were a hard crew, those traders, and we did not like their stares at the girl. Senhor Tom arose, hand on gun.

“This woman,” he snapped in English, “is my wife. Anything else you'd like to. know?”

“Nothing,” laughed the leader. “Adeos!”

The canoes swung past. Boat after boat went by, loaded with men and guns. Each long dugout held two or three traders and perhaps a dozen Indians—savage-looking redskins whose tribe I could not guess. Later I heard that they had been brought by the traders from the north side of the Amazon, and that they were even more fierce than they looked. In all, the boats must have held a hundred men.

At length they were gone on their useless journey. Then the girl spoke out.

“Before we proceed, Captain Mack, I think we had better reach an understanding. Why have you not told me before that I am your wife?”

She tried to look very severe.

“Why—uh—er—just a figure of speech,” Senhor Tom stammered. “It doesn't mean anything.”

“No? Perhaps it does, sir. We were married by the chief, were we not? And now you have publicly acknowledged me as your wife before many witnesses. Are you in the habit of marrying girls and then telling them it means nothing? That is a dangerous game!”

His mouth fell open. He stared blankly at her. Then he turned on me.

“You, Lourenço! You told her!”

“Woof, woof!” she mocked him. “Don't bark so loud, captain! You're not scaring any one this time. We know you're just a big fraud. Now that your sin has found you out, as the story-books say, what are you going to do about it?”

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” he dared her.

“I am going to give you one choice, sir—to fight or run. If you wish to flee into your jungle and hide there for the rest of your life, I'll set you ashore now. If not, then you must marry me again as soon as we can find a clergyman, and then come home to the States with me and fight it out as to who is to be boss. Now which is it—run or fight?”

“Say! Do you mean that?”

“Mean it?” she smiled. “You poor silly, are you still blind?”

She gave him one long look. Then he sprang up

“You little devil!” he breathed. “You're in for it now!”

Their canoe did not quite upset, but it came near it. Not that she struggled—no, indeed. It was his swift stride and sudden swoop at her that set the dugout to rolling. But it soon grew steady again, for after his arms swept around her they stood very still.

We two slipped our own boat silently away, and they never saw us go. The whole band of fighting traders and Indians might have come back and surrounded them, and I doubt if they would have known it. They were blind and deaf to all the world—yes, and dumb too; for how can one talk whose lips are pressed tight against others?

Below the next bend we caught overhanging branches and waited. And Pedro said, “At last we have found a use for that money we found in the foul nest of Black Hawk.”

“How?” I asked.

“As a wedding gift, of course. To keep it will bring us no luck. It was wrung by the Hawk from his victims through murder and robbery and terror, and it did him no good. It was looted by us from the camp of the tyrant we destroyed, and it will do us no good either. But now, as a pledge of friendship to those who are starting together on a new trail, it will carry with it only good will and fond remembrance.

“Viciado is cleaned. The big river-steamers will call there again. These two will sail away. Before they sail, let us wrap this money carefully, so that they will not know what it is, and give it to them as a small token of our regard, not to be opened until they reach North America. Then we shall go back, empty-handed but light-hearted, to the Javary, where we have plenty of money earned by honest work.”

“So it shall be,” I agreed heartily. Then I grinned and added: “But which of them shall we give it to? Who is the boss?”

“There is no boss,” he laughed. “We shall give it to Senhor Tom because we have known him longer, but there will be no bossing between those two. He has found at last the partner who will meet him half way in all things and will never quit. Here they come, paddling as if they did not know what they were about. Let us go.”

But before we moved I called—

“Well, comrade, have you reached that understanding?”

“Sure have!” boomed Senhor Tom. “Senhora Mack promises that if she can't keep me contented in the States she'll send me back to the jungle. I'm giving her a wide-open chance to make good. This is my first attempt at marriage, but I'll try anything once. If it doesn't work, you'll see me turn up at your coronel's place some day. Keep an eye out for me.”

But, senhores, he has never come back.

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 Metasyntactic variable, which is released under the 
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