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                            THE MYSTERY BOYS
                                AND THE
                        Secret of the Golden Sun


                             By VAN POWELL

                             _A_UTHOR _of_
                    “The Mystery Boys Series,” etc.

                [Illustration: Mystery boys series logo]

                                  THE
                     WORLD SYNDICATE PUBLISHING CO.
                    Cleveland, Ohio    New York City

                            Copyright, 1931
                                  _by_
                   THE WORLD SYNDICATE PUBLISHING CO.
               _Printed in the United States of America_

                         [Illustration: WORLD]




                                CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
  I. The Man Who Could Smell Money                                     5
  II. The Mystery Boys Get News                                       17
  III. Henry Morgan’s Story                                           25
  IV. Tom Breaks the Trail                                            37
  V. Storm and Stress                                                 46
  VI. Stranded!                                                       57
  VII. Turtles and Trouble                                            67
  VIII. An Unpleasant Trip                                            76
  IX. Magic and Madness                                               86
  X. Henry Turns Savage                                               95
  XI. A False Message                                                105
  XII. The Facts!                                                    112
  XIII. Toosa’s Vengeance                                            120
  XIV. The Porto Bello Puzzle                                        128
  XV. Modern Magic                                                   142
  XVI. Part of the Secret                                            151
  XVII. A Cold Reception                                             159
  XVIII. The Jungle Opens Its Arms                                   174
  XIX. Wasted Effort                                                 185
  XX. Trailed by a Jaguar                                            190
  XXI. Where No White Men Go                                         201
  XXII. In the Closed Circle                                         210
  XXIII. Magic Against Magic                                         220
  XXIV. A Tight Corner                                               229
  XXV. Where Wits Count!                                             237
  XXVI. Two Men Disappear                                            248
  XXVII. Against Odds                                                258
  XXVIII. Golden Bait                                                265
  XXIX. The Rats Come                                                272
  XXX. Sunset!                                                       282




           THE MYSTERY BOYS AND THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN SUN




                               CHAPTER I
                     THE MAN WHO COULD SMELL MONEY


“That fellow is watching us again!” whispered Tom Carroll to his
companions, Nicky and Cliff, as he adjusted a pack strap on the Mexican
burro behind which he sheltered his face as he spoke.

“If he keeps on, I’m going over and ask him what’s next!” Nicky said,
“I’ll find out what he means by it or know the reason why.”

Nicky was impulsive and quick: he preferred action to reasoning, and was
usually more willing to meet trouble than to avoid it. Tom, who was
generally as cool and as level headed as Cliff, the oldest of the trio,
seemed inclined to agree with the youngest chum; but Cliff, cinching up
his pony’s saddle, shook his head at Nicky.

“We came out here to try to learn something about Tom’s sister, not to
court trouble,” he urged. “I guess that chap is simply curious about us
and is watching to see that we saddle up properly.”

“Is it any of his business?” demanded Nicky. “He’s just one of the
miners having his lunch. What business is it of his what we do or how we
do it?”

“He looks pretty mean,” Cliff admitted.

Tom, having taken a moment to consider, as he generally did, came to a
conclusion. “I’m not so sure that he is mean,” he told his two friends.
“That scar across his face, and his bleary eyes, make him look pretty
fierce; but he may be perfectly innocent of any wrong thoughts. As long
as he only watches, he isn’t breaking any law or hurting us. Are you
fellows ready?”

“All set!” answered Cliff, patting his pony’s flank.

“Then, let’s not bother about a rough looking miner who has hardly taken
his eyes off us since we came here this morning. Nicky, run over to the
mine office building and tell Mr. Gray we’ve got everything ready to
start back.”

Nicky dropped his own pony’s rein over its head, while Tom, with his
lithe movements apparent in the ease with which he mounted his own
animal, caught the bridle of an extra mount and Cliff took the burro’s
leading rope. Nicky ambled across the flat ground toward a zinc sheathed
shack at a little distance.

Cliff and Tom sat on their ponies, watching covertly as the man they had
been discussing finished the remnants of his chili con carne, wiped his
mouth on a ragged coat sleeve, rose and strolled with a seemingly
aimless air toward the upper level on which stood the engine house, the
mouth of the mine and other timbered and metal covered buildings.

Nicky, on his return, looked around, saw that the man was gone and
voiced a proposal.

“Mr. Gray says he won’t be ready to go for more than an hour,” he
informed his chums. “The mine superintendent is telling him about some
old Aztec curios he owns, and you know how that will chain Cliff’s
father in his chair. What do you say if we take a little gallop down the
trail—a race, maybe?”

Tom vetoed the race: they had a good ride before them and he did not
want to start on winded ponies: however, he agreed to a short ride on a
trail that they had not explored and the trio rode off, tying their
burro to await their return.

The extra pony, also left standing, may have wondered why his own rider,
the older one, had not come; but he waited with the patience of a well
trained animal.

As the boys rode along, the trail became rapidly steeper and the small
plateau narrowed into a rough, rocky coulee.

“It certainly is too bad,” Nicky said, with a sidewise glance of rueful
sympathy toward Tom. “After we came all the way to Mexico City and then
rode out here to the old mine, it is too bad that we can’t get even a
trace of your missing sister.”

Tom nodded.

“Yes,” he agreed. “You’d think the authorities would know something,
after all these years, or that we could pick up some clues.”

“It would have been different in the United States,” said Nicky, with a
sense of pride in his native land. “Our detectives don’t let the grass
grow under their feet.”

“And yet,” broke in Cliff, “many girls, and men and women, too,
disappear in America and never are found.”

“There were no eye-witnesses, except the ones they found dead, after the
bandits made their raid—that’s why there were no clues,” Tom added.

“Well,” he finished, sadly, “I guess my own private mystery will never
be solved.”

“You can’t tell,” Nicky said, with his usual optimism. “You know, it
seemed as though Cliff’s father would never be heard from again, after
he went to Peru—but we got a letter, or Cliff did, and we went down
there with Mr. Whitley, our history instructor—and not only rescued Mr.
Gray from the hidden Inca city, but we saw a lot of adventure and got
some of the Inca treasure.”

“And your mystery seemed as though it would never be solved, Nicky,”
Cliff reminded his friend. “With only half of a cipher message left to
your family by Captain Kidd, it was possible for us to find the hidden
treasure in the Florida keys and have a lot of excitement in the
bargain.”

“And both adventures started out very tamely,” Nicky was trying hard to
brighten up his comrade; but Tom only shook his head.

“This is different,” he said.

Nicky and Cliff referred to two exciting escapades in which all three
had participated. Because each of them had had a mystery in his life the
three had drawn very close in the bonds of friendship, and had formed
themselves into a secret order which they called the Mystery Boys. They
had secret gestures by which they could communicate with one another in
the presence of others without divulging the fact that they did so:
also, they had initiation rites and binding oaths and strict codes which
held them together and bound them to help each other in every way to
solve their individual mysteries.

Cliff’s mystery, as Nicky said, had been cleared up in the summer past:
the following winter the trio, while in Jamaica, had run onto some
information which had begun the adventure through which the hidden
treasure mystery of Nicky’s family had been brought to a successful end.

While in Cliff’s case the reward had not been financially large, he had
found his father. In Nicky’s adventure no life had been involved in
danger, but a buried mass of gold bars had been recovered and
distributed fairly so that each of the three was, in a modest way,
provided for as far as riches went: they were not made millionaires,
because the treasure had to be shared with others involved in Captain
Kidd’s legacy, but they were “well fixed.”

But in Tom’s case, the mystery was of a different kind, and there was in
it not only the element of tragedy, but, as well, the element of
uncertainty.

Hardly more than five years ago Tom, confined to his bed by a bad attack
of measles, had been thus prevented from going with his father and his
sister, a year older than he, to Mexico. That saved his life, which is a
curious thing to think about—that sickness saved him from a worse fate.

Mr. Carrol, an engineer and mining expert, sent to inspect some mining
property, had left Tom under the care of an older cousin; but so eager
had eleven-year-old Margery been to see the strange country that Mr.
Carrol had taken her with him.

That farewell, looking out of a darkened room at the bright hair and
half-smiling, half-tearful face, had been Tom’s last sight of his
beloved sister; and that clasp of hands between father and son had been
the last they could ever exchange.

For, shortly after the arrival of the engineer and his daughter at a
remote mining property, bandits had descended from the mountains in a
raid, seemingly because they knew that gold to a high value had been
amassed and stored until time to load it on burros and with armed guards
take it to the railway shipping point.

In the news, meagre and disjointed, which Tom had received, it was
supposed that the bandits had come to the mine during the night, had
been seen and attacked by the engineer and several other Americans who
were in charge of the property. A fight must have ensued, but one
disastrous to the defenders, because the gold was gone and the mine was
deserted when the workmen came from their hovels far down the trail the
next day. According to what Tom heard, they had found his father and the
other Americans, all past any earthly aid.

But there had been no news of Margery!

With his heart torn by his bereavement and with terror gnawing at his
mind day and night, even at the tender age of ten, Tom had begged his
father’s cousin to use every effort to learn what had happened to his
sister. All that could be done, had been done.

But the family had little money and although the Government made
inquiries and State departments exchanged notes and the Mexican
authorities declared that soldiers had scoured the neighborhood of the
mine and the passes in the sierras—and some of the bandits had been
caught and punished!—there was no trace of the little girl.

No wonder that Tom suffered anguish every time he thought of her. Was
she wandering about in the mountains, alone, starved? Was she a captive
among the bandits? Those who had been caught declared by everything they
reverenced that they had not seen her at any time nor after the retreat
had they seen her in their camp among the cordilleras. Even the gold was
gone! A renegade white man—they had not known his nationality—had
incited the attack, seeming to guess that there was money to be had. But
he had disappeared during the fighting—and so, they averred, had the
gold bags and the burros.

Was the little, sunny-haired Margery his prisoner also? Tom never had
learned, for no trace of him—or of her—had ever been found.

Naturally, even after five years, the pain was deep and the scar still
burned; that is why he had been so anxious to see the summer vacation
arrive at Amadale Military Academy, where he and his chums were
students. Cliff was glad in one way, also, because the end of the term
saw his graduation. That meant that he could devote all of his time, for
the summer and as long as might be necessary, to his father, Mr. Gray, a
great scholar and student of old civilizations. Mr. Gray wrote books on
the subject of ancient history, and went to many strange places to get
his facts. Cliff looked forward to the experiences and the knowledge he
would gain; but mostly he was glad to be able to help his father whose
health was not of the best since his years of captivity among the hidden
Inca survivors in the Peruvian cordilleras.

Nicky, in the same class with Tom, and with a year yet to be passed in
study and training of an athletic and disciplinary sort, looked forward
to the vacation, because he knew that Mr. Gray was going to Mexico to
study the Aztec civilization of a time long past, and to collect Indian
relics and other material for a Museum in New York—and Cliff would go
with him to help him and to write for him when his eyes were tired, and
to superintend digging and so on; and Tom had been invited to accompany
them, because he could in that way see at first hand the district of
Mexico which had bred tragedy in its wild mountains for him. That meant
that the inseparables would feel that their ranks were incomplete
without the third member of the Mystery Boys, and so, of course, Nicky
was with the others.

They had hired ponies and a guide and had ridden out to the mine, with
the results which the boys had just discussed during their ride.

“I’ll bet this is the very trail those bandits used,” Nicky was saying
as Tom reined in his pony.

“Maybe,” he said listlessly, “but there won’t be any clues or signs on
it after five years. We’d better go back.”

“Well—I wish you’d look!” gasped Nicky, turning his head and spying
something down the trail. “There comes that fellow who was watching us
like a hawk—and he’s—yes, he is!—he’s riding Mr. Gray’s pony.”

“We’ll wait and see what he is after,” suggested Cliff at once. “We’re
three to one.”

“Yes,” cried Nicky hotly, “and if he ‘starts’ anything, I’ll start him
toward that chasm over yonder!”

The man riding toward them was quite tall, and rangey of build. He did
not show his full height for he rode, as he walked, stooped over. He
seemed to be in the last stages of physical slovenliness, and—even
ignoring the scar across his face from the base of his nose to his left
jawbone—his features looked sinister. Actually it was moral laxity, too
much drinking and careless living that had pulled down a frame which
must at one time have been erect and powerful, and broke a once daring
spirit till it looked out of bleary eyes with dull, apathetic boredom.

“Well, are you following us?” Nicky spoke up as soon as the man was
close enough to hear.

The man rode up closer still, reined in his pony, dropped the leather
onto the animal’s neck and smiled ingratiatingly.

“Yes,” he said, in a husky, whispering sort of way, “I’m follerin’ you.
’Cause why? That’s what you want to know. ’Cause why! Ain’t it so?”

“Certainly we want to know,” chimed in Cliff. “Why are you following
us?”

“He-he-he-he!” It was a shrill, cracked sort of laugh. “’Cause Henry
Morgan smells money—that’s why!”

“Henry Morgan!——” Nicky started. He read a great deal about pirates and
piracy because he had been interested in the cipher which Captain Kidd
had given to one of his ancestors, “Henry Morgan! Any relation to the
old pirate?” None of them were afraid; they were simply curious, and a
little bit annoyed.

“Henry Morgan—the pirate! He-he-he! Maybe. Who knows! Can pirates smell
money?”

“They must,” Nicky declared. “They were always crazy about getting it.”

“Well, then, I must be related to ’em. ’Cause why? ’Cause Hen Morgan can
smell money. And—’cause Hen Morgan is crazy for it. And——” he fixed them
with a bleared eye and rubbed his hands—and the chums drew their ponies
closer on the trail as he added:

“Oh, yes! Hen Morgan smells money—an’ he smells it on you, or around
you—and he wants some of it!”




                               CHAPTER II
                       THE MYSTERY BOYS GET NEWS


“You talk one way and act the opposite!” Tom made his tones sarcastic to
cover his inward trepidation. He was not exactly afraid for he did not
think that the man had any weapon and they outnumbered him. But Tom
wanted to communicate secretly and he did not see just how to do it.

The Mystery Boys had two secret sign manuals: one was for asking and
answering questions, and the other was for suggesting a course of
action. But neither had been planned for use while seated on ponies, and
such signs as the folding of arms, or the tying of a shoelace, were out
of the question. So Tom kept on talking while he thought busily.

“You say you can smell money,” he added, “and then you follow us out
here to rob us. Why, I don’t think we could get enough money together to
buy a bag of chili beans!”

Somewhat to his surprise the man made a violent gesture of denial.

He sidled his pony a little closer, put up a hand as if to drive away
any suggestion of robbery, and spoke again in his husky voice.

“No, not that! Hen Morgan aren’t no robber. ’Cause why? ’Cause robbers
takes chances. They takes some likely person and risks getting a lot of
money—and sometimes they guess wrong. But not Henry Morgan. Oh, no!
’Cause why? ’Cause he don’t guess. He smells money.”

The chums looked at one another dubiously. Was this man off his head? He
wasn’t there to rob them! He didn’t guess—he smelled money! What was his
purpose? “You smelled wrong, for once!” Tom declared, after a moment.

“Oh, no!” cried the husky voice, “not Hen Morgan. He sees you three come
a-ridin’ up to Dead Hope mine, with the old gent. He sees how the
super’tendent calls some of us miners in and he asks ’em, later, what
it’s all about. ’Cause why? ’Cause Hen Morgan knows something.”

“Knows something? About what?” demanded Tom.

“Light down off your ponies an’ I’ll tell you. ’Cause why? ’Cause it
takes too much work keepin’ these critters standing still. Light!”

Tom looked at his companions. Cliff nodded and slid from his saddle.
Nicky and Tom followed his example. There was no danger, that they could
see, and on the ground they had more freedom of movement than while
mounted on strange, and possibly unruly mustangs.

“Now,” said Henry Morgan, seating himself on a boulder and rolling a
cigarette expertly with his right hand, while three mystified, rather
eager youths stood watching him, “now—Hen Morgan said he smelled money
on you or around you, and he was right. ’Cause why? Look at it! You
didn’t ride out here to look for mining property; you come a-hunting for
some news of a certain thing what happened a good while ago!”

“How do you know we did?” Nicky asked sharply.

“From the miners who was called to the office. But they didn’t know
anything. Nobody did. Nobody does—but——”

Tom almost sprang forward, so eager was he as the import of Henry’s
words flashed through his mind. “Do you? Do you know about—about my
sister——”

With maddening deliberateness the man held up a hand for silence,
searched for and found a crumpled card of matches, struck one and
carefully ignited the end of his cigarette. Then, at last, he nodded.

“Hen Morgan is the only man who does know anything—but he don’t know
much.”

“Well, if you know anything at all, when you found out that we were
hunting for facts, why didn’t you come out in the open and tell?” Tom
said it angrily, for the suspense was torture to him.

“Hen Morgan uses his head, that’s why!” He blew a cloud of smoke,
coughed a little, and resumed his confidential, husky whispering. “You
come here lookin’ for news. That means money behind you. ’Cause why?
’Cause no three young lads comes all this way without money. Now,
reasons I, they’ll pay for news.”

“Oh!” cried Tom, “I see. You know something and you want to bargain with
us and sell your information for all you can get.”

“It’s what I’d expect,” Nicky cut in.

“Come on, then,” Cliff urged. “We’ll pay you all your information turns
out to be worth. But we’ll go back and talk it over with my father, out
in the open, not up here in the trail.”

“Easy, easy!” begged Henry Morgan. “We won’t go back, right yet. ’Cause
why? ’Cause we’ll make our bargain here.”

Nicky impulsively caught his pony’s saddle horn, started to lift a foot
for the stirrup.

“Come on, fellows,” he urged. “We’ll go back and get help.”

Henry Morgan stood up. “The minute you rides down the trail, I rides
off—up that way.” He waved his arm. “They didn’t ever find the head
bandit, that time, did they? Nor the gold? ’Cause why? ’Cause there’s a
way they got took to safety, and I know that way! If you don’t want my
news, and won’t strike a bargain, well and good. But if you do——” he
paused.

Tom was scratching his left ear quietly with his finger, and with one
accord Nicky and Cliff folded their arms and the Mystery Boys’ council
was in session without an outward evidence that anyone could notice or
read.

Tom shifted the visor of his cap a tiny bit one way, then back: it was a
silent appeal, “What shall we do?”

Cliff picked up a pebble and shied it aimlessly to one side: that was a
code sign which meant that the last word of every sentence in his next
speech would have a meaning. Then he spoke up, carelessly.

“Let’s see. You said what? You’ve got news? Likely, that is!”

Mentally, as he spoke, Tom noted the pauses, and then, connecting the
words that ended each short sentence, he discerned that Cliff’s advice
was: “See—what—news—is!”

Tom moved the little finger of his right hand gently, knowing that Cliff
watched for that sign of agreement: to use the left finger would mean
denial or rejection of the advice; but Tom took it.

“You’ve got to let us know what you have to sell,” he addressed Henry
Morgan. “I’m willing to pass my word and strike hands on it, if you have
any knowledge that will help us to find my missing sister, I will pay
you anything within reason.”

The three chums half expected Morgan to demur. If he told them what he
knew it would be worthless to him; once they knew it they could use it.
However, they got a slight surprise, for Morgan merely grinned and
nodded.

“I’ll tell you,” he said, “’Cause why? ’Cause I want help. If I tell
you, you can see how good it is—what I know. And even when I tell you,
I’m still sure of my reward. ’Cause why? ’Cause I’ll tell you everything
but one man’s name—and without that, you can’t do a thing—at the same
time Hen Morgan can show that he knows what you want to know.”

He told them, quietly. They thrilled, they shuddered; they drew closer.
Each and all, the Mystery Boys forgot that they were out on a lonely
trail, forgot that the man was bargaining, in a way, for a human life.
His story chained them in spellbound attention.

When he completed it, Tom held out his hand.

“It sounds like a real help—your story does,” he said. “I’m not of age
to handle my own money, but I know that Mr. Gray, who is acting as the
custodian of my money, will agree to give you——” he hesitated, partly to
see how much Henry Morgan would name, and partly to plan in his own mind
what to do. That they must have the name of a certain important figure
in the bandit raid, cost how it might, Tom knew.

“Let’s not make it a set figure,” said Morgan, again surprising the
trio. “’Cause why? ’Cause Hen Morgan has got a bigger stake to gain than
what you could give. But you could help him to get it. And he could help
you to get what you want. And so, everybody would be satisfied.”

“Agree?” asked Tom’s eyes, and the bent first finger that touched his
right thumb. Nicky and Cliff signaled a “yes.”

“That’s reasonable,” Tom nodded. “What do you expect us to do?”

“All I ask is that you pay the expense of the search—and take me along!”

“That’s all?”

“Well, only, if I help you find that—certain fellow—and we do find him,
and he tells me what I want to know too—you’ve got to sign a paper that
you’ll help me to get to locate the Golden Sun——”

“The Golden Sun?” cried Nicky and Cliff together.

Henry nodded. “Yep,” he agreed, “The Golden Sun. It’s a mountain of
gold, the way I understand about it. And I got as much right to it as
this—other fellow. You’ll see why later on. But I’ve got to have your
word—you, the one who wants to find his sister!—that you’ll help me—and
maybe share with me in the mine, eh? ’Cause why? ’Cause Hen Morgan is
generous, he is—and if you help him he’ll help you.”

“I pass my word,” said Tom, solemnly, and gripped hands with Morgan,
just a little hesitantly at the contact with the soiled, rough paw.

“All right, I know you’ll not break your word—you don’t look like that
kind. Mount and let’s ride and talk to the old gent.”

“Well!” exclaimed Nicky. “Off again for adventure—and success, I hope!”




                              CHAPTER III
                          HENRY MORGAN’S STORY


They rode back to the mine property quickly. It did not take long to
locate Mr. Gray, Cliff’s elderly father: he listened in silence to the
eager trio as they broke in upon one another, so excited were they, and
so eager to get his opinion in regard to the feasibility of starting at
once for the Central American coast.

Henry Morgan had exacted from them all a promise that they would not
disclose what he had told them to the mine superintendent, a rather lazy
and careless man who seemed to realize that since the mine was hardly
paying for its expense, his work was only a means of making a living
until the mine finally “petered out” and he went elsewhere. The chums
had already discovered that there were many adventurous and roving white
men, from Mexico down all the Central American coast and into South
America, as well as among the Virgin Islands, who eked out a living
wherever and however chance offered. Henry Morgan was of that type, but
much drinking and loose living had made him a very poor specimen,
indeed, of the adventure-loving, roving American.

“If Mr. Morgan knew so much, why did he not come to us at once?” was Mr.
Gray’s natural first question.

“I think he explains it logically,” answered Tom, “and Nicky and Cliff
agree with me.” They nodded. “He is afraid that he might get ‘mixed up’
with the Mexican authorities, and that would spoil everything,” Nicky
explained. “Let him tell you what he told us, won’t you, Mr. Gray?”

The elderly scholar and writer nodded. Henry Morgan cleared his throat
and, in his husky, rusty voice, related the tale again.

“I’ve been a rover all my life,” he began, “from kid days on. ’Cause
why? ’Cause I liked to see new places and have excitement. Sometimes I
got more nor I bargained for. Sometimes I near starved. But I always
come through all right.”

He sketched briefly the years he had spent roving up and down the
Caribbean coast of the Central American states, and the adjacent
islands, and over to Cuba during an insurrection, and in Haiti, while a
revolution was in progress, and gold-prospecting in Spanish Honduras.

“It was while I was in Spanish Honduras, in the Mosquito Indian’s
country,” he went on, “I met the fellow I told these lads about. He was
lookin’ for gold, and there was supposed to be a gold mountain inland,
but the Indians in the interior was too dangerous for us to risk gettin’
in. Well, finally, we decided to give up hunting for any mine there—at
least, I did. I was down on the coast, near the sand point at Brower’s
Lagoon when a sailing sloop came in over the reef one day, and when I
found out they needed a hand, I shipped on her and left—this other
fellow—inland, still bound he would some time locate that mine or
mountain of gold and claim it.”

He explained to the interested quartet that he went into so much detail
because it all had something to do with the later part of his yarn. They
nodded and did not interrupt him once.

“This—other fellow—had made great friends with an old Indian, up
river—oh, quite a ways up the Rio Patuca. This old Indian must have
lived for centuries. ’Cause why? ’Cause he knew legends and history that
his own tribe had forgot: and he knew medicines and herbs, the same as
the oldest of the other medicine men couldn’t even remember. And Be—this
other fellow—had got real close in his confidence and said this old
Toosa—that was his name—would show him a way to find the golden
mountain, so I left him there.”

He skipped quickly over the following years until the time, about six
years before, when he had found himself in Mexico and, hearing of some
rich mines in the sierras, had eventually reached and found employment
at the mine which, in its prosperity, was called the Great Hope, but
which, since, had degenerated in value until it was jokingly styled the
Dead Hope.

“But whenever I get in civilized places where there is drink,” Henry
continued, “I can’t do nothin’ for myself. ’Cause why? ’Cause it gets me
and holds me and drags me down.” He made a gesture of rueful
resignation. Then, rolling a fresh cigarette, he began to bring his
story into the matters which most intensely gripped the imaginations of
the chums.

“I was made assistant to the super’,” he told them, “but it wasn’t long
before I got so bad and so low that they kicked me out. Well, I was sore
about it and made up my mind to get even. But I didn’t. ’Cause why?
Well, I struck up with B—with this other fellow, again.”

Whoever this man with the name he so mysteriously withheld might be, he
was evidently of the same general type as Henry. The latter met him, he
said, in a “dive” in Mexico City, and in a ribald fit of liquor stupor
the friend had gabbled and raved and ranted about finding “the Golden
Sun!”

“That was what we had decided we’d name our mountain, when we found it,”
Henry explained. “So I was all excited. But he was too far gone to tell
me anything I could pin onto. Then I got mad at him and started a fight
and——” he pointed to his scarred face, “this is my souvenir! It laid me
up in a dinky hospital for weeks.”

When, without money, weak and rather sobered in mind as well as
physically, he came out of the hospital, Henry Morgan decided to drift
back to the mine, see if he could be reinstated, and live a better life,
he told the chums.

“I do not like to interrupt,” began Mr. Gray, “but I fail to see——”

“Just wait, Dad,” begged his son, Cliff, “he’s coming to it, now.”

Mr. Gray leaned back and studied the bleared eyes while Henry Morgan
resumed his story and the chums almost held their breath.

“I had to tell all that. ’Cause why? ’Cause it counts in the finish—or
will, if you see it the way I do,” declared the rover. “I won’t waste
time sayin’ how I got back, what I went through. But get back to Dead
Hope I did.

“And it was on the night of the bandits’ raid!”

Then Mr. Gray saw why the boys were so absorbed. They knew what was
coming.

“That dark night I come a-stumblin’ up the path, yonder, weak and hungry
and staggerin’—I hadn’t eat no food for a day. All of a sudden there was
a yelling and a shouting and guns a-popping!”

“What did you do?” gasped Nicky, thrilled anew by the recital.

“I stopped,” said Henry, matter-of-factly, “I stopped. There was flashes
of guns and people running around and the men on horses shooting and
riding after people in their night-clothes—the ones that was on the
ground, I mean, not the bandits. They was dressed, of course! One o’ the
men a-horseback rode right close to where I had dropped back behind the
rock, and he saw me. ‘Here, grab this rein,’ he snapped at me—and you
can believe it or not—it was B—it was my old pal I had last seen in
Mexico City, drunk, and he had give me this slash with a broken bottle!”

“B—who’s Be—?” asked Tom quickly, trying a clever way to surprise the
man into revealing the name they sought, without having to wait.

“Be—oh, he’s the man I’ve been talkin’ of,” said Henry, favoring Tom
with a steady stare and then, suddenly, breaking into his high chuckle.
Then he sobered down and went on.

“Little boys what asks questions finds out just what they wants to
know—he-he-he!” he reproved Tom who apologized for interrupting.

“All right,” Henry said. “Well, I yelled after him, but he was runnin’
towards the excitement, hollering and shouting, and I was too busy with
that horse of his to run after him. I was scared to let the critter
loose for fear o’ what he’d do to me. I guessed he’d fell in with a
rough gang and had decided to lead them or be with them on this raid. I
judged there must be a lot of gold laid up in the mine house, waiting
for burros and guards to carry it to the railroad. If I let the horse
go, this fellow would maybe give me a dose of lead. So I hung on.”

“The horse was excited and scared, wasn’t he?” asked Tom.

“He was, and no mistake! He began to drag me and I hung on, yellin’ at
him to quit, and him draggin’ and rearing up. First thing I knew, I was
bein’ dragged over to that pass we rode in this afternoon. The bandits
must o’ come out of it earlier and the horse wanted to get home, maybe.
Anyhow, towards that he was draggin’ me. And then—I saw a couple of Mex.
desperadoes, so they looked with their tall straw hats and dirty,
raggedy clo’es, and they was drivin’ about six burros with heavy sacks
tied over their backs, all they could carry!”

“Gold!” gasped Nicky.

“Gold it most likely was. Anyhow, here come that friend of mine—he was
my friend once, I mean, before—” he touched his scar. “He had a rifle
and was runnin’. There was still shootin’ going on, and a horse was down
one place and a bandit another, and men stretched out yonder and hither.
This fellow he run to me and pushed me to one side and pushed a rifle in
my hand, and he said, ‘Hold this pass for ten minutes with this rifle,
and then retreat up it about fifty feet, and I’ll be in ambush and I’ll
surprise the guys, and what you can’t stop—I will! Then we’ll divvy the
gold!’ So I grabbed the rifle and took a place. At the same minute I
hear a screech and yonder, out of the sleepin’ quarters, comes a little
girl, a-runnin’ as tight as she could run, with a big ruffian a-chasin’
her!”

“Oh!” cried Tom, aghast and almost shaking in his excitement, “Oh—my
sis—little Margery!”

“Little girl with bright hair!” agreed Henry. “Well, before I scarcely
knowed what was what that—er, friend—had shot down the ‘greasers’ with
the burros, stopped the fellow chasin’ the little girl, scooped her in
his arms and set her onto the saddle of his horse and was up behind
her.”

“Didn’t the bandits see it?” asked Cliff.

“They had been so busy finishin’ off the engineer and the other white
men—and they made a good stand, let me say it!—they was occupied too
much to notice the actions goin’ on up by the pass. But they saw what
was what about then, and come a-yellin’. I took cover, and begun to use
that rifle. There was a full clip in it and I had another one shoved
into my hands, and while that wild pal of mine rode up the pass, drivin’
the burros, I stood off about four of the bandits that wasn’t wounded.”

Henry Morgan wiped his dry lips and cleared his roughened throat. Tom
hurried him along.

“When you backed down the trail—what?”

“Nothing!” said Henry.

“Nothing?” Mr. Gray exclaimed, adding to the chorus of the younger
voices, for they had not heard the details before.

“Nothing!” Henry repeated. “Not a sign of help. That fellow was gone,
slicker’n grease, with the little girl and the burros and the gold. I
was caught, of course. The bandits tried to get out of me what I knew
and I told them exact facts like you’ve just heard. I was mad at being
made to help him ‘double-cross’ his gang and they saw I was telling the
truth. Well——” he broke off.

“But he got a letter, a couple of months ago, he says,” Tom took up the
recital. “Another adventurer Mr. Morgan knows, wrote him, and—what did
you say he wrote?”

“He wrote me that he had run onto—this fellow we been talking about,
down in Colon—Panama, you know! Said he was livin’ like a millionaire,
and was talkin’ that he was gettin’ gold off of——” ‘from’ he meant, of
course—“off of some Indians. I guess it’s out of the Golden Sun. So,
now, gent, my proposal is this:

“I know how to get where that Toosa, the old Indian, is. He will know
about—this fellow—if he’s located that Golden Sun. But I couldn’t pay
the fare from here to the coast, let alone get to Spanish Honduras.
That’s where you come in. You finance me, while I try to find—that man.
Then we’ll all learn what we want—you, where he took the little girl,
what happened to her. Me, where that mine is. I staked him plenty of
times, I have right to a share in it.”

“How would we get there?” asked Tom.

“Have to hire a boat to coast along to the outer reefs and the mouth o’
the Rio Patuca, then we’d have to get them Mosquito Indians to take us
up the river in canoes. It’s rough country. What say if I go alone?”

The three young fellows shook their heads violently, thus indicating how
much they trusted him.

Mr. Gray, also, shook his head.

“I will have to take time to think this over very seriously,” he said.
“I am too old and weak to brave the dangers of such a trip. I can’t let
you lads go alone, or with Mr. Morgan——”

“Just call me ‘Hen’—the ‘Hen that lays the golden eggs!’”

“Or with ‘Hen,’” smiled Mr. Gray, “but——” And there he stopped.

Their mounts were unsaddled and they stayed on overnight because of the
new development. But after an evening of eager discussion, with urgent
pleas for action by the youths and hesitancy on the part of Mr. Gray,
their course of action was still undecided. Leaving Morgan with a
promise to “get in touch” the minute they made a plan, they rode slowly
away down the trail the next day.

“I wish Mr. Gray would let us go ‘on our own,’” Nicky said wistfully.

“He feels that there are a lot of holes in Henry’s story,” said Cliff.
“We looked at the trail, and how any half dozen burros and their load of
gold could get away in ten minutes is more than he can understand. And,
if he was ‘fired’ from the mine, why is he there?”

“Those things are easy to explain, I think,” Tom stated. “About the
burros—I asked him and he said he guessed his former friend must have
unloaded them and dropped the gold sacks over the cliffs or into some
hole and covered it up and turned the burros loose, or drove them into
the chasm up the trail. He came to work at the mine again when the new
superintendent was employed there, and that was natural because the new
man did not know him or his record.”

“That makes it sound better, but there are still funny points,” Cliff
replied.

“Well,” said Tom, suddenly squaring his shoulders, “Cliff, you know how
anxious you were to leave no stone unturned when you were trying to
learn about your father!”

“I don’t want to leave any stone unturned in this case, either,” agreed
his chum, and Nicky nodded emphatically.

“Nor I,” said Tom. “And there is one stone I know about that I am going
to turn as soon as we reach Mexico City again!”

What it was he kept to himself.




                               CHAPTER IV
                          TOM BREAKS THE TRAIL


The next ten days were dull ones for the Mystery Boys. Mexico was in a
state of excitement, due to the approach of the Presidential election;
and, while the revolutionary times were gone and a more orderly election
would take place, there were some excitable spirits in the city whose
outbreaks made it unwise for the youths to go out on the streets too
often.

Cliff was busy enough for he worked with his father: Mr. Gray was
working on a theory that all of the Indian tribes from North America,
through Mexico, Central America, Venezuela and down to Peru, were
offshoots of the same original migration from some other continent, many
centuries before the white people discovered the new continents. He was
writing a book about that migration, and his work in Mexico dealt with
studies of the old Toltecs, who preceded the establishing of the Aztec
empire.

It surprised the youths to learn how closely the Toltecs, and the Aztecs
later, were allied with the Incas of Peru in certain ways: both were
agriculturists of a high order, as were the Texcucans, kindred with the
Azteca. But there was a great contrast in the nature of the people;
while the Incas had been a mild people, ruling kindly, punishing justly,
fighting only for a necessary cause, the Aztecs had been a fierce,
cruel, actually brutal people, even giving the name of their war god,
Mexitli, to their land in the corrupted form, Mexico.

Mr. Gray was anxious to fill in many gaps in his history by studying the
life and customs and legends of the host of Central American tribes, the
Mayas, the Chocos, the Mosquito and Talamanca tribes, as well as the
Goajiras, the San Blas, and others.

But he hesitated, although the adventure offered in Henry Morgan’s
proposal would give him close contact with some of the natives of at
least one section—Spanish Honduras. The tribes were all rough, rather
fierce, very primitive; and he was aged, as well as having been
weakened, during his stay among the Incas. Nevertheless, had he seen a
way, he would have gone into the adventure.

Nicky, staying rather idly in their hotel with Tom, was glum. He craved
excitement; not only was he active and impulsive, but he was
adventure-loving, athletic and quick, and he liked to go into strange
places and meet new situations. Also Nicky sympathized keenly with Tom
over the loss of the latter’s sister, and the uncertainty of her fate.

Tom, for his part, most eager of all to go to the Mosquito country and
learn what could be learned about Margery, did not seem nearly as
despondent as Nicky, nor was he as busy as Cliff; yet he seemed able to
wear a confident air which puzzled both of his comrades.

Nicky sat with Tom in their hotel room, chafing at his long inactivity.
Tom was busy going over some books which Cliff’s father had found for
him in the public library.

“Here’s a funny one,” he exclaimed, indicating a passage in the book he
held. “One explorer was down in the Central Americas, and because it is
so rainy at times he had a mackintosh. Do you know, Nicky, that
mackintosh gave him more trouble than anything else, because when the
Indians saw him wearing it, as he came toward their villages on the
river in his canoe, they thought he was a priest, and because some
priests had sometimes been harsh in trying to compel the Indians to
adopt their creeds, the Indians all ran and hid and this explorer
couldn’t get any pictures of them or any stories.”

Nicky smiled forlornly. Cliff, coming in, with his father, saw Tom with
a grin on his face and his companion looking glum.

“I wish I knew what makes Tom so joyful,” Cliff said. “Tom, why don’t
you be a good fellow and tell your chums what you know that makes you
feel so good. Is it that telegram you got last Saturday?”

Tom grinned with a touch of malice.

“Maybe,” he admitted.

“Say, look here!” burst out Nicky, “you’re not acting fairly to the
Mystery Boys’ order. You are keeping a secret.”

“No,” Tom answered, grinning still more, “I’m simply living up to our
oath—with a vengeance. ‘Telling all, I tell nothing; Seeing All, I see
nothing, Knowing All, I know nothing!’” he quoted their oath of
allegiance.

“Father, do you know what it is that he knows?” Cliff appealed to Mr.
Gray who smilingly shook his head.

“Well, I’m going to shake it out of him,” cried Cliff. “Come on, Nicky.”
The two attacked Tom with gusto, letting off some of their pent-up
“steam” in an old-fashioned tussle that boded ill for the hotel
furniture. Mr. Gray, only watchful lest they harm any of his old
records, let them have their fun. Panting and laughing, at last they
gave up, still none the wiser. A knock on the door panels halted their
fun.

“Tom,” said Mr. Gray, turning from a brief conversation at the door,
“There is a gentleman in the office asking for you.”

“A gentleman?” cried Nicky. “Who is it?”

“Have him come on up, please, sir,” begged Tom, and then turned his back
deliberately on his companions while he stared out of the window; but
Cliff, watching, saw his shoulders shaking.

Tom expected this arrival! Who could it be? The door opened. With a
simultaneous shout three youths launched themselves toward the tall,
thin, lank figure that appeared.

“Bill—‘quipu’ Bill!”

They grabbed him: they pawed him; they pounded him.

Bill Saunders had been prospecting in the Peruvian Andes at the time
that Cliff had gone to try to discover if his father was still alive
among a hidden Inca tribe in the cordilleras. Bill had taken active part
in their adventures. After the successful end of the trip he had, with
his share of money paid him by Mr. Gray, bought a Texas ranch. The
youths heard from him often. Now, here he was.

“What are you doing here—how did you know——” Nicky began. Then he turned
suddenly on Tom.

“So that’s why you ran off by yourself to telegraph when we got back to
the city, and that’s why you wouldn’t tell us what was in the telegram
you got!” he accused. “You sent for Bill.”

“I told you at the mine, I would leave no stone unturned to get news of
Margery,” Tom admitted. “I said I knew one stone I’d turn.”

“And I guess I was it,” grinned Bill Saunders, depositing his long
length in a chair. “Your telegram hit me just in time. I don’t know your
mind and you don’t know mine, but if there’s any chance for a rolling
stone to gather a little more moss, here’s the stone, all ready to roll.
Cow-raisin’ is not very profitable, just now, and my bank book could
stand a little more fattening. I never did—and I never will—forgive you
fellows for leaving me out when you found the Captain Kidd treasure—and
me a full-fledged member, paying dues and all, in the Mystery Boys.”

“We got ourselves into that adventure so fast that we didn’t have time
to send word or even to think about you,” Tom admitted, with some
regret, for Bill was a good companion on adventure trails, and he was,
as he said, a regular member of their order since they had initiated him
during their Inca experience.

“Well, give me the adventure, this time, anyhow,” urged Bill.

“And maybe some gold, too,” supplemented Cliff.

Then Tom related the story of their mine adventure and Henry Morgan’s
tale.

To say that Bill was intrigued and eager would put it mildly. The ranch
life had begun to grow tame to him: he loved adventure for its own sake,
and for its thrills, as did Nicky. He began planning a trip without a
delay.

Of course Mr. Gray’s last objection was removed. He had good reason to
know and to trust Bill Sanders, and he did both to the full.

“I wasted no time,” Bill said. “I hopped my cayuse and galloped for the
railroad, leaving my top hand in charge: but while I was laying over in
a Texas town I got a long-distance telephone call in to a chum of mine
in Galveston, asking if he had that cruising boat of his that he used to
take me on hunting trips in. He did. We can charter it. It’s got an
engine. Lots of cabin and storage room. It can go up pretty shallow
rivers. It’s just what we need to go on an exploring trip.”

“You wasted no time,” said Mr. Gray. “You took it for granted that you
and the boys would go.”

“That’s Bill!” praised Tom. “My telegram told him enough to get him
started. I thought I’d better break a trail—we seemed to be stuck down
here in this old hotel.”

His comrades praised his idea of summoning their former comrade. The
very next day Bill and Tom returned to the mine, found Henry Morgan and
had a talk. Bill asked some pretty sharp questions, but “Hen” gave
satisfying replies and Bill arranged with him to return to Mexico City
with them at once. This he did.

It seemed no time at all until the trim, staunch cruiser _Porto Bello_
was in harbor, with the chums, Bill and Henry aboard, well supplied.
with gasoline, both in her tanks and in five gallon reserve cans, and
with plenty of tinned food, as well as some arms and ammunition aboard.
They waited only for Mr. Gray who had determined to become a passenger.
He could explore the coast, he said, and if any real information could
be gleaned he was determined to secure it. He had as much enthusiasm for
his historical records as the chums had for Tom’s quest, or Henry Morgan
and Bill for news of the mine—the one Henry’s unnamed friend called “The
Golden Sun.”

“Anchor a-weigh!” cried Nicky, when Mr. Gray came aboard with clearance
papers from the port authorities. “Man the capstan, me bully boys!”

“Man it yourself,” laughed Cliff, working with his chum at the small
winch forward which drew the cable: they had been off on a trial spin to
see that the engine worked perfectly, and had dropped anchor a little
away from the wharves. “To be nearer being somewhere else,” as Nicky put
it.

“Full speed ahead, Andy,” called Bill, already elected Captain by
unanimous consent. The engineer, who accompanied the cruiser to help and
to represent his employer, the boat’s owner, eased his throttle forward,
and engaged the clutch sending the propeller around in the proper
direction. The bow parted the waters of the bay, and with caps waving,
and hurrah after hurrah, Tom, Nicky and Cliff stood on the after deck
and watched Mexico’s humid, sweltering coastline drop away aft.

“Lay your course for the Golden Sun!” begged Nicky.

“And the mystery man of Hen-ry Mo-r-r-r-gan!” chanted Cliff.

“And news of Margery!” added Tom, soberly, but hopefully.




                               CHAPTER V
                            STORM AND STRESS


Out into the sparkling waters of the Gulf of Mexico the sturdy cruiser,
_Porto Bello_, ploughed her way. Laying her course in a quartering
slant, partly South and partly East, Bill Sanders, who was agreed by all
to be in command, shaped up a plan to round the nose of Yucatan, passing
between it and the more Eastward island of Cuba.

There they turned South, and giving the reefy, island studded coast of
Yucatan a wide berth because of the jagged rocky formation and the heavy
surf close to shore, they forged steadily ahead. Their boat was not
fast, but she was steady in heavy seas and had a good reserve of power
in her heavy motor.

Henry Morgan knew the coast line very well, and Bill often consulted his
judgment. They did not try to make landings or lie-to during the nights,
preferring to hold on their course, well out in deep water, for every
one on board was anxious to get to the coast of Honduras as quickly as
possible. Tom and Nicky supplemented the work of Bill and of Henry as
deckhands and sailors, watching and keeping everything clean and
ship-shape. Cliff, who had a good deal of mechanical ability, soon made
himself indispensable to Joe Anderson, the engineer, who was a quiet,
rather moody Scotchman. The boys, without any intention of disrespect,
promptly named him “Andy.” He accepted the new name without comment and,
commandeering Cliff’s services in the engine room, soon had as clever an
assistant as he could desire, although he gave few signs of his inward
appreciation. Mr. Gray spent most of his time arranging the numerous
glass beads and other tawdry, cheap ornaments and fancy trifles which
would be very dear to the untutored Indians and would serve as trade
items and presents to the chiefs of various tribes. The youths made a
gay jaunt of their trip.

There was only one thing that clouded their delight: that was the
misconduct of Henry Morgan.

“I don’t like the way Henry does, very much,” Tom confided to his two
chums, as they rubbed up the brass work in the small wheelhouse, while
Tom held the wheel, giving and taking a spoke or two as the little
vessel felt the heavy surge of the Caribbean swells, rolling in great,
lifting pulsations from the East, and heeled under the strong thrust of
the trade wind. “Almost as soon as we left port I caught him with a
bottle——”

“I know,” broke in Nicky. “He told me it was a ‘Mexican Tonic’ to keep
him from being seasick.”

“But we know better,” Cliff spoke the thought in all three minds.

“Listen to him, now,” Tom said, disgustedly.

From the after deck came a strident, but husky roar:

  “For, I’m a buccaneer, oh,
  A rowdy-dowdy Buccaneer.
  I cuts ’em down and I shoots ’em down
  ’Cause why?—I’m a buc—ca—nee-e-e-e-e-r!”

“Buccaneer, my hat!” said Tom, “Bill,” to their clean-living,
high-principled friend as he sauntered to the doorway of the steering
room, “Why don’t you throw Hen’s ‘Mexican Tonic’ overboard?”

“I can’t find it,” Bill said, “or I would, in a minute. We’re getting
into Caribbean waters and it won’t be long before we are in among the
tricky rocks. We have to steer down through the Gulf of Honduras and
pick up the reefs outside the Rio Patuca, and that is no place to be
‘half-seas-over,’ let me tell you. Henry knows the course and he can
navigate pretty well when he’s ‘straight’ but I don’t like him in his
present condition——”

“——A rowdy-dowdy Buccane-e-e-e-er!” sang Henry.

“He’s a rowdy in his actions, and, goodness knows! he’s dowdy enough in
his clothes and habits,” said Tom. “Nicky, why did you ever let him look
at that book about pirates? He thinks he’s one.”

“I thought he would be interested, having a name the same as one of the
most notorious pirates,” Nicky replied. “It isn’t the book that’s to
blame, it’s the ‘Tonic.’”

“I’m going down in the cabin and have another good look,” Tom said,
letting Bill take over the wheel, and indicating the course as Henry had
last given it to him. “Cliff’s father is very nervous about Henry but he
says not to argue with him, but to make the best of it.”

He did not find anything: Henry, whatever his failings, was of a cunning
nature when it came to his own desires and he seemed to know of places
on the boat that the chums could never think of. As Tom searched, he
felt the boat rising and falling more violently, and lurching in a
half-roll, half-plunge that was not very pleasant. The cabin was stuffy
and close, and he opened the portholes, wrinkling his nose at the
unpleasant odor in the small space; but a dash of salt spray flung
itself in his face and hastily he closed the small brass-bound port
glasses and fastened them securely, then went on deck, clinging to the
companion rail to avoid being thrown down.

“She’s blowing up for a storm,” said Henry, clinging to the port rail as
Tom came into view, and lurching wildly. “We’re due for a storm, my
hearty! Oh—I’m a buc—buc——”

“You’d better stop being a ‘buc’ and get up to the wheel house,” Tom
said snappishly. “Maybe the course ought to be changed.”

“What do I care?” Henry cried with a hoarse, choking guffaw. “Many’s the
pirate has piled up on the rocks. ’Cause—— ’Cause Why? I’m a rowdy-dowdy
buc—ca——”

Just then a comber, its green crest froth-flecked, reared its great top
on their starboard quarter. “Look out!” yelled Tom. “Grab something!”
for Henry was starting in a lurching gait toward the enclosed cabin
companionway.

Tom, himself, caught a stanchion and clung, holding his breath. The
_Porto Bello_ lurched and staggered under the impact of a huge wave, and
there came a gurgling yell, cut short, the surge of powerfully dragging
water rushing at Tom.

Before it struck, almost burying him, tugging at his arms, he saw Henry
meet the wave, spinning around in a mad, fruitless effort to clutch at
the cabin coaming.

Down went Henry, and along the deck he was washed by the wave. Tom, at
the risk of being himself torn loose and washed away, released one hand.
He made a swift, reaching grab. His fingers caught Henry’s coat, in the
surging inferno of water that swung along the deck. It seemed as though
his arm would be torn from its socket: his face was stung and flailed by
spume and great gouts of hard-flung water.

He braced and clung as the washing water swung Henry along: the check of
his clutch slowed Henry’s body and Tom’s arms ached with the pull. He
dared not let go until the wave should pass. Henry, caught off his
guard, and with his brain befuddled, was helpless.

Came the thud of the companion door as Mr. Gray slammed it shut in bare
time to prevent the cabin from being inundated.

From the wheelhouse door, now beyond the higher wash of the receding
water, Bill leaped, with Cliff at his heels, Nicky clinging madly to the
spokes of the wheel and fighting to hold the cruiser on her way, nose to
wind and wave.

Gripping every foot and hand hold, Bill and Cliff fought through the
swirl of water, while Tom clung grimly. The water receded and Henry was
dumped, inert and gasping, onto the deck just as the hold Tom had was
broken by the strain. Swiftly Bill grasped Henry’s shoulder and began to
drag him toward the cabin companionway, while Cliff caught Tom and
steadied him.

Another huge wave was rearing its white curl to the quarter. In the
wheelhouse Nicky, a little frightened at his responsibility, and yet
manfully rising to the occasion, knew that the boat must not be allowed
to pay off so that she would catch the waves on her side—she would be
rolled over, and over. He bore with his whole weight on the spokes,
holding the rudder hard over as the valiant craft struggled against the
rush of waters and the roar of the swiftly rising wind.

With Cliff aiding him, while Bill dragged at the gasping Henry, Tom got
to the cabin. His father opened the door, and all three grasped Henry
and fairly flung him in through the door and down the several steps.
Then in they plunged, and just in time to close the door before the
tumult of water was over the decks again.

The brave little vessel shuddered and groaned under the water, and Nicky
said a little prayer for strength to hold the wheel against his enemies
of wave and rushing air. Tom sputtered and got rid of some water he had
taken in, while Henry, sitting up, gulping and choking, began to thank
him.

“You saved my—” he began.

Totally unconscious that he was taking the command, or that his words
rang with the authority of anger and just censure, Tom cried, “Never
mind. Get yourself together and get to that wheel. Nicky’s alone there.
Joe’s calling. Cliff, go help Joe. Bill, you drag this Henry up to that
wheel and stand over him. Cliff’s father is battening down the ports.
We’re all safe inside, but we don’t know what’s going to happen. Get
going, you Henry!”

As if every one of them recognized the voice of command, Bill caught
Henry’s collar and almost yanked him to his feet. Henry, sobered and now
beginning to recover himself, and with the just rebuke and the evident
menace of their position clearing his mind, obediently staggered along
with Bill, while Cliff raced past them on the other side of the
churning, coughing engine, to help Joe.

“What will you do, Tom?” asked Mr. Gray, thrusting home a heavy steel
bar across the companion door, although, being aft, it was not subjected
to the crushing force of the waves.

“I’ll find that Henry Morgan’s ‘tonic,’ if it’s my last act!” cried Tom
and began flinging things out of the lazarette, or storage cubby in the
floor, where their food was kept.

He had no success there, but he began on the bunks lining the sides of
the long, low, narrow cabin, at whose forward end was the wheel, with
the engines just a little aft of amidships.

Still the storm, sudden and furious, mounted in ferocity. The vessel
plunged and reared, rolled and twisted; her timbers creaked and her
decks echoed to the roar and thunder of waves. Cliff and “Andy” stuck,
one on either side of the motor, oiling, wiping, Andy watching the
gasoline pressure glass, and the oil flow, Cliff jumping, clinging to
the bunks, to bring a rag, or to steady Andy while he made an adjustment
of the carbureter to compensate for the slight and occasional “miss” in
one cylinder.

Forward, Bill, Nicky and Henry clung to the wheel, all swinging together
at Henry’s order, or releasing a spoke or two to pay off for more way
between the great, onrushing combers.

“Are we close in, yet?” gasped Nicky, half out of breath.

“No,” said Henry, between his teeth. “I’m going to swing her around if I
can get steerage way in some minute when it’s quieter—we’d better run
before it—but I das’sent try now—’cause why? She’d roll like a barrel
and maybe dive under!”

“A drop of oil on that propeller shaft bearing,” shouted Andy to Cliff.

“Right!” cried Cliff, above the thud of water and the groan of the
timbers and the thrashing pulsation of the propeller, racing as it was
lifted from the surging water. “Ease her when she races, Andy,” but he
knew that Andy did so before his young aide spoke.

“If we could get a chance to swing her around,” choked out Henry, a
thoroughly sober and frightened man.

“Hold her as she is,” Nicky urged. “It’s too wild to turn here!”

“I’ve found it!” exulted Tom, rising from an old airtight waste can,
bolted down aft of the engine; it had been filled with oily waste and
old wiping rags, and he had found, at the bottom, the bottles Henry had
concealed there. “Mr. Gray—don’t say a word. I’ll put them back until
this storm blows by and then I’ll break them on the rocks when we get in
to shore.”

With the suddenness which characterizes tropical storms of certain
sorts, less than hurricanes, the wind began to drop, and soon to fall to
the steady trade wind velocity, while the clouds broke, the rain squalls
ceased, blue sky appeared, and only the lifting heave of the turbulent
Caribbean remained of the time of stress. They all breathed a sigh of
relief; but the respite was brief.

“We’re closer in than I thought!” shouted Henry, at the wheel. “Quick,
somebody, get forward with the lead. Half-speed, Andy! We may be close
on a reef!”

Tom flung aside the brace of the after door, and with Nicky at his side,
leaped on deck while Mr. Gray closed the door. Bill was already out of
the side door to port, while Andy and Cliff stood by their engine.

“Reverse—back water!” cried Henry. “We’ve got to fight her off the shore
and stand off and on until we can see what we’re doing.”

At the same minute came an agonized cry from Tom.

“Port—port—hard a-port! Rocks dead ahead!”

Henry flung his weight on the small wheel. Over it swung.

Before their bow, disclosed by an onrushing comber which had obscured
them, great black fangs of rock held their bared teeth in readiness to
crunch joyously, grimly, as the _Porto Bello_ staggered and strove to
claw around!




                               CHAPTER VI
                               STRANDED!


Gleaming and flashing like the huge tusks of a water wolf, waiting,
submerged, to gnash upon the defenseless cruiser, Tom saw the rocks,
great needles of terror, for only an instant. Then a great, great,
green-blue wave lifted between his straining eyes and the danger.

The wave swept on, while under their keel, another equally huge mass of
water bellied up and flung the boat aloft on its surface.

Slowly the bow swung. The next glimpse Tom caught of the menace, it was
off to port—but did a range of submerged reefs extend far across their
path? Tom pointed out the threat to Bill and Nicky. They gasped, so
close was the nearer of the needles.

All along the coast of Central America these reefs and islands, huge
barrier reefs, wide, low-lying circle reefs, atolls enclosing tiny
islets—all are a menace to navigation, and it is a skillful pilot who
will try to take a boat in among them.

Henry Morgan was not a skillful pilot, but he had been through the
barriers about the Rio Patuca mouth many times and he felt sure of his
ability, coupled with an abiding faith in his “luck.”

But just after a storm, and with the seas even more wild than was their
usual turbulent state, the task of getting through the reefs was one to
whiten his face and shake his very marrow. Bill, looking back, saw his
face of terror and, with a word to the boys, scrambled to the cabin and
snatched the wheel from fingers already nerveless with fear. But the
boat had paid off, the signal for full speed ahead had been obeyed, the
steerageway, aided by the surge and force of the waves, had enabled them
to turn aside. They swept over the first barrier on a huge swinging
crest, seeing, through the clear water, that the jaws of rock seemed to
gnash in fury at the loss of their prey. Tom and Nicky, gripping the
capstan with one hand each, clutched one another with the other,
clinging in tense, breathless waiting.

But the boat did not strike. She missed the rocks by almost a miracle.
Had Henry kept his senses earlier in the voyage he would hardly have
exposed them to such peril. For it was not over; it had scarcely begun!

“It isn’t only the rocks,” Nicky shrilled. “It’s—sharks!”

“Keep still,” Tom called back, squeezing Nicky’s arm reassuringly.
“Watch to the fore and on your side.”

Nicky’s eyes were fixed on the swirl in the water just ahead, and on the
triangular black fin to port than on his duty, and it was fortunate that
no rock loomed near his post; the sharks were gathering with seemingly
uncanny instinct, waiting—waiting—waiting!

Bill, once the menace of the outer reef was passed, swung the bow down
the coast, and because the most powerful thrust of the waves had been
subdued, although they still were big enough to roll the cruiser
sickeningly, they were able to make headway, always fighting outward a
few points to overcome the inswing of the water.

Along the coast Tom and Nicky could see low, sandy stretches of beach,
under the broil of the sun, now full out and very hot; beyond the wide
strips of sand there were dense, tangled masses of jungle, and even in
the cleared air after the storm they could scent that queer, fetid odor
of decaying vegetation and mold which is characteristic of the tropics.
Far in the distance, landward, back of sand and jungle, bluish mountains
loomed.

“Where are we heading for?” Nicky wondered, and Tom shook his head. “I
hope Henry knows,” he replied. “I don’t see any opening.”

Nor, at the moment, did Henry, who, thoroughly subdued, but with a
remnant of his former manhood forcing him to steel his nerves to save
his own precious life, and theirs, came forward and stood, eyes roving
the shore and the waters.

“What are those big waves?” Nicky asked, pointing shoreward.

“Shifting sand banks,” Henry replied huskily. “They always change. If we
once get aground there, the waves would pound the boat to a pulp!
And—the—” He felt a kick from Tom, and, with a glance of surprise, saw
Tom’s eyes warning him not to frighten Nicky.

Tom, himself no coward, had sometimes yielded to a nameless dread of
things unseen, but any visible danger tightened his muscles to their
athletic perfection, settled his nerves and steadied his whole body to
its dominating mind’s demands. He knew Nicky was not a coward, but he
also knew that for anybody’s mind to settle on fear and think about it
and worry about it, made them helpless when the need for action came.

For once Henry took a hint.

Cliff, with the tense moment at the engines over, came on deck and
joined his chums for a breath of the heated, but fresher air.

“Those are shifting sandbanks,” Tom explained, pointing. “We are hunting
for the channel.”

“There’s Brower’s Inlet, that place inshore,” Henry said. “Now, form a
line to pass word quick to Bill how to steer, and you, Cliff, be by the
engine room port to call directions—we’ll try for the shore—but I don’t
guarantee—” Tom kicked his shins again and Henry, scowling, became still
and intent.

Suddenly, peering hard, Henry called his orders and the chums relayed
them.

“Swing her head to that swirl of water.”

Around came the bow till the wind was from directly aft.

“Full speed ahead!” And the engine picked up its heavy thud.

“Ease her off a point to port. Slow down to quarter speed.”

Toward land the great rollers, muddy and moiled, rose into swirling
lines of dirty foam, then drew off to the shore.

Seaward, greater combers reared their heads and growled their fury that
they had not succeeded in flinging these daring people onto their
fang-like reefs.

There was a moment of silence—of quiet.

Then came a sort of sighing, from the waves, as the _Porto Bello_ swung
her nose among them. She rose up over a wave, then settled; there came a
trembling and a dragging as the bottom grated on the sand. She wrenched
and tore herself free, like a living thing striving to help her friends
at wheel and engine.

A great wave came rolling, its speed seeming to threaten that it would
roar down upon the boat, her own speed diminished by the friction of her
keel.

“We’re—we’re—” Henry began.

“No we’re not! We’re off!” shrilled Tom as the wave caught up to them
and the _Porto Bello_, with a staggering effort, let herself be swung up
into the cradling arms of the mighty water.

She staggered on; she lost the supporting force of the water and sunk
down on one side; once again—and ever again for what seemed an eternity,
she was lifted, borne forward, slumped down to roar and grind along the
sand, or to lie, like a stricken thing, on her bulging side, the sole
thing that kept her from turning over.

Bill did noble work, with Cliff again at his side, at the wheel, while
Nicky and Tom stood by at the bows, one with the lead held ready if they
ever got through this moiling mud and spume.

Came a wave, the greatest yet, as the _Porto Bello_ was dumped on the
sand. Crash! while they all grabbed and clung to stanchions with all
their strength a huge swirl of muddied water swept over them. They
emerged, gasping and coughing—came another grinding, forward
movement—and then, like a tired bird, safe at last in her nest, the
cruiser slid over the last sand of the bar and into quiet water where,
as her engine slowed, she rocked in a soft, gentle swell.

“Phew!” coughed Bill, poking out a porthole glass, and sticking his head
out through the opening. “That was——”

“Stand by!” shouted Henry, wildly. “We’re in a current running back out
to sea like a torrent—get her around—get her around—hard a-starboar—no,
hard a——”

Simultaneously he broke off his calls and stared ahead as if chained to
the spot, speechless. Tom and Nicky, staring too, stiffened.

Out from the sand protruded needles of rock, with swirling water and
roiling sand partly concealing the black doom!

“Back water!” yelled Cliff. “Swing her off!”

“No—forward—full speed ahead!” cried Nicky.

Henry had sunk down and covered his eyes from the vision of the
black-finned monsters congregating in the muddy waters—sharks!

Bill had the tiller ropes roaring in their channel, for he had paid no
heed to the conflicting orders but, with a little prayer of devout trust
that he did not mention later, he stood, gripping the spokes.

The boat had lost way, and swung sideways across the rushing water. Tom
saw what was coming. Instantly he snatched loose a life preserver! Not
to leap and save his life. To save all of them!

He bent low, hanging over the bow, dropping the preserver so that it met
the rock, was between it and the boat as she touched.

She shuddered, and there was a crunch, but no smash. Madly yelling for
full speed astern, Bill pawed his wheel over; the boat hesitated, her
back-lashed propeller striving against the stream; slowly she receded
from the rocks. Tom released his clutch on the preserver rope; from aft
came the grind and shiver of sickening contact; the engine grated to a
stop with a jar and a cough. The boat shuddered, ran forward again in
the current.

“The propeller hit!” shouted Cliff, from the after deck, staring
overside at a wicked fang, seeming to lick its glistening lips at him.

“It’s probably bent beyond help!” called Andy, from the engine. “The
gears in the shift box are stripped. When the propeller caught it tore
the gear teeth off—lucky it didn’t crack the crankshaft!”

“But we have no power,” ruefully Bill called.

There was no use for it, had they possessed it. With the strong outsweep
of the water, and with a low, sandy spit jutting before them, there was
nothing to be done but wait.

Gently, almost at the inlet, the _Porto Bello_ lifted her nose on a
swell, and poked it experimentally into the sand.

She liked the soft bed, burrowed forward on the next low swell, and then
settled down, like a baby in its cradle.

“We may thank goodness for being here,” cried Tom. “It’s not so bad!”

“Not so bad—to be stranded?” demurred Cliff.

“Better here than—out there!” Tom waved his arm toward the roaring surf
of the outer reef.

“Yes,” Nicky agreed, then, ruefully, he added, “but we’re stranded!”

“Unless it’s quicksand, we’re all right,” Tom declared. “When it’s low
tide we can examine the propeller.”

“But how can we get off?” urged Nicky.

“Let’s take one thing at a time—and take it as it comes!” said Tom. And
Mr. Gray, somewhat shaken, but very calm, as well as Bill, agreed with
Tom.




                              CHAPTER VII
                          TURTLES AND TROUBLE


Notwithstanding the youthful efforts to be optimistic, the _Porto
Bello’s_ position was bad. She lay with her stern in deeper, swift
water. Sharks and the rapid flow of the tide made it impossible to get
under her stern to examine the propeller. They had spare parts, and
would be able to repair the stripped gearing, or, at least, to render
the clutch and shifts possible to use by substituting new gears. But the
damage to the propeller must be estimated.

“My idea,” said Tom, with proper diffidence, when the entire party
discussed the situation while they ate the dinner Bill prepared, “my
idea would be to get a rope over to those snags of rock, put pulleys
fore and aft on the top of the cabin, reave a rope through them, run it
to the capstan, forward, then carry it out to the snags, fasten it, and
then, steadily take up on it with the winch. The pull would work on the
whole boat that way, and if we moved most of our stuff aft and lightened
the bow, she might drag off.”

“How would we get a line to those snags—across that deep water?”
objected Henry. “I, for one, won’t risk those sharks! They say they
don’t trouble the Indians, or Negroes, but white men are different.”

“Probably Indians will come out in canoes,” Tom said hopefully.

This prediction proved true, but not until the next morning; then a
canoe containing two stolid Mosquito Indians came out. They wore ragged
trousers and shirts worn outside the trousers, hanging down, and their
dark faces were almost as expressionless as those of the North American
Indians.

They paddled down the water near the stern, and coming into a small
bight of water where the current was less violent, they sat still for
almost an hour, staring fixedly and without answering a number of hails
sent them by various ones.

Finally, however, they did respond. They spoke little, but seemed to
comprehend a little English and a trifle more of Spanish. Henry Morgan,
who was morose and angry about something, bellowed orders at them. Tom,
who knew what made Henry sour, since Tom had already dropped several fat
bottles into a swift eddy astern, remonstrated at his angry commands.

“They don’t like to be yelled at,” Tom said.

“You be still!” snapped Henry. “I guess I know how to handle these
Indians. You’ve got to bellow and roar at them to get them started.
They’re lazy and they’re rough and they’d never move if you don’t get
them waked up.”

“They may be all that,” agreed Tom, “but they’re human, too!”

Henry walked away.

Nevertheless, Tom’s way proved the better one, for when Bill held up a
flashing bit of ornamental glass, like the crystal pendant from a glass
chandelier, they spoke. In time they were induced to catch a rope and
carry it out and, in the canoe, fix it fast to a projecting tooth of
rock located in the proper direction to help pull the boat out of her
sand bed, into which she was burrowing her nose more deeply with every
roll.

“We’ll use the rocks that tried to injure us, and make them help us!”
Cliff cried, and with a good will they took up slack on the rope until
it was taut and throbbing with its tension.

After a long day of effort and patience they saw their craft float free,
and, for another bribe, several more Indians were procured, in canoes,
to tow them to a convenient beach where their rope was taken well inland
to a coco-palm, secured there, and the boat was unloaded the next day,
the stuff piled on the hot sand under an improvised shelter of canvas
stretched over four upright pieces of timber found by the chums in a
search of the beach.

Under another shelter, to which they brought heavy mosquito netting and
with it made a tight enclosure, they spent the night. It was no pleasant
slumber that came to them, for the Central American mosquitos are not
only vicious and persistent, but they are large and their bite, on any
but the toughest skin, produces red welts and a sort of itching that is
as maddening as it is persistent and painful.

The next day, while Bill and Henry bargained with the Indians for canoes
and guides to take them up the Rio Patuca to a tribe further inland
where the old Indian, Toosa, lived, and while Cliff and Mr. Gray aided
Andy in work of examining the gear and shafting, Nicky joined Tom on the
beach.

“Some of the Indians are going turtle hunting,” he said. “Let’s us go
along. They’ll take us. I let one young Indian play with my watch, and
he promised to take us if I let him wear the watch during the trip.”

They accordingly joined the Indians. The method of hunting was
interesting: they went along the beach and, watching until they saw a
turtle sunning itself, or, possibly, laying its eggs, they managed to
get between it and the water.

Sometimes they were not adroit enough. A turtle will instinctively try
for its native element, and once in it, no expert can capture it. On
land, however, once headed off, it may be turned on its back, and thus
secured. After several wasted tries they managed to get a big fellow,
weighing several hundred pounds, headed off and surrounded.

It was both a job and a tussle to get the huge and clumsy shell
reversed; and then the boys were amazed at the cleverness of the
Indians’ method of getting the creature back to their village, or near
to it. To drag such a weight would be very hard. To make it “do its own
driving” as Tom said, was the easier way. The Indians fastened ropes to
each of its flippers, and then turned it over.

With slackened ropes, the creature instantly drove for the water. But
once it plunged into its favorite retreat, the ropes were manipulated in
such a way that the animal was actually made to swim and, in addition,
was pulled, along the shore line, with comparatively little effort. Once
opposite the camp, the turtle was dragged onto the beach and despatched,
to be cut into choice portions. For their efforts during the hunt, Tom
and Nicky were given some large chunks of the meat which made a
wonderful addition to eggs they had discovered, and their regular fare.

Days passed with little happening. Outside of the tedious work of
dismantling the gear assembly, and taking out the propeller shaft and
bearings to be certain that all was sound, and hammering at the
propeller to get its bent flanges back to proper pitch, there was only
eating, fighting mosquitos and other annoying insects, and trying to be
patient.

In spite of, or, maybe, because of Henry’s shouts and orders, the
Indians made no move to take the party upstream.

It was only when the combined arguments of Mr. Gray, Bill, Tom and his
chums made Henry desist, that finally, after about ten days, the Indians
signified that on the morrow two canoes would start.

“Bill, and Henry will go, of course,” said Mr. Gray. “Tom, I feel, has a
right to be with them because of his intense interest in any news
concerning his sister.”

“But Nicky is all bitten up with—or by—mosquitos,” said Cliff, “and he
can’t risk getting away from the ointment jars—and I must help with the
readjustment of the engine and stay with Andy and Dad.”

It was arranged in that way. The next morning two canoes came to the
beach and Bill and Tom climbed into the larger, while Henry took his
place in the smaller one. With many farewell waves, and promises to get
back as quickly as the information could be discovered, they were
rowed—or paddled—away.

In turning the sand-spit into the inlet’s swift current, the canoe
containing Henry, still morose and soured, went fairly near the jagged
rock formation on which the propeller had been damaged. Through the
clear water, as a swirl of mud settled, he caught sight of something,
and with a sharp word, ordered the four Indians paddling to swing in
closer. He got very close to the rock, leaned over the side, then jumped
into the water up to his waist.

“What’s the matter with him?” demanded Bill in amazement.

“Gosh!” whispered Tom, “I wish I’d broken the darn things. I did try to
shy the bottles of his ‘tonic’ so they’d smash, but they missed.”

And Henry had discovered them. More, he recovered them!

“So that’s where they went!” he cried furiously red, holding the fat
bottles aloft and shaking them toward the other boat. “Which one of that
boatful did that—threw my stuff away?”

No one answered.

Suddenly he turned on Tom, about twenty feet away, in the larger canoe.
“I’ll bet you—” he snarled, “you was the one. ’Cause why? ’Cause you was
hollerin’ about it!”

Tom’s face turned red. Henry saw it and, in his sudden rage, he drew
back his arm and flung one of the flasks—or almost did!

With Henry’s arm at the point of coming forward, Bill, a marksman of no
mean ability, caught up the rifle with which he had armed himself, and
almost at the instant that it appeared above the gunwale, there came the
spit of its bullet and the shivering of glass as the bottle broke in
Henry’s hand. So close was the shot, so perfect the aim, that only the
neck of the bottle remained.

Henry dropped it, staring in rage and disappointment at the roiling spot
where his good “tonic” was blending swiftly with the Caribbean water.

“Drop that other one!” snapped Bill.

Henry did so—but into the canoe; and, so furious and beyond reason was
he that his hand groped for and brought out his own rifle.

“You drop that rifle,” snapped Bill. “You crazy coot! Don’t you know I
mean business!”

“Yes,” growled Henry. “You’ve got the drop on me—just now!”

The way he replaced the rifle and climbed into the tilting canoe, as
well as the tone in which his husky words were spoken, indicated that
this was only one time, that there would be more.

“Let’s turn back,” suggested Tom, dubiously.

“No! Forget his crazy stunt!” urged Bill. “Any day that I can’t handle a
loon like him, I’ll eat scorpions’ tails!”

“But he gets so angry!” said Tom. “And he’s got a bottle——”

“Getting angry is better for us—as long as we keep cool!” Bill grinned,
his rifle lazily resting on the canoe’s edge. “A cool man can out-guess,
out-plan, out-shoot a fellow in a temper, any day! As for that
bottle—watch it splinter the first time it starts for his lips.”

Bill motioned to the Indians, who had hardly moved, and who had
certainly not spoken or changed expression. “Go on!” he said. Tom
thought that just a hint of admiration showed in the faces of the five
paddling their own craft.

“And you saved his life on the boat, when that wave washed him down,”
grunted Bill.

“And I’d do it again!” said Tom.

Little he guessed how prophetic his words would prove to be!




                              CHAPTER VIII
                           AN UNPLEASANT TRIP


That trip up the Rio Patuca was one of the worst experiences Tom had
ever been through, and Bill agreed with him when he said so.

Starting through a narrow inlet, taking advantage of the inflow of the
tide, the canoes came into a lagoon; the water was shallow but clear;
the banks were lined with the most dense and varied vegetation
imaginable; Tom could recognize at a distance, only the cocoanut palms,
and the mangroves, with their huge, spreading roots.

The canoes proceeded up the lagoon to a native village, marked by a
cluster of coco-palms which seemed to be floating in the water. The
whole village turned out to watch the landing of the white men and their
young companion and Tom saw that they were as curious about him as he
was about them. The young men were clean-limbed and had very fine faces;
the girls were almost beautiful, though the older women showed how labor
and daily toil aged and furrowed their faces and bent their bodies.

After a stay overnight the canoes set out again, and day after day the
routine of paddling, fighting mosquitos, landing for lunch, going
forward, finding a place to camp, putting up mosquito bars and trying to
prevent them from being filled by the pests before it was too late, was
all there was to report.

“They certainly named this country well,” Tom told Bill as they dived
under their mosquito netting on the second day of the trip.

The mosquitos were much larger than the Northern species, and were of
such a tough, rubbery body that in order to destroy them it was
necessary to strike ones-self with great force—“More punishment than
relief!” Tom observed, ruefully, as he fought the pests.

“They have to be killed,” replied Bill, “and we’ll have to get our net
up earlier at night, because they get worse as we go on, Henry says.”

“Yes,” Tom admitted. “He told me that if anybody stayed out from the
protection of his net for an hour at night, he’d be bitten to death!”
Bill agreed that it was quite probable.

As they went on, finally reaching and turning into the muddy mouth of
the river itself through a narrow channel, Tom and Bill came to the
conclusion that their trip had more difficulties in store than the
pestilence of the country’s terrible mosquitos. Henry Morgan kept away
from them, morose and sullen; when he caught Henry’s eyes bent on him,
or on Bill, Tom saw that they were brooding and angry. Henry had long
since disposed of his final bottle of “tonic,” and he seemed to be
holding and feeding his grudge against Bill and Tom for destroying the
other bottle.

He was very hard on his Indians. He yelled at them, drove them, said
foul things to them and about them. Tom and Bill, on the contrary, were
decent in their attitudes; and, although the Indians were stolid and
silent, seldom speaking, almost never smiling, they showed, in little
services, that were human and responsive under their stolid exteriors.
They often put up Tom’s mosquito bar for him, gave him and his closer
companion the best they had, but always without the least flicker of
expression.

Henry had to demand help, had to drive and threaten to get anything
done; Tom had only to wish for an adjustment of his sleeping couch, of
boughs, in a rude camp—and it was done! Perhaps it was because, during
the long, humid, tensely hot days, he took the trouble to see that the
heavy bough with which he fought mosquitos was used to drive them away
from the paddlers as well; also, because he and Bill shared their food
when the Indians had little. There seemed to be no open appreciation,
but gratitude was evident in many ways, although Henry, seeing them wave
their branches to flick the mosquitos from the Indians’ backs, derided
them and sneered, saying an Indian had no feelings.

Camping on mud banks, uncomfortable and mean, paddling through muddy
waters, past vast jungles and wide, low savannas of lush grass, past
wide cane-brakes, they pursued slow but steady, if tedious progress. Tom
began to wish the trip were done. Rain, fog and wet, dreary days were
far more frequent than dry ones; and this, added to the mud beneath
their camps, the small food supply and the mean temper of Morgan, made
things more than unpleasant.

In time they reached a small village; the huts were of palmetto stakes,
driven into the ground close together, in the shape of an oblong
enclosure with rounded ends and a space for a door; roofs were of a
thatch of woven reeds or brush. The few Indians were silent, stolid
people, but not unkind or cruel in their attitude. At this village, Bill
and Henry were informed, they would be left until men came down the
river to take them on.

“Do they know we’re here—and in a hurry?” ventured Tom.

The canoeman looked blank and said little.

“They know,” Morgan responded in surly, husky tones. “Indians know when
people come.”

“How do they know?” Tom persisted. “Do they send messengers?”

“They know!” snapped Henry and turned away.

Tom made no comment on the rude behavior, but busied himself making
friends with a small boy, evidently a child belonging to some one of
importance. The youngster, about eight, liked the white boy, some years
older, and when his shyness was overcome, he spent hours watching Tom as
the white youth demonstrated how a small, bright red magnet he carried
would draw and cling to several nails he also had.

The boy, Porfirio, in response, showed Tom many trails across the swamp
savannas surrounding the village, and helped him to search for beautiful
tropical birds’ eggs, curious stones, and other specimens. Always he
begged to be shown the magnet and its power; it fascinated him and, the
day that Tom let him, fearfully and timidly, take it and play with it
for a while, he looked toward Tom as one might have looked at a master,
and from then on, followed him like a dog.

By that time Tom had picked up enough of the village dialect to learn
that Porfirio’s father had been slain by one of the jaguars—or, as the
natives termed the ferocious cats, tigers, caught on a lonely trail
without a weapon, and horribly mangled. Tom felt sorry for the desolate
child and did his best to amuse him.

After several wasted weeks, a great canoe arrived from upriver, in
which, besides the paddlers, was an old man, bent and wizened and
terribly dwarfed; yet he was stronger than any other man—or any two
men—among the Indians, and seemed to be greatly respected. He was Toosa,
the man they had come so far to see!

Henry at once began to question him, but Toosa paid no heed to him at
all. He had come, primarily, to take the child, Porfirio, a
great-grandson, to his own village further up the turbid stream.

“We came all the way up here—you recognize me, don’t you?” Henry cried,
and when the old man nodded, went on, “we came all the way to find out
where——”

Toosa made a gesture, stopping Henry. He had just landed and his young
great-grandson ran to greet him. Toosa merely touched his shoulder with
a finger and turned back toward the boats after a brief word with one of
the natives. But Henry caught his thin, though muscular and wiry arm.
Tom, watching, saw a display of a curious power that the old man
possessed. He did not move his body or shake Henry off; he simply turned
his head and fixed his steady, bright eyes on the impatient white man.
Henry, about to speak, seemed to be struck by some invisible message of
power, for he closed his lips, holding the grip he had for a moment;
then his hand loosened and dropped, and he stood still. Toosa, turning
back toward the boats, resumed his way, the small boy trotting at his
side.

“We don’t want to let him get away, though, at that,” demurred Tom, but
Bill merely gave him a warning glance, and slowly strolled along behind
the dwarfed, bent old figure. Henry, after a moment, took up the march,
and Tom kept close to Bill, curious and uncertain what was to happen.

“He’s a powerful chief, even if he isn’t the magician that the Indians
think he is,” Bill observed quietly to Tom. “He won’t talk to us until
he has settled himself in his own village.”

“But how will we get there?” Tom wondered.

He soon found out. As soon as he had settled himself in his great,
roughly shaped canoe, made from the trunk of a huge tree, Toosa turned
to the three whites on the bank, and beckoned.

“You take us?” asked Bill in slow English. “Good!”

“I take!”

“Did you expect us?” asked Tom, mystified at the Indian’s calm
arrangements for them.

“How did you know?——”

“I know!” answered the old man briefly, and said no more. As they took
their designated positions the chief took a paddle several times heavier
and broader than the rest, made a signal, and the canoe began to glide
away from the Indians, watching on the bank.

That huge paddle served well during the trip up the river, and the
amazing strength with which the wiry old man used it was a marvel to
Tom. There were rapids, and dangerous ones they proved to be. The swift
water almost carried the canoe back, but with a strong sweep of that
great driver, the Indian caused it to tremble; with a second heave,
while the other Indians strove with their smaller paddles, he sent the
boat forward, and then guided and drove it between the rocks, over the
rough waters, past dangerous whirlpools. Once, only a swift swing of his
paddle turned them aside before they were dashed to death in a whirling
smother of foaming waters. Again, by exertions that seemed akin to those
of a giant, he took the craft forward when one of the lighter paddles
broke and the crew was in confusion and terror.

And when, close to nightfall, they landed, he stepped from the canoe as
serene and unwearied as if he had been one of the three white
passengers. Tom heard from Bill that the oldest Indians in that country
claimed that Toosa lived there and was just as they saw him today, when
the Indians themselves had been children.

Quartered in a hut, fed and well cared for, at least two of the white
travelers obeyed Toosa’s brief order, which Bill understood to be a
command that they must not set foot outside the hut. The reason for it
seemed plain. It was a precaution against danger. During Toosa’s absence
many of the villagers had become demons through drinking the fermented
cane-juice which was brewed in a huge trough in the village and from
which much had been taken.

The Indians were not only noisy and, in some cases, quarrelsome; they
were beyond control.

In spite of their remonstrances Henry Morgan elbowed his way past Tom
and Bill, his rifle under his arm.

“He’s going out to mix with them and join in their orgies!” cried Bill.
“I hope——”

“He knows them. He’s been here often, he says,” Tom reminded him, “he
isn’t in any danger.” Bill shook his head. He was not convinced.

“It’s not him I’m worrying about, or what they’ll do to him,” he said
moodily, “it’s what he may tell them about us—remember, he’s nursing a
grudge against us, Tom.”

“Yes,” agreed Tom. “That—and cane-juice—make a bad pair!”




                               CHAPTER IX
                           MAGIC AND MADNESS


In the midst of a tropical paradise under the vivid moon, and with the
looming grandeur of brooding mountains over it, Tom and Bill saw such an
orgy of lust and degradation as made them shudder.

Around the rude receptacle which held the fermented cane-juice, the
Indians gathered. The younger men and the older youths played a weird,
tuneless melody on reed pipes while the others indulged their taste for
the strong liquid. Henry Morgan joined these and seemed to be a member
of long standing, by the greetings he got.

Out into the moonlit square of the village, a space where the earth was
trodden by countless feet until it was almost as hard as stone, came a
bent, but striking figure. Although age had almost drawn his nose and
chin together, although his body was in no way erect or striking, Tom
saw nothing grotesque in that stalking form; rather, it spoke of power
and of virility.

Toosa was a figure of force in his rage!

He approached the trough and for a while, as though ashamed, or
frightened, the men were very still.

“Can he stop them, do you suppose?” Tom whispered, to Bill, as the two
crouched by the door of the large hut that had been assigned to them.

“He has a lot of influence over them,” replied his companion.

They watched, silent and amazed as Toosa stalked straight over to the
group of Indians. The reeds ceased to whine and whistle. The younger men
and the boys appeared to fade into the encircling brush.

Toosa simply stood there, his distorted body drawn as erect as was
possible, arms folded, his face stern in the moonlight.

Toosa spoke no word.

There was a long moment of absolute silence. Toosa looked at his
tribesmen and they, shamed, looked down at the ground.

Only Henry Morgan, his ruddy face inflamed, his eyes more bleary than
ever, stared boldly back at the dark-skinned nemesis. Toosa did not even
glance toward the white man; his regard was fixed upon his own kind.
Several of them shifted their positions nervously and one, sidling off
with head averted, disappearing into the brush.

That seemed to be the signal. Still Toosa said nothing—he merely looked
his anger and disgust. But the men began to move, restlessly and then
hurriedly rising and starting in various directions, none going near
Toosa except one careless individual. With a swift, unexpected sweep of
his ape-like arm, Toosa touched that man—and he sprawled in a choking,
gasping heap.

“Look! Look at Henry!” whispered Tom, gripping Bill’s shoulder hard in
his excitement.

“Just what I was afraid of,” Bill whispered back. “I hope he doesn’t
think about us—I can guess that he’s going to defy Toosa! If he can get
the Indians back he may turn their attention on us—then——”

He did not say any more, but his hand tightened on the stock of his
rifle and with the other he loosened one of his two pistols, worn in
belt holsters, and glanced at Tom in the dim light. Tom was too intent
on the scene in the square to observe Bill’s half intent to give him a
weapon which, did need arise, Tom’s training during the trip would
enable him to use effectively.

Henry, his muscles responding poorly to his befuddled will, staggered
upright and, wavering a little, faced Toosa.

“Get out of here!” he roared. “What do you mean, you red dog, by
interfering with a white man’s pleasure!”

“What did he say?” Tom asked as Toosa made a curt response.

“Something to the effect that the white man’s ‘pleasure’ was the
Indians’ ruin!” Bill told him.

“It is, too,” agreed Tom. “I’m with Toosa, all the way.”

Henry was not with Toosa, but very much against him! He stood, shakily
but with fury growing in his face, a white man of the lowest sort, in
maudlin rage defying a red man of the higher type of intelligence. It
passed through Tom’s mind that by comparison, the red man was the finer
specimen, dwarf or not.

“I’ll teach—teach you—to—” gulped Henry, and he bent down for his rifle,
lying on the ground.

Bill’s muscles tensed, and he was about to leap forward, his own weapon
ready; but Tom held his arm, and whispered, “Wait!”

“But—” began Bill, but what transpired caused him to hesitate.

Toosa, standing without movement or change of expression, watched as
Henry fumbled with his gun, and getting himself erect by an effort,
tried to level the rifle at Toosa.

“Even in his condition, he might hit him!” urged Bill, trying to
disengage his arm from Tom’s restraining clutch.

“He’s a magician,” Tom replied. “Don’t let’s interfere!”

Bill stared at his young companion in amazement; then his eyes turned to
observe the expected result. Henry, the rifle leveled, stood on his
uncertain feet, trying to “draw a bead” with the wavering sights.

Toosa, arms folded, did not move. His eyes were fixed on Henry.

In the brush, Indians were watching intently. Would their magician and
healer, their guide and guardian, falter? Could the white man with the
devil-stick that spat fire and death—could he——?

Suddenly Henry advanced a step, lowering his rifle.

“I’ll—I—give you—chance!” he sputtered. “I give—you chance! ‘C-’cause
why? ‘C-’cause you got to tell me where is Mort Beecher an’—an’—the
Golden Sun!”

Toosa did not move, nor did he open his lips. He simply stood, eyes
coldly, glowingly fixed on the furious, maudlin white man.

“You tell, I not shoot—I call men and put you out of way till we
finish,” Henry called in his husky voice. “Then we fix the two who come
with me—eh, boys?” He swung, staggering a little, to try and get
response from the brush. Not an Indian showed himself or moved.

“Why doesn’t Toosa run—Toosa! Toosa—run while he’s not watching!”
shrilled Bill breaking from the hut.

Toosa made one gesture, a slight gesture. Bill saw it and stopped, while
Tom advanced to Bill’s side, though both retired into the hut’s shadow
as Henry, with a muttered word that was not good to hear, swung on his
heel, caught his balance and glowered toward the hut. Then he pulled the
trigger; there was a flash, but while Bill flung Tom back into the hut,
neither was struck, nor did they hear where the bullet went.

Henry instantly swung back to face Toosa who had not moved.

“Come!” he shouted. “Tell me. Where is Mort Beecher! Where is that
Golden Sun mine he told me about! You know! You can tell! Tell now, if
you want—want see sun—sun rise in morning!”

Toosa, arms folded, waited, wordless.

“Oh, all right!” Henry growled, his voice shaking. He took another huge
gulp from a calabash of liquid fire, choked, gasped and then re-sighted
his rifle.

“Tell!” he called.

Tom held tightly to Bill’s arm.

There came the flash and roar of the rifle.

Toosa did not move!

Again and again, until its magazine was spent. Henry fired.

Toosa brushed some fiery sparks from the old coat he wore, and laughed,
a horrible sound of triumph and rage.

“White man not hurt Toosa!” he cried.

Choking and sputtering in his fury Henry raised and reversed his rifle,
clubbed it and rushed.

At the same instant Tom, like a streak of lightning, raced across the
space; but he arrived too late; Toosa, with his long arms, caught the
rifle and with a wrench tore it from Henry’s grip. He flung it aside but
Henry, lost to all sense of decency or judgment, flung his weight
against Toosa.

Toosa, braced as he was, gave back a step under the impact. Bill was
almost beside Tom as the latter drew back, unable to interfere as
Toosa’s foot caught on a projecting root at the side of the level space;
down he went with a thud, and instantly Henry, on top, reached for his
throat.

Toosa fought like a tiger, his own ape-like arms giving him the
advantage of reach in the grapple for throatholds. But the fall had
stunned Toosa a little and he did not grip with his customary strength.

Tom, with a quick insight, saw that Henry had an advantage.

Whether it was right or wrong to take part against a white man and to
fight for an Indian would not at any time have bothered Tom. He knew
that color did not matter; that it was the spirit and quality of a man
that counted and not the skin he wore. So, unhesitatingly, he caught
Henry’s legs and flung them, with all his strength, toward the side,
thus unbalancing Henry, and causing him to roll, and to fling out an
arm, instinctively, to catch himself.

In that instant Toosa recovered his power, scrambled up and stood
watching Henry, sputtering and clamping his teeth in his rage. Toosa
gave a sharp call. The Indians, no longer wondering if their leader was
supreme, rushed forward and quickly secured Henry. He was bound and
taken to another hut. Toosa turned to Tom, and with about the only smile
Tom ever saw on his face, Toosa spoke:

“You save life!” he grunted. “You good. I help!”

“That’s all right,” Tom said. “You great magic man, I only help.”

“Yes,” Toosa answered.

“Now, we sleep,” he said. Not one of the Indians went near the rude
trough again. They trooped away, all except two he appointed to guard
Henry in his small hut. Toosa picked up the rifle and walked off.

“He surely is a great magician,” Bill commented, as he and Tom lay on
their rudely made bedding of woven vines and soft branches. “Henry, bad
as he was, couldn’t have missed him with all those shells!”

“Well,” said Tom, nestling into a comfortable spot, “I don’t want to
take any credit away from Toosa’s magic—but I helped it along a bit.”

“How?” demanded Bill, lifting to one elbow and staring into the
blackness of the hut.

“I thought he might get boisterous—that Henry!” ‘Tom answered. “So I
took the chance, while you and he dozed in the hut after supper, and dug
the bullets out of his magazine full of cartridges.”

“Tom,” said Bill, soberly, “I never thought of that. You’re a pardner.
Shake!”

Tom did.




                               CHAPTER X
                           HENRY TURNS SAVAGE


Late that night a tropical storm whirled down on the village from the
mountains. Lightning that seemed more vivid than daylight flashed
continuously; thunder that deafened shook and roared; trees thudded to
the whipping lash of the lightning. Rain in literal sheets made a wall
of water when Tom peered out from the door of their hut.

When the dull dawn came the rain had not subsided; thunder still growled
and boomed. The river, rising swiftly, was a very torrent, its water
racing toward the rapids below, whose roar could be heard like a
growling undertone to the thrum of falling water.

A white rubber-trader, with his canoe full of paddlers, was glad to be
able to nose in and ground his craft on the sandy beach and drag it to
safety before the river rose any more dangerously.

Toosa knew him and took him at once to his own hut for a talk.

Henry was released from guard, but did not come near his companions; in
fact, he stayed close to his hut, more safely guarded from violent
action by the downpour than by any watchers.

About noon the rain slackened and the white trader, Buckley, a quiet and
yet a pleasant man, bronzed and sturdy, came over and visited with the
white pair. Tom found him eager to hear about the situation that had
come about on the previous night.

“You needn’t have extracted those bullets, Toosa has told me,” he said
with a smile. “Toosa is sure that he could have turned the bullets
aside. He is very sure of his magic powers. But I like the old fellow
and I am rather glad our young friend had so much foresight.”

He told them that, even without the rain, it would be unlikely that they
could start down the river for some time. Yellow fever, that terror of
the tropics, had broken out near the coast, and inland, and a “deadline”
had been established near the costal villages by the Honduran
government. That deadline was a real thing, not merely a place where
officers stopped people and examined their health. When fever broke out,
the trader explained, a line was drawn across the roads, and a patrol
established on the rivers. If anyone passed through an infected area
they would be turned back at the line, and if they tried to pass bullets
would follow the act. The government meant its quarantine! And to get to
the cruiser they must pass through the infected area!

“You came here to learn about a man,” the trader told them.

“Yes, we did,” answered Tom. “Do you know anything—”

He eagerly related the conditions of his sister’s disappearance. The
white man listened gravely and then shook his head.

“Toosa will be here in a few minutes,” he stated. “He has asked me some
curiously veiled questions. I wouldn’t be surprised if what I answered
has something to do with the results he will get from his ‘magic’—but he
is a fine old magician, and it helps his standing among the natives to
let him keep them deceived—so I will let him reveal what his ‘magic
calabash’ whispers to him.” He laughed as Toosa, grave and stately in
spite of his deformed body, came in. Several other Indians were with him
and quite a crowd assembled outside. These he dispersed, telling them
something in their dialect which Bill guessed was to the effect that his
magic was, this time, for the white ears alone.

Those who accompanied him hung heavy skins over the door, and took up
positions outside, shooing away the straggling women who thirsted for
every demonstration of their chief’s magical powers.

Toosa set on the trampled earth floor a calabash, and some other
articles of his supposed craft; then he produced a skin bottle or flask
and from it poured into the calabash a dark, rather evil smelling
liquid, till the gourd container was level full.

Tom, watching closely, thought he detected a tiny wink pass between the
solemn old fraud and his trade friend; however, Tom kept his own counsel
and refrained from trying to catch Bill’s eye.

If they got the information he sought, it did not matter to him if Toosa
liked to impart a touch of mystery to the telling!

“You good,” Toosa said to Tom. “I help. Tell what you not know!”

He built up a small fire of tiny twigs and let it burn until the sticks
fell together, flared and then died down to a small flicker.

Onto that he threw some leaves and bits of dust or herbs finely
powdered, and instantly a dense, whitish, and very pungent smoke rose.

“Now how do you suppose an Indian in Central America knows a trick that
the African blacks use in their magic?” Tom said, out of the corner of
his mouth, to Bill.

“They tell us in books that people came here from some old continent,
ages ago—wasn’t it Atlantic——”

“Atlantis!” corrected Tom. “Cliff’s father told us about it—it was a
great continent and it sank under the ocean.”

“Well, before it went down, history says, some wise people knew it was
going to happen, and they came away and settled in safer places,” Bill
stated.

“Do you suppose Toosa is one of their descendants?” Tom whispered. “He
surely does seem to know a lot. And maybe some of the Atlantis people
went to Africa, and that’s how the same customs spread.”

“Maybe,” agreed Bill. “Look, he’s swallowing the smoke. Don’t see how he
stands it—just a sniff makes me sort of chokey.”

Toosa was drawing in great, sighing lungsful of the heavy and pungently
acrid smoke. Then he settled back on his haunches, and to the amazement
of even the trader, he spoke—in English![1]

“You—want—find—out—man called Mort Beech,” Toosa chanted in a halting,
but deep, voice.

“Yes,” said Tom with a little shiver of inherited superstition, even
though he knew there was more fuss than truth in the witchcraft part,
even though the English was amazing. “Yes, sir!”

“Man is Colon—or Porto Bell’—look for in Porto Bell’——”

“Porto Bello, eh?” said Bill.

“Porto Bell’. Yes. Now——”

There was a commotion at the doorway. Henry Morgan had crept up to see
what was so mysteriously transpiring in the hut, and as the two guards
had no instructions concerning him and did not dare to interrupt their
chief, Henry had listened, had caught the whole message.

While Bill leaped up and Tom caught his feet under him swiftly, Henry
strode into the hut, kicking over the calabash, into which Toosa had
been staring after he inhaled the smoke.

“Porto Bello!” he shouted. “Well, that’s where Henry Morgan will find
him. As for you—” he swung on his white companions, “you can follow me
if you dare—but if you do, I shoot!”

He snatched up Bill’s rifle, just before Tom anticipated his move.

“I take this,” he snapped, “’cause why? Toosa has mine. Now I go in
canoe. I’ll tell your friends the yellow-jack got you. They can’t pass
the deadlines to find out. We’ll take the cruiser and go on. When we
find Mort Beecher I’ll let them come back and hunt you up if they want
to. I’ll have what I want.”

“You swine!” cried Bill, halted by the rifle in the menacing hands.
“That’s how you repay——”

“That’s how I repay that kid for what he did to my—stuff!” growled
Henry. Toosa made an effort to stop him as he backed toward the door,
but the smoke had really taken some of Toosa’s strength, or at least he
was not swift enough in his move, for Henry sidestepped and sent a cruel
kick at the dark face. Toosa fell back in time to avoid it, but Henry,
thrusting the peering Indians to each side, backed out and turned as
Bill tugged at a revolver.

Still striving to loosen the weapon, which his excitement made more of a
task than it should have been, he raced to the door, Tom at his heels.
They saw Henry Morgan running, rifle under his arm, for the sandy beach,
where a rushing torrent worried at the sand and bore it away in great,
swirling streaks.

“He’s after a canoe,” said Tom.

Bill raised a pistol. Toosa, with a quick grip, thrust back Bill’s arm,
shaking his head violently and choking.

Running a light canoe out partly into the turbulent stream, Henry
reached into the beached canoe of the trader, holding their menacing
approach back by a threat with the rifle, and threw some of the trader’s
goods into the small canoe.

“Give me the pistol if you’re afraid to fire!” cried Buckley, the
trader; but again Toosa held his arm.

They watched the canoe skip away from the bank and whirl, end for end,
in an eddy. Then Henry got his paddle to working and with a derisive
shout, swung his blade and straightened away, flying down the stream.

“Why wouldn’t you let us stop him?” Tom cried, angry at Toosa. He saw
their companions being urged to desert by a false story, saw themselves
stranded in the Indian country.

“Toosa says, ‘Rapids get him,’” Buckley translated, for Toosa now spoke
curtly in his own dialect, making swift gestures. “Toosa says if the
rapids don’t drag him under, as is likely, the deadline will stop him.
He’ll never get through. As for you fellows—if you can put up with
privations and hard climbing, I can arrange with some of my Indians to
escort you over the mountains—to the capital, and from there you can
easily get down to the coast and your cruiser and your friends.”

“But if Henry should get through!” Tom objected. “We ought to try and
catch him.”

“No!” the trader remonstrated. “Wait! He will either get out of
control—he’s weakened from his heavy debauches—and go over the falls
instead of down the side currents and rapids, or he will be caught by
the Indians and the Honduran soldiers.”

“It’s too bad it had to happen right in the middle of the witchcraft,”
mused Bill.

“Why?” asked the trader.

“Toosa failed to tell us about the Golden Sun,” Tom said, knowing what
was in his comrade’s mind.

Mr. Buckley spoke swiftly to Toosa who responded with a shake of his
head. Then he became very thoughtful. Suddenly he walked away into the
hut and sat, staring into the calabash, with its remaining liquid, the
rest having been spilled.

“There isn’t any Golden Sun mine, at all,” Mr. Buckley explained. “The
gold in the Honduran mountains in this section would be commercially
profitless if you tried to mine it and get it to the coast. Those days
of prosperity for Honduras are far in the future.”

“But Henry told us that Mort Beecher kept talking about the Golden Sun,”
Tom remonstrated. “There must be something behind it!”

With a long arm Toosa beckoned to them. They hurried into the hut and
stood, respectful and curious. Toosa looked up. This is what Buckley
repeated from his curious sing-song chant:

“There is a Golden Sun! The Golden Sun is not a mine! The Golden Sun is
alive. Ask of the San Blas Indians—and say that Toosa of the Mosquito
country sent you. You find!”

“Find what?” asked Tom; but Toosa was out of the hut—and gone!




                               CHAPTER XI
                            A FALSE MESSAGE


With her propeller hammered out by slow, careful work, and with new
gears in her speed changing device, the _Porto Bello_ was once more
ready for the sea.

Then there were long days of waiting.

Nicky was all set to start up the Rio Patuca. But Cliff agreed with his
father and with Joe Anderson, “Andy,” that it was unwise. Although the
large village of the Mosquito Indians just a short way up the lagoon was
not yet infected, villages beyond it were suffering from yellow fever
epidemics and the older heads judged that the boat could not pass the
inevitable quarantine.

Cliff and Nicky were greatly worried about Tom; but they could do
nothing but wait.

“If we can’t get up to him, he can’t get down to us,” Nicky affirmed.

“No,” agreed Cliff. “This is going to be a slow time. We can’t get any
news, either. But the Indian we saw yesterday says that he thinks the
fever is not as far up the river as Tom went.”

“I hope so,” Nicky agreed.

They passed the tedious days fighting the wickedly biting sand flies.
The evenings sent the flies away, and there were long, beautiful and
peaceful hours after sunset, before the mosquitos came out as far as the
cruiser, when they could sit on deck and watch the stars; the glowing,
sparkling orbs seemed very close, very clear and most beautiful. But
there were many evenings when dull skies hovered above, when there was
nothing to do but read the few books they had, or sit and talk. Mr. Gray
told them countless stories of the old civilizations, and about the
Indian customs and legends.

But all through the dreary wait they worried about Tom.

Then, one night, Henry arrived!

His body was thin and starved looking, and his clothes were rags. He
came in a canoe and there was great excitement when he was recognized.
Questions volleyed at him from all sides, but he would not talk—in fact,
he could hardly stand—until he had been given some stewed turtle, a
sweet yam and some fruit and tea.

He had not eaten such food for days, he told the eager party. To their
questions about Tom he made one statement, and of course the chums had
no way of guessing that it was false.

“Tom and Bill,” he declared, “they got took with fever. Not bad, but
some. Bill found a good Indian doctor and he’s pulling them along.”

He told of his experiences in running the rapids and it was very
probable that his story was not over-false as he recounted the thrills
and dangers of his fight with the surging waters and the perilous rocks.

He had managed to get through by good fortune, he declared. Then he had
gone on down the river until he came near the quarantine, and had
deserted his canoe and gone into the brush. He happened to know of an
inland village and he had made his way to that.

There he had found a guide who, on the promise of all the money he had,
took him through the jungle, around the quarantined post. From there he
had followed the river again, borrowing a canoe and avoiding every human
habitation because he was in the fever zone. Once more, at the lower
point of the infected area, he had taken to the brush, and with many
privations, eating what he could find in the woods, or what game he
could shoot, he had finally won out.

He made the tale a strong appeal for sympathy and fed his own vanity on
the admiration of the chums.

All unsuspecting of his villainous desertion, he was made a sort of
hero. Only Nicky seemed to be quiet and thoughtful. Finally he
interrupted the second recital, late in the evening. Henry recalled some
additional details of his misery, and repeated the whole story to get
them in their proper places.

“Why didn’t you stay with Tom and Bill?” Nicky said finally. It seemed
strange to him that Henry should have deserted his comrades.

“I left them on purpose,” Henry said. “’Cause why? ’Cause they sent me.
They told me to come. They wanted me to. ’Cause why? They sent you a
message!”

“Why haven’t you told it?” cried Cliff.

“There was plenty of time,” responded Henry, his old manner somewhat
restored by good food and some rest. “They can’t leave where they are
till the fever quits them. We can’t go up and do them any good. So they
sent a message——”

“What is it?” Nicky demanded impatiently.

“That is it! You go on. I found out, from Toosa, that the fellow we want
is at Porto Bello——”

“Porto Bello?” echoed Cliff. “That’s the name of this boat.”

“It’s the name of a town, too—a place where the old pirate, Henry
Morgan, once had his rendezvous,” Nicky explained. His study of the old
histories of pirate life gave him that information.

“What’s he in Porto Bello for?” asked Cliff.

Henry shook his head.

“That’s all he could tell. Go to Porto Bello was what he ordered. Then
Tom and Bill said for us to go on and find this fellow——”

“What’s his name—you never told us,” Nicky said.

“His name—oh, never mind. I’ll be along. I know it.”

“Well, why must we go on without knowing how Tom and Bill are?”

“Because,” spoke up “Andy,” “if they’re sick they can’t travel, and we
couldn’t get this boat to them even if we could get past the deadlines.
And, instead of waiting here, doing nothing, we could go and find that
lad and learn what he can tell us and then come back here. By that time
the worst of the fever scare may be over and we can get our comrades and
save time by going right where we have to.”

Mr. Gray seemed to agree, although he hesitated and asked Henry many
questions.

Nicky, however, was very quiet.

“I don’t like this,” he told Cliff, as the two were sitting, far beyond
midnight—they were too excited to sleep—watching the cold moonlight
throw mosquitos into tiny, black silhouettes on the netting of the
protecting cover under which they stayed.

“I don’t like it myself,” Cliff replied. “But what can we do?”

“I think we ought to go to the capital, and send help.”

“But,” Cliff objected, “if Tom and Bill are in the fever zone, the
Honduras authorities won’t let them come out or let us go to them.”

“Do you want to go off and leave them, only knowing what Henry says
about them?”

Cliff shook his head and answered soberly, “I don’t want to! But I can’t
see what we could do in the capital.”

“Do you think Henry has told us the truth?” Nicky demanded, under his
breath.

Cliff considered the question.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “What makes you ask?”

“Why is he so anxious for us to go on?”

“To save time, as Andy argued.”

“Maybe to save something else?”

“What?” Cliff whispered, shuddering, “I don’t understand. Save what?”

“His neck, maybe. Suppose he found out where the man is—and then——”

He did not finish his sentence, but Cliff shivered and grew very
thoughtful. Finally he spoke.

“I don’t trust him much. I wish we knew—the facts!”




                              CHAPTER XII
                               THE FACTS


Those Indians picked by the white trader, Mr. Buckley, to take Tom and
Cliff across the mountain ways toward the capital, were by no means
pleasant companions. Even in looks they were disconcerting.

Their faces were cruel and hard; their bodies were stalwart and
powerful; they spoke very little, and then in their own peculiar
up-river and mountain dialects. Toosa warned Bill quietly that they were
noted for their avarice.

“Give no money,” Toosa warned. “Hide. Not show. They—” He made a meaning
gesture, drawing his hand across his throat.

“Not very pleasant companions, buddy,” Bill told Tom, as they got into
the canoe which would take them further up the river. “But Toosa says if
we don’t show fear or weakness we will be all right—only, keep what
money you have in your belt close to your skin and never let on that you
have any!”

Tom’s last act before leaving Toosa, completely won the old man’s heart.

He called the great-grandson, Porfirio, to his forward seat in the
canoe, and gave him, for his very own, the magnet with which the boy so
often played. Toosa’s eyes lighted up when he saw the boy’s dazed,
almost awed look; Toosa smiled—a real smile.

Suddenly coming close to the leader of the mountain Indians, three in
number, he made some very firm declarations—to the effect that the white
men were in his keeping and that he would watch over them and know if
anything happened to them—and on the least sign of such danger he would
release all the spirits of the mountain—evil ones!—to punish the
offending Indians. They seemed to be strongly impressed.

“I guess we’ll be safe enough now,” Bill said. “That magnet is going to
be a life-saver, Tom.”

“It’s a cheap price to pay for insurance,” Tom grinned, and they were
sent out into the current by the lusty paddles of the four river natives
who owned the canoe and who would take them on the first lap of their
roundabout trip to the coast.

Their last sight of Toosa was one Tom would never forget; he had an arm
around the shoulders of the child; behind his dwarfed figure clustered
the Indian men, women and children. He lifted his long arm high in air,
and made a sort of sign with his fingers.

“Great Gravy!” whispered Tom, to Bill. “Did you see that? How in the
world did he come to make that sign?”

“What sign? With his fingers? Why, I suppose it’s a benediction or
something.”

“He spread all his fingers wide; then he closed them tight, then spread
them wide again,” gasped Tom.

“Well, what of it?” demanded Bill.

“That,” said Tom, in some awe, “that is the sign of our Mystery Boys’
order, as you very well know—the sign of ‘Goodbye, good luck and God be
with you,’ that we use at parting!”

“By golly!” said Bill, and stayed silent a long time. What a coincidence
that the almost savage man who lived in the woods had made such a final
message without knowing, perhaps, that he did so—unless the boys had
stumbled upon some ancient sign of some old cult.

After several days on the river the canoe was beached and the trio of
mountaineers bade a gruff farewell to their river brethren, and, with
heavy packs, of which Tom and Bill had their full share, the five
started on foot for one of the most difficult and trying tramps Tom had
ever experienced.

Before nightfall a small village was reached, and there the party was to
stay over night.

“From what I understand, it’s proper in these parts to give our firearms
to our host as a mark of good faith, for over night,” Bill told Tom.

“It must be safe enough, if it’s a custom,” Tom said, glancing at the
ring of rough, coarse, dark faces studying them curiously.

“He’s supposed to hand them right back, Toosa said,” Bill answered, and
accordingly he gave his rifle and one pistol to the Indian in whose hut
they were quartered, while Tom handed over the other, given him by Bill.
But the host did not hand them back.

No harm came to them during the night, however, although Bill was uneasy
without his weapons.

Day after day, from then on, they went forward by increasingly difficult
stages, first following the river, winding upward among the lower
mountains, past dangerous rapids, over steep knolls, through rough
canyons and up almost precipitous inclines, where ropes had to be used
to hold any one who slipped from plunging to destruction.

Hard as was the way, and tiresome as was the furious pace set by the
hardened mountain Indians, Bill and Tom kept up well, for Tom was of an
athletic frame and always kept his body in perfect trim by lots of
exercise, sports and fresh air, while Bill was of the lean, rangy type
and never seemed to tire.

The attitude of their companions was a continual worry to Bill, however.
Tom felt it also. Often he caught one or another of the three
fierce-looking men watching him covertly in the camps, with speculative
eyes roaming over his weapon, his clothing, his pack.

The Indians said little, but in their manner there seemed to be some
expectancy, as if they either felt or knew that something was going to
happen.

As the way grew more steep and difficult, the men seemed to be watching
even more carefully, and Tom asked Bill what it meant. Bill, who
understood their degraded Spanish words, used occasionally, but who
pretended not to, replied that they were making some plan but he could
not guess what it was.

They had reached a deep ravine, away high among the crags, and could
look from it across a wide chasm, when a sudden storm caused them to
make a hasty camp under a sheltering overhang of rock.

The men drew off and huddled together while Tom and Bill stuck close
together under the rubber poncho which Bill carried. Presently one of
the men approached.

“We wet,” he said. “You give coat, eh?”

Bill hesitated, but Tom, with a sudden inspiration, threw aside the
covering with a generous wave of his hand. The man seemed surprised but
took the garment away and the trio of Indians used it.

“Now,” said Bill, “they’ll demand everything we’ve got.”

“Maybe,” said Tom, “but we can stave them off at least until we get out
of this ticklish place. If we get them mad, away up here, they could
push us off the side, before we could wake up from sleep. We ought to
keep them quiet till we get to a better place.”

“I think they want to rob us and desert us?” Bill hazarded.

“So do I,” Tom agreed. “But as long as we keep our pistols and your
rifle, it will be all safe; we can take turns watching at night.”

They did, and Tom, on watch that night, noticed a creeping figure,
coming close to their soggy mosquito protection, but made no sign. He
told Bill, when the later awoke, and they redoubled their watchfulness.

The next day they went on and came into a high, and rough, but fairly
level plateau where they camped. Bill managed to shoot a wild pig and it
was roasted for dinner. With some biscuit made of flour, salt and water,
and with cocoa, they made a regular feast.

“The men are planning something,” Tom whispered, after the meal. “See
how they look at one another!”

“Well, let’s just be ready!”

Soon enough they had to be. The leader came over to them and in a very
polite way, for him, made a suggestion.

“We afraid,” he said. “Bad mountain cat close by.” They had heard the
cry of a jaguar or panther, or some other huge cat. “You have guns, you
save. We not got. We be died!”

“One of us sits up and watches all night,” declared Bill, meaningly.
“Don’t be afraid. We not let you be hurt!”

The man walked away doubtfully, and that night neither Tom nor Bill took
much rest; however, nothing more happened.

The next morning they were surprised to discover that the Indians seemed
very much more pleasant, and the leader brought the whites a special and
tasteful piece of the roast pig which he had saved for them. “That’s the
way to treat them,” Bill said. “Let them know we are on guard!”

They went on, and were wading along in a small torrent of water, the
only way through a deep abyss, when suddenly Tom clutched Bill’s arm.

“Bill,” he gasped, “I feel queer and sick!”

“So do I?” replied Bill. “But I tried not to let you know.”

“Do you know what?” gasped Tom, as a great, sweeping spasm of pain
flooded over him and he saw, as through a haze, Bill’s face whitening,
even as Bill staggered.

“Yes,” gulped Bill, “we’ve been——”

Indian poisons are subtle, but they work swiftly.

“Especially a toadstool called ‘Fruit of the earth’!”




                              CHAPTER XIII
                           TOOSA’S VENGEANCE


Cliff and Nicky faced Henry Morgan on the cruiser’s deck. “Well, you are
a fine one,” Cliff sneered. “You wouldn’t dare say what you do if my
father and Andy hadn’t gone to the Indian village to find out if the
fever quarantine is lifted up the river.”

“Yes, I would,” Henry said huskily. “I’d say it just the same. ’Cause
why? ’Cause it’s true. I mean it!”

“You actually mean you’re going to ship on that sloop, lying off the
reef?” Nicky argued.

“And leave us?”

“Ship on that schooner and leave you—yes! ’Cause why? What have you done
about finding Mort Beecher, or—or the Golden Sun? Not one thing! You all
sit around——”

“We had to scrape the hull and straighten the propeller and fix the
shaft while you were gone—” Cliff grew angry.

“Yes—but when I got there, all was fixed and the cruiser was back in
commission. But she’s laid still in the tide-race, here, for three days,
and no move to go to Porto Bello, the way the old Indian said I should.
I told you what word was sent from your friends—but you just sit and
fight sand-flies and mosquitos and sweat and chafe and eat bananas and
fire cocoanuts at sharks’ fins. I’m tired of waitin’. So, when that
cutter comes off from final trading with the Indians, it’s Henry Morgan
for on board and off for Colon or wherever the sloop touches.”

Cliff and Nicky looked at one another dubiously. This was a predicament.
Cliff’s father had gone ashore to pay the Indians in fancy articles for
helping to beach the cruiser first and then to drive her back into the
water. Cliff had caught Henry packing a “ditty bag” and the resulting
declaration that he was “quitting them,” brought Nicky racing to Cliff’s
hail. But they were puzzled to know how to summon the older men from the
village.

Finally, with a shrug, touching his left ear gently, to indicate to his
chum that he wanted the Mystery Boys’ signals to be noted and
understood, Cliff pushed his hair over his right ear with an index
finger, indicating to Nicky, “Come with me!” Nicky promptly swung on his
heel, with a contemptuous glance at Henry, and went below.

“We can’t tie him, or anything!” Nicky objected when Cliff asked what
they could do. “I can’t see what good it will do to stop him. We know
all he knows—that Mort Beecher is at Porto Bello.”

“All right,” Cliff agreed. “We’ll let him go. I guess we can get along
just as well without him.”

“Better,” Nicky declared. “I don’t trust him.”

They took no action, therefore, when Henry climbed aboard the ship’s
shore-boat and went out, across the sand bars, across the reefs, and,
one would suppose, out of their lives.

However, the afternoon was well along before they stopped talking about
him, about Tom and Bill, and about everything that had happened. By that
time Mr. Gray and Andy had arrived.

“What do we care if that Morgan is gone?” demanded Joe Anderson. “He’s a
poor comrade on a cruise. First he almost let us be broken up on the
reefs because he liked ‘tonic’ better than watching; then he deserted
our companions, and for all we know, did worse.”

“We can start up the river, anyhow,” Mr. Gray stated. “The river towns
are no longer quarantined against the lower coast or the upper river. We
can run as far up river as the boat will navigate and then several of us
can go to Tom and Billy Sanders by canoe.”

Accordingly the anchor was raised the next morning and with a river
Indian aboard as pilot, they ran smoothly and quickly up the lagoon.
When they were about a day’s run up the Rio Patuca, Nicky, at the bow,
watching the alligators slide off of the sand banks, seeing the strange,
bright birds flying over the water, suddenly gave a cry.

“Isn’t that white people in that canoe——”

“It is!” echoed Cliff, running to his side. “And it’s——”

“Tom!” shrilled Nicky, dancing about until the pilot, watching the
shifting currents, had to catch his coat and prevent him from toppling
off the sharp bow.

Tom it was, with Bill, both alive, and quite hearty.

The story of their exploits was a thrilling one. They had been in the
first throes of suffering from a violent poison administered in, or with
their food by the Indians conducting them through the mountains.

“Tom recalled that I had a bottle of white vaseline in my pack,” Bill
said, “and he crawled to it and got the stuff. It was not very easy to
take, but we each got some down, and it melted and made a sort of oily
coating, or else it acted as an emetic, for we were very sick, and
almost wore ourselves out struggling—and we couldn’t get enough water!”

“It was lucky for us that we were right by the stream, almost in it,”
Tom added. “The Indians didn’t move a hand to help. If we hadn’t kept
sense enough to hold onto our pistols I guess they would have jumped on
us. We found out later that they had picked some sort of mushroom—‘fruit
of the earth’ it’s called, in the lower levels, and put some in folds of
the pork meat when they gave it to us.”

“How did you find that out?” Nicky demanded.

“Did they confess?” asked Cliff.

“Toosa told us,” Tom explained. “He claims that he knew by his magic
spells that we were in danger, and that he came to save us; and for that
he expected Bill to give him Henry’s rifle when we left—which Bill was
glad to do. But he and I privately think it was more chance than
planning that brought him just in time to help us.”

“When you have lived as long as I,” said Mr. Gray quietly, “you will
understand that there isn’t any such thing as ‘luck’ or ‘chance’ or
‘coincidence.’ It is all a part of a Great Purpose, that is deeper than
most of us can see; but it is there, and we do not have to depend on
‘chance’ to get out of difficulties. If we believed in ourselves, and do
our honest best for ourselves, help will come as we need it. Toosa,
perhaps, was worried about you and so his intuition was keen and he felt
that he should follow you.”

“I guess you are right,” Tom admitted. “Anyway, Toosa got there in time
to stop the Indians from running away, after they divided our packs and
while they were hoping we would die so they could get our gun and
pistols and cartridges.”

“What did Toosa do?” asked Cliff.

“He threatened he would revenge himself if they hurt you, Bill has told
us,” Nicky added.

“He had his vengeance, but in a curious way,” Tom said, glancing at
Bill, as if for his backing-up of the story. Bill nodded encouragement
and Tom continued:

“Toosa called the Indians back and they came, slinking and cowering,
like whipped dogs. I don’t know yet what there was about him that scared
them so, but he certainly ruled them by fear. He called them to him and
then he made them stand there while he looked them steadily in the eye.
Bill, the Indian he had with him was close to you, what did he tell you
Toosa said in their own language?”

“Toosa said, ‘Which you like best, to eat rest of “fruit of earth” with
roast wild pig, or have mountain spirits follow you and drive you into
chasm?’” Bill related it with a reminiscent grin.

“They picked the wild pig and the poison mushrooms,” Nicky guessed. “I
know that much about these Central American Indians.”

“We urged Toosa to be easy on them,” Tom said. “But he said it must be a
lesson, and he made them go through with it.”

“What happened?” asked Cliff.

“He wouldn’t let us wait to see,” Bill replied. “He winked at me and
told me to leave what there was in the vaseline bottle, and let them see
how their own medicine man can save them with ‘white man’s butter.’ They
weren’t even sick when we started back. The river was free of quarantine
and so, of course, after we got back to it, we had no trouble at all.”

“I’ll never forget Toosa, waving to me with the very sign of the Mystery
Boys, again, as we canoed away down stream,” Tom added.

“I’m glad your adventure ended so pleasantly—for you,” Mr. Gray stated.

“I hope it wasn’t too unpleasant for the hill Indians,” Andy said. “But
if they were as sick as you that would be justice.”

“And in the long run, if you wait long enough,” said Bill. “Justice is
always done, one way or another.”

“Then Henry Morgan still has some punishment due him,” said Nicky and
the desertion and falsehood of the departed pilot was discussed.

“We sent no message,” said Bill, telling how Henry had turned savage and
stolen his rifle and a canoe. “Wait till I catch him!”

“He said he was going to Porto Bello,” said Nicky. “Aren’t we?”

“No,” said Tom. “At least, only for a brief stop to see if Mort is there
and if he really knows anything. Toosa told us, after Henry made his mad
dash, that if we want to find out about Golden Sun—it isn’t a mine,
either, he says!—we are to ask the San Blas Indians.”

“They live on reef islands down below Panama, I think,” Bill said.

“They do,” agreed Mr. Gray.

“And,” finished Tom, “if the Golden Sun isn’t a mine—my sister had
golden hair—do you suppose?——” No one answered.




                              CHAPTER XIV
                         THE PORTO BELLO PUZZLE


Out from the Mosquito country the cruiser fought her way again; her
machinery did not fail, and information given by the Indians, coupled
with a fairly quiet sea, enabled the adventurers to make a safe passage
through the treacherous rocks and the surging rollers.

There was no excitement during the run down the coast. Into the
well-traveled route to and from the Panama Canal the voyagers worked the
boat, and, by agreement, a stop was made at Colon.

In an earlier adventure the three chums, Tom, Cliff and Nicky, had
visited Panama, and the great achievement of the Canal was therefore not
a novelty to them, although they never ceased to marvel at the
engineering skill by which it had been planned and built, nor did the
vastness of its locks, the precision of its machinery, ever fail to make
them thrill as they thought—the United States—“our country”—accomplished
that feat. To them it was the Spirit of American success in an
undertaking that made the world better and communication easier.

They did not wait long in Colon; only until Bill and Mr. Gray made
inquiries about Mort Beecher.

As they traced the story, they learned, through many contacts which Mr.
Gray’s reputation as a great scholar opened to them, that Morton Beecher
had come to Colon, a few years before, and had seemed to be a very rich
person. He had spent money freely and had gotten into a group of Spanish
and of American pleasure-seekers who spent lavishly on the more sordid
delights of a tropical life. Not many months ago Mort, broken in health
and with no more money, had been compelled, as far as was known, to seek
his fortune elsewhere. No one would give him employment because he was
not dependable, had no strength, and spent all of his time bemoaning the
vanished past of his opulence. No one knew just what had happened to
him.

However, through the story that Henry Morgan had told them, they guessed
that Mort’s misfortunes had finally led him to Porto Bello, that decayed
spot on the Panama coast of the Caribbean which had once been a
stronghold of the notorious pirate, Henry Morgan the first, the man who
had first raided the Central and South American shipping and the towns
of the coast, robbing and pillaging, and then had become reformed to
such an extent that he had ended by making war on piracy and had
achieved the great fame of being the governor of Jamaica who had done
more than any other to “clean out” that nest of piratical looters.

With the wind kicking up a rough sea, the cruiser, namesake of the place
they were bound for, headed toward Porto Bello.

With a pilot, a negro who called himself Bob, taking the place in their
party vacated by Henry’s defection, they made the run safely, if under
rough conditions. The entrance into the harbor of the ancient Spanish
port was attended with only the usual dangers of any of the reef-locked,
rock-studded passages along the coast.

Tom, Nicky and Cliff saw, with amazement, the ruins of the once noted
place. There were the demolished battlements of its old fortifications,
visible as they dropped anchor in a quiet harbor.

They found the population composed of Spanish and Negro people, of the
most advanced state of dejection. No trade came to Porto Bello, no ships
bothered to run the menace of her reefs, except for a very rare sailing
sloop which might put in rather than to face a storm.

It took only a short time to land, and the crowd which assembled at the
decrepit old shacks near the beach, astonished the boys by its
slovenliness and its apathy. The people watched but made no effort to be
pleasant or to help them.

“Did you ever see so many sickly people?” Nicky asked, and with good
cause: hookworm was prevalent, from a diet that never varied; and the
unclad bodies of the younger children seemed a very breeding place for
sores. The ragged adults were in a like state.

“Father says that’s what comes of this kind of a life,” Cliff declared.
“These folks never see anybody but themselves. They don’t have anything
to interest them. They just eat, and sleep and exist, waiting till they
die.”

“I don’t think I’d stay here, even if I had to build a canoe and run the
risk of the reefs and the ocean rollers,” Tom stated. “I’d rather meet
my end fighting for life than sitting down and waiting for the other
thing.”

“So would I,” Nicky agreed. “But these people are just too lazy and
dejected to care, I guess.”

“They have lost their self-respect and their wills,” Bill said. “I
suppose I ought to feel sorry for them, but I don’t, because I was
always of the idea that it’s up to every man to make himself what he
wants to be.”

“I feel that way,” Tom agreed. “It isn’t easy, though.”

“Maybe it isn’t easy,” Bill nodded, “but it can be done if we stick to
it. I always wanted to have a ranch in Uncle Sam’s good old West. I was
down in Peru. Had no money. Just got enough to live on; but I stuck to
my ideas and kept saying to myself that if I wanted it long enough and
hard enough, and worked for it, I’d get what I had a desire for.”

“And you did,” admitted Nicky, for he had been with Bill during the
adventure among the Incas in which Bill had been able to save Cliff’s
father and eventually realize his desire for a ranch. “But it was a good
deal by good luck, Bill.”

“Why, Nicky!” chided Tom, while they waited for Mr. Gray to make some
arrangement with the “alcalde,” or head man, a sort of governor of the
town. “You always say ‘there is something that looks out for us!’ and
I’m surprised to hear you talk about luck.”

“That’s so,” Nicky agreed. “I didn’t stop to think. It looked like luck,
that Bill, in Peru, found the eaglet that had Cliff’s father’s note tied
to its leg.”

“But if you are sure that there is something, besides just chance,” Bill
argued, “you’d see that sort of something could bring the bird to where
I’d find it, and all the rest would come around through the same sort of
purpose, instead of by pure chance.”

They all agreed to that, and Mr. Gray brought the alcalde to meet them.
He was an elderly man, very sober and impressed with his dignity, though
what he had to be dignified about Tom and his chums failed to see.
However, with all the show of authority that he could put into what was
really laziness and vanity, he pretended that he could not give them the
information they sought until he prepared for an “audience” in the
shabby old shack which served as his home and office.

“He makes me think of the little frog in the puddle,” Tom commented, as
they stood about the beach, trying to be patient while Bill and Mr. Gray
argued and asked questions. “He’s so swelled up because he has a little
authority that he forgets to be decent or helpful.”

However, if the alcalde chose to be slow in his help, they found what
they wanted in another way. They had come to Porto Bello to get
information about Mort Beecher. This they secured through rather strange
channels.

“Look what’s coming!” whispered Tom, nodding his head toward a figure
slowly hobbling along the beach from a decrepit old lean-to among the
palms and the bush.

They all looked, and stared!

Bent with apparent age, halting in his steps, clad in rags so far beyond
repair that they scarcely covered him respectably, even in that
half-clothed community, came a white man.

His face was covered with a rank, bushy beard. His figure, when he came
close, was seen to be not only bronzed and roughened as to skin by
exposure, but was, as well, in a pitiful condition with the ravages of
drink. His eyes were more bleary and unpleasant than had been those of
Henry Morgan. His voice, high and shaky, whined and implored.

“A beach comber,” Bill told them. “That’s what a white man comes to when
he gets stranded in one of these dead spots, if he lets himself go.”

“It’s a pity,” Tom said. “He looks as if he has lost his own
self-respect, for he isn’t even clean; and he has no will power, I’ll
bet, or he wouldn’t have stayed here.”

“Laziness, drink—they tell the story,” Bill responded. “They’d sap the
vitality of one of the old Greek Gods!”

The pitiable figure sidled up, whining, a shaky hand extended in
supplication.

“I don’t suppose you’d give me a drink!” he whined.

Bill shook his head.

“No,” replied the bent figure, which looked seventy but which might have
seen no more than fifty years of life—but such a life! “No, nobody ever
does. Nor—a smoke—not even a little ’baccy for me pipe.”

Bill drew out a sack of tobacco and some thin papers and shook a little
tobacco into one of the latter. He saw it spilled from the shaking
fingers that tried to roll the paper, and made a cigarette.

“How long have you been here?” he asked, offering a light.

“I don’t know.”

“Long?”

“I can’t say, mister.”

“How did you get here?” Nicky inquired.

“I don’t seem to recall—I can’t seem to remember.”

They looked at one another. The alcalde came up.

“He is of no account,” he declared. “He cannot help you,” he continued
in his slow Spanish, using the words as though he was trying to recall
the proper ones; his usual conversation was in a degenerate dialect form
that he seemed to feel was too undignified for the occasion of the visit
of such dignitaries. “Come away!” he added. “Tomorrow I will receive you
and talk to you.” He turned on his heel and walked away.

Bill looked after him and made a wry grimace of disgust.

“Tomorrow!” he said. “That’s what you hear all through the Spanish
tropics, ‘tomorrow!’” And he might have added that “tomorrow” may also
bring its “tomorrow,” for the hot countries breed delays and indolence
and the slow, dragging moments seem interminable to the Americans, with
their purposeful, aggressive manner and their habit of doing things at
once!

“We can’t spend a night here,” Nicky urged.

“Don’t say ‘can’t,’” admonished Tom. “Look at this man. He’s said
‘can’t’ or ‘don’t’ to everything we ask him. That’s what ‘can’t’ gets
you to—it breaks down everything you try to accomplish. Say ‘we won’t!’”

“Then, ‘we won’t,’” Nicky grinned.

“Mister,” Tom turned to the old man, sniffling and slumped down on the
sand as though unable to sustain himself on his two legs, “you can tell
us, I guess, what we want to know. Is there anybody in this place named
Mort Beecher?”

The man looked at him dully.

“I don’t remember any names,” he replied.

“Well,” urged Nicky, “was there any white man besides you here?”

“Yes,” the other responded, “I guess you wouldn’t give me another smoke,
would you?” He looked toward Bill. “Or something to—” he made a
suggestive movement as if tilting a glass. “No—I guess nobody would give
nothing to me no more.”

“There was another white man here,” Nicky persisted. “Was his name Mort
Beecher?”

“I don’t recall his name. I can’t remember if he ever told me.”

They looked at one another in dismay.

“It must have been Mort Beecher,” Tom asserted confidently; then he
turned to the derelict again. “Did he ever talk about being in Mexico?”

“Mexico—Mexico? I ain’t sure.”

“Did he ever mention a—a Golden Sun?” Bill, rolling and retaining a
fresh cigarette just out of reach of the eager fingers.

“Sun? I—I don’t just—seems as if maybe he did, but——”

“It’s no use,” Bill said, quite gruffly, tossing the rolled paper
contemptuously to the other who snatched it greedily. “We’ll have to
wait for the old slow-poke alcalde. We’ll go back to the boat—I won’t
spend a night in this sordid place!”

“Wait,” pleaded Tom, “I feel, some way, as if this man knows it, but he
has got into such a state that he doesn’t make even an effort.”

“Look, mister,” said Cliff. “Try to think back. Did he stay here a long
time? Did he talk to you?”

“I guess it was quite awhile, but I don’t know how long—I forget. He
talked some, I guess.”

“What about—did he talk of his past?”

“I don’t know? It bothers me to think. I can’t think. If I had, maybe—a
bit o’ drink—but I’m not sure, even then——”

“Look here, Bill,” said Tom, “let’s take him out to the boat.”

“What for?” demanded Bill.

“I see what Tom is after,” Nicky broke in. “When we give him some food
and clean him up some, maybe we can quiz him.”

Mr. Gray, who had been quietly listening, nodded.

“You are a psychologist,” he said, amused at Nicky.

“Psy—? Oh, yes, Mr. Gray. Our instructor at Amadale told us about that.
It’s studying people’s minds, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” nodded the scholar. “Scientists have watched people and studied
them, just as we study animals, until they have learned that almost all
people will act in much the same way under certain ways of stimulating
them.”

“I know,” agreed Tom. “We all want to run when we are scared; we all do,
if there is a fire and a panic.”

“Yes,” chimed in Cliff, “and when we think about something nice we
smile, and if we think about a lemon, we act and feel almost as though
we tasted it.”

“Quite correct,” smiled the scholar. “And we can go further than that,
as I believe Tom guesses. If we say ‘I cannot’ often enough, and keep
thinking and declaring that we are victims of fate, and have no chance
to get away from some place, or to succeed, we get ourselves into almost
as bad a condition as this poor chap.”

“That’s how Mr. Whitley put it, once,” Tom conceded. “That’s what I was
thinking about. If we get this man where he is more like a civilized man
and talk about ‘you can’ and get him to feeling that he can remember
instead of that he can’t—maybe——”

“It’s better than hanging around doing nothing,” Nicky urged.

“We can try it,” Mr. Gray agreed. “There have been many wonders worked
by ‘Modern Magic’—psychology applied to daily life.”

“What’s your name?” he inquired of the shaking man.

“Why—I didn’t use it for so long—Jack—just call me Jack.”

“All right, Jack,” said Bill. “You throw back those shoulders and step
out like a young fellow. You’re going back to civilization, for awhile.”

The look of surprise in the dim eyes became one of pleading.

“It can’t be—I can’t hear you right, saying that! Nobody would bother
with an old beach comber like me.”

“Well,” said Tom, “we think we’re somebody, and we are going to bother.
It not only can be true, it is true!”

“I can’t believe——”

“Well, come and see!”

So the procession started through the indolent cluster of natives toward
the cruiser’s tender.

They were going to try modern magic.

But Jack held back.

“You can’t be going to take me out on that fine boat—and feed me, and
treat me like a white man!” he demurred, unable to believe in his good
angels.

“We certainly are;” asserted Bill. “And loan you decent clothes, and
treat you like a king!”

He had hardly finished when Jack turned on his heel and started away;
over his shoulder, in his whining tones, he called to them.

“Then wait—I got to bathe me first!”

The magic was already working!




                               CHAPTER XV
                              MODERN MAGIC


While the party returned to the cruiser, Jack, the beach comber, betook
himself to a land-locked lagoon where he proceeded to begin his return
to self-respect by taking his first bath for a long time. The chums,
excited and with much gusto, assembled a set of clothes to give him.

“Now, Cliff, Tom and Nicky,” said Mr. Gray, “you all know that you feel
much better if you are dressed up when you go among people. It gives you
self-respect. That is the way we will work with this man: we will build
up his idea that there is something good in him yet, and then Bill will
offer him a chance to go away from here and work his way back to
decency. Bill says he can use him on his ranch.”

“That ought to be fine,” Tom agreed. “And I guess we will let Cliff’s
father do most of the talking.”

“After we get him on board and feed him well, we will have a talk with
him,” Mr. Gray conceded. “At that time, make only what I would call
positive statements——”

“I know,” Cliff said. “‘I can,’ instead of ‘I can’t,’ and ‘We will’
instead of ‘We wish.’”

“Exactly that,” Mr. Gray nodded. “We will first substitute a picture in
his mind that will make him feel like his old self. Then we will make
him want something better than this terrible life he is living, not
offering him a reward, but letting him see that he wants it enough to
make a try for it. Then probably he will try to remember and tell us
what we want to know—he will feel that in helping us he is helping
himself.”

“We’ll do it!” declared Nicky. “I know we will!”

The trio rowed to the lagoon with the bundle of clothes and when Jack
had them on he seemed to take on a different look; and, as if he felt
already more like a man, he stood up straighter and his shoulders did
not hunch down so much.

After a good meal and his first decent shave for, perhaps, years, he
looked and acted like a different person—and declared that he felt that
way.

“You want to get away from here, of course!” Bill said, when they were
all on deck, Bob, the Colon pilot, and Andy, the engineer, watching in
the background, much interested.

“Nobody——” began Jack.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Mr. Gray stated quietly. “You might find somebody
who would help you along. Certainly, in such a case, you want to——”

“Indeed, I do!” declared Jack—and the voluntary change from indecision
to assertion showed that the experiment was succeeding.

“Then I’ll see that you get to my ranch, in Colorado,” Bill said, and
they all showed some surprise at the sudden movement Jack made.

“Colorado!” he almost yelled. “I was there once—a long time—I can’t
remember—it was before I got down and out——”

“You’ll remember it all when you see Colorado, with its ranges and its
painted rocks and its wonderful, soft sunshine, and its fine people,”
Mr. Gray broke in, quickly taking advantage of this recollection, and
using it to stimulate memories. “When you get there you will remember
some of your old friends and you will find a lot to enjoy!”

Jack nodded, and his face took on a reflective look. Bill, and the
chums, watching Mr. Gray as well as Jack, saw a slight shake of the
scholar’s head and decided not to interrupt the flow of old Jack’s
thought. They wanted Jack to think of the past.

Finally he asked Bill several questions about old range locations and
Bill answered as well as he could, about a rather strange, and to him
unfamiliar, part of the state.

Then, gently, by suggesting ideas to Jack, Mr. Gray got him to tell some
incidents of range life that he recollected, and then went on from that,
letting Jack talk as much as he would, to get from him the story of the
past. It seemed to become even more clear as he talked.

“That is natural,” Mr. Gray explained later. “We never forget anything.
It’s all hidden somewhere in our minds. But we keep track of things that
interest us most and ‘forget’ or bury, the others. But if we try hard
enough, and practice and keep at it, we can recall anything we want to.”

Finally—and it took time!—they got Jack to talk about his life in Porto
Bello, not insisting on knowing how he came there, for he had “gone to
the dogs” at that time and his brain was so befuddled by lust and bad
habits that he had simply fallen into a state of indolence and drifted
there.

They worked hard to get him to recall when Mort Beecher arrived, and
after a time, Tom, by a fortunate remark, opened the gates of memory.

“Did he get shipwrecked?” he suggested.

“Now I recall,” Jack said, accepting a fresh smoke. “Yes, sir—my lad, I
recall it plain. There was a great storm.”

Getting into the spirit of excitement as his story unfolded, he related
the broad details of a great storm during which a boat had been, by the
whim of tide and wind, swept over the barrier reefs and into calmer
water. Of her occupants, three men, one alone swam to shore through the
shark-ridden waters. It was Mort Beecher.

“He and me, we got chummy,” Mort’s acquaintance told them, while they
listened with avidity. “But we took to using liquor too free, and I know
he talked a heap to me, but only when he was ‘fired up’ with this native
poison we have to use. I wasn’t in condition to listen and so I can’t
tell you nothing. I don’t remember. But we stayed here, going from bad
to worse, till a few days since—I don’t recall just what day, but
another man come here from a sloop that lay-to off the reef, and he
looked for a man named Mort Beecher—that’s how I recall his name, come
to think, I heard him ask.

“But he wouldn’t have nothing to do with me—who would——?”

“We would, so forget that sort of talk!” commanded Bill. “Well, he only
wanted Mort—for some private business, maybe?”

“It must be, but I don’t recall. I didn’t hear him. He gave Mort some
money and Mort gave me a lot of—you know—” he lifted a hand as if it
held a bottle, tilting back his hand, “and I went off and didn’t care,
so long as I got what I come to crave for.”

“But they went away, back to the boat, I suppose,” Mr. Gray asserted.
Jack nodded.

“Well, we want to find out where they went,” began Bill.

“Mort was my pal while he was here,” Jack said. “I don’t remember
nothing, but if it’s account of the law, or anything, I won’t help you
to track down a pal.”

“No decent man would, unless his pal had done wrong!” agreed Mr. Gray.
“We aren’t after him. We don’t know of anything he has done that is
wrong. But we think he can help us to locate the sister of our Tom,
here—” he related briefly the circumstances of her disappearance. “As a
decent, self-respecting man, you want to help us all you can, of
course!”

Jack nodded sturdily. The appeal had its effect.

“I do,” he agreed. “But I wasn’t in condition to pay ’tention and I
can’t remember——”

“You recall him talking about Mexico—” suggested Mr. Gray.

“Mexico—Mexico—I can’t just seem to—maybe he did, but I don’t recollect
what he said.”

“Something about the Golden Sun—” suggested Bill.

“The—Golden—the Golden Sun—” Jack said, trying to screw up his forehead
in his effort to rebuild the old story.

“Golden Sun—he used to talk about it a lot,” said Mr. Gray.

“Golden Sun—was it, maybe—I don’t just—let me think—I was too fuddled to
notice when he used to brag and boast,” Jack said.

“I suppose he bragged how he had found some money that he had hidden,”
Bill broke in, referring to his supposition that Mort had hidden the
loot from the mine, gone back to get it, taken it to Colon and wasted it
in riotous living.

“He did brag—I recall that well,” Jack acknowledged. “Seems to me——”

“Just let it come to you—it will! You may have been ‘under the weather’
but you heard it all—it made an impression on you. You do remember it.
It will all come back!” Mr. Gray was making suggestions almost in the
way a hypnotist does when he is putting someone to sleep, only he was
using the principle rightly, to awaken a man’s memories.

“Oh—yes! There was a Golden Sun,” Jack declared. “It was a—wasn’t it a
mine——”

“No!” cried Nicky incautiously. “Remember, Bill, Toosa said it wasn’t—”
He stopped, feeling the glare of Tom’s and Cliff’s warning eyes. He
subsided, crimson with disgust at his carelessness, for Jack turned with
a blank face.

“Wasn’t it?” he asked. “You see; I don’t re—I can’t be sure——”

Mr. Gray did not change his expression.

“Well, let’s not worry about it,” he said. “He must have told you it was
the Golden Sun mine—and that might be true. Nicky referred to something
an old Indian said—the Indian thought the Golden Sun might be a girl, a
name applied to a girl.”

“A girl?” said Jack, a blank look on his face. “Was it a girl? I don’t
recall—I’ve tried. I want to help you—”

“Of course you do,” declared Mr. Gray, “and you will. As soon as it
comes to you clearly—and it will!—you can tell us. Now, go and lie down
and have your afternoon siesta.”

“Siesta!” Jack said. “On cushions! In good clo’es! With my stomach full!
And yesterday I laid under a palm tree and roasted and sweat and
starved.”

Bill rose to show him where he could take his nap.

“I want to remember!” said Jack, rather pitifully and huskily. “I don’t
know what it may mean for you—but you’ve been decent and more than I
deserve——”

“Oh, no,” Tom declared. “You’d do as much for us, if it was the other
way ’round.”

“I hope so,” agreed Jack. “Anyhow, I’ll try to think——”

“Now I’ve done it!” said Nicky ruefully, when Jack was out of hearing.

“Maybe not,” said Tom. “You didn’t remember what Mr. Gray said about
being positive—and you denied what he said and shook his confidence, but
he’s trying, and he will succeed.”

“Everybody succeeds if they keep trying on a certain line,” Cliff
stated, and then they waited—but not long. Suddenly Jack came on his
shaky legs, almost babbling in his excitement.

“It’s just come to me!” he said eagerly. “Listen——”

And they soon saw that “it” had “come to him” in full.




                              CHAPTER XVI
                           PART OF THE SECRET


“Men in tropical places don’t ask each other questions about their
business any more than the cowmen do on the range,” Jack began. “That
fellow, Mort, was like all of us. He didn’t say much when he was
himself; but when he got——”

“Happy!” suggested Tom.

“Well,” Jack grinned, “I wouldn’t call it that. Instead of being happy,
he got to weeping, and wailing and crying on my shoulder. It was
thinking about that and what he said that made me remember.”

They settled themselves, under the hot afternoon sun, to listen.

“It was after two days and nights,” Jack went on, “Mort was weeping
about having so much money and then not having any and getting so he had
to work as a sailor, and get wrecked in this forsaken hole.”

“You remember it all clearly, at last!” commented Mr. Gray.

“Yes, I do,” Jack nodded. “Mort told me, then, he had been in Mexico and
I recall that now. He said, between crying and looking for sympathy,
what a shame it was that he had only took—let me see, how did he put
it?——”

They waited, as patiently, as they could, although it was all that Nicky
could do to keep still.

“Oh, yes! He said, ‘Ain’t it a shame I was scared to go back and get the
rest? I only took one little sack of gold dust—and there was mules
loaded with it and it was all safe for me to get, but I was too scared
to go and get it.’ That’s what he said.”

“We can help build up what he meant,” suggested Bill. “We were told
about the looting of the Dead Hope Mine by bandits and how Mort drove
the mules away.” He was about to continue but a warning look from Mr.
Gray caused him to let Jack resume his own story.

“He said he’d had a good time on the money but when it ran out—but you
know about that!”

They nodded and waited while he reflected.

“Let me see,” he said finally. “Yes, this is the way of it—Mort said if
he could find a little girl——”

“What did he call her?” broke in Tom, unable to restrain his eagerness.

“He didn’t call her any name,” answered Jack. “But he said ‘if I could
find a little girl that—that the—er—Indians took——”

He broke off and concentrated his mind on what he wanted to recall.

Tom had his lips parted to prompt, and Nicky was fidgeting in his
folding chair until it squeaked and almost folded up; but Cliff, with
one finger at his ear, caressing it, made a sign that neither chum could
ignore—the call of the Mystery Boys’ order for a council. They folded
their arms in token of agreement and then Cliff communicated by a touch
of one finger on his chin—“Keep quiet!” They nodded.

“How did the Indians get her—did he say?” asked Mr. Gray in a gentle,
quiet tone.

“Yes, it seems as though he did—let me think! Yes. He said that he took
her all through the mountains all right, and he thought he would get a
reward for saving her when the bandits attacked the mine. I recollect
that real plain. Then——”

He had to stop often to bring up the memories, but one thought led to
the next and soon he was in the midst of his narrative.

“The bandits were hot on his trail, and that is why he didn’t have time
to stop and claim a reward or to return the little girl. She had golden
hair, and was right pretty, he said. But he had to take her to the
coast, with what money he could bring in the sack of dust.”

“Gold dust!” commented Bill. “And the rest is still there, maybe!”

“Maybe!” agreed Jack. “Anyway, he said he and the little girl went at
last to the coast and wanted to get a ship to take them to America, but
there wasn’t any sailing right then, and the bandit chief was in the
town, in disguise, and Mort was so scared he’d be shot that he took the
little girl and went on a coasting boat bound for different ports. He
dyed the little girl’s hair and made himself look different and kept her
in the stateroom of the little ship he said.”

In that way, as Mort had related and as Jack recollected, bit by bit,
the two had gone slowly down the coast. Always he was oppressed by
terror, first of being discovered with the little girl, second, of being
caught by the bandits he had fooled.

“One day he told me, the steward come to him, said the little girl was
crying and said she wasn’t his little girl and she wanted to go home.
That scared Mort so much that when the ship hove-to right near the San
Blas country, which is all islands where the San Blas Indians live, he
got a sailor to lower a boat in the night and set him and the little
girl onto shore.”

“Toosa told us to seek him among the San Blas Indians,” said Tom, under
his breath. Nicky and Cliff nodded and bent forward even more eagerly.

“Seems, from what I recall, he said they were landed on a right small
island where some families of the Indians lived, and for a time they was
all right, because the little girl was real smart and had a lot of pity
for the sickly Indians and told them what to do to be better and they
did, even young as she was to tell them how to behave, and they got
better from washing more and living decenter, and anyhow, she got to be
real well-liked; but Mort hated the idle place and no fun or anything to
spend money on—you know what I mean?”

They nodded and he continued the little more he had to tell.

“That was like Margery,” Tom said, referring to his lost sister. “She
used to play nurse to her dolls and say she was going to grow up to be a
nurse and cure people, and she was always asking questions about how
doctors made people well, and how people ought to do to keep well. My
sister was the smartest girl of ten I ever saw, and awfully grown up for
her age.”

“We’ll find her,” declared Nicky.

“Well,” Jack completed his story. “All I recall is that Mort said one
morning he woke up to find the little girl was gone——”

“Gone!” chorused the chums.

“Made away with,” Jack nodded. “Mort didn’t know where. Seems maybe the
other Indians heard about her curing folks and wanted to be doctored—or
maybe they made her like a goddess or something!”

“The inland Indians must have heard of her and taken her,” Bill
suggested. “I wouldn’t put it past them.”

“Anyhow, as Mort said, between his weeping, it was hard on him, after he
had took such good care of her and been so careful—because now he’d
never be able to get hold of the Golden Sun mine—”

“The Golden Sun mine!” cried Tom. “Did she have papers or anything, did
he say—was she the owner of the mine?—did my dad discover a mine and
give her the papers?”

Jack shook his head.

“About that I can’t tell. Mort said by losing the little girl he lost
the Golden Sun mine and so he went from there to Colon and rioted on
what he had—and that’s all I remember!”

“That makes everything very plain to me,” declared Mr. Gray. “Henry
Morgan said that all Mort could talk to him about was the Golden Sun,
but Henry thought it might be the little girl, or a mine, he didn’t know
what, when we discussed it.”

“So Mort ran away with the child,” Bill contributed. “And from what
Jack, here, has told us, I think that Henry Morgan knew, from what Mort
may have told him back in Mexico, that Tom’s father had discovered some
mine or knew of one and either gave his daughter the title to it or else
told her, and no one else, where it was located.”

Tom and Nicky nodded vigorous agreement.

“That’s why Henry Morgan, when he found out we were trying to trace my
sister,” Tom said, “was so anxious to be one of the party. He wants to
get the information before we find out anything about it.”

“I think he wants to get it all for himself,” Nicky declared. “I don’t
think he intended that we should ever find out anything.”

“No,” Cliff said. “But why did he want us to go to Toosa first?”

“That’s so—if the little girl knew about the mine,” Nicky agreed.

“I think this may be it,” Bill suggested. “You know, Toosa was a great
medicine man and witch-doctor, and he knew a lot about Henry Morgan and
Mort Beecher when they were in his country earlier.”

“I see,” Tom said. “He thought Toosa would know how to locate Mort
better than anybody else.”

“And when he found out that Mort might be in Porto Bello, he deserted
us,” stated Cliff. “The mean, contemptible——”

“Names won’t help,” Bill suggested. “What we want is——”

“Action!” cried Nicky, leaping to his feet, upsetting his camp chair.

“Action is the word!” Bill conceded. “Henry Morgan got here while you
folks on the cruiser came up-river to rescue us. Now he’s been here,
probably convinced Mort that they could do more together than
alone—and——”

“Went to the San Blas Indians!” cried Tom. “We’ve got to hurry and get
there, too, before he can locate my sister.”

“Wait,” suggested Mr. Gray. “How do we know that he and Mort Beecher
have not gone back to Mexico to secure the hidden money?”

“Even so, we’d not care about that; we must get to the San Blas
islands,” Tom cried. “We must find out about Margery.”

To that they agreed, and with Jack as a passenger, the cruiser wasted no
time in clearing the port and turning her nose toward the archipelago.




                              CHAPTER XVII
                            A COLD RECEPTION


The San Blas Indians live on islands of the archipelago which guards the
coast close to the line between Columbia and Panama. Most of the islands
are quite small and are occupied, in some cases, by no more than three
families; in others by more, and on the largest of the islands there is
a city, close-packed huts crowding each other with very little free
space. On this island, really the capital, the Indians live in goodly
numbers, getting their food and doing much of their work by going to the
mainland shore in canoes.

Before they approached the San Blas island colonies, Tom spoke of a
matter that had been worrying him a great deal.

“We ought to have a plan,” he suggested. “If we go and ask about a
girl—my sister—they won’t tell us, especially if they have kept her a
prisoner.”

“I think you’re right,” Cliff acknowledged. “We could say we are
traders, couldn’t we?”

“That would not help us to get to the inland tribes, if she is not on
the islands,” Bill objected.

“We could pretend we are looking for gold,” Nicky contributed.

Mr. Gray shook his head. They were all, except Andy at the engine and
the colored pilot, Bob, at the wheel, seated in the little cabin eating
dinner.

“No,” Mr. Gray said with his headshake. “The San Blas Indians are not
much interested in gold. There is another tribe, the Chucunaque Indians,
living on the mainland, and in the interior, who are really a part of
the same original stock as the San Blas people, and they are very
decidedly antagonistic to white people for the very reason that Nicky
has suggested. These Indians think that white men are all trying to find
gold, and the Indians say, according to the information I have, that
gold is what has destroyed the Indians.”

“I don’t see how,” Nicky declared.

“They argue somewhat to this effect: the white man wants gold. He comes
among the Indians to look for it. He bribes them with his fiery liquors
and he fights them and degrades them.”

“That’s so, too,” Cliff nodded. “Whenever you see Indians after white
men have been in their country, you see a decayed race. Look at our own
‘Redskins’—they have lost their country and live on reservations and
only since the Government saw what was happening and did something to
protect them have they been able to protect themselves and try to get
back some of their self-respect.”

“That is exactly what the Chucunaque Indians are afraid of,” Mr. Gray
told them. “The Government of Columbia has tried to colonize their
country but they have fought every effort and the Government had to give
up because the Indians won’t let a white man get into their lands. They
have drawn a sort of sacred ring around themselves and no one can get
into the country without their permission, and once in, will never be
heard of again unless the Indians let him go.”

“That doesn’t look very promising,” Tom said despondently.

“But if we had a plan, as you said,” Nicky said hopefully, “only—what
kind of a plan would fit that sort of people?”

Jack, who kept his face shaved and clean and who took pride in his new
respectability, had been listening without comment; he spoke up.

“One thing I do know, from Porto Bello and other places,” he said, “is
that the Indians are all pretty sickly. Now, back in Colorado, I used to
be a sort of ‘jack-leg’ doctor, a rough-and-ready kind of a doctor, I
admit—but I knew something about medicine and so on. If we had some
medicines, now, and any books——”

“The very thing!” cried Tom, exultantly. “We have a medicine kit on
board, and it tells how to use things—first aid and all that!”

“And we have plenty of zinc ointment, and other remedies that are useful
for skin diseases and so on,” Mr. Gray declared. “I know enough about
tropical exploration to provide those things, and we have them.”

“Then, maybe I could pose as a great medicine man,” Jack suggested. “Not
that I would be, you see, but I could do some things, maybe.”

“And we know first aid,” Nicky cried, eagerly. “The Scouts all know
first aid and how to take care of hurts and stings and cuts.”

Tom found an objection.

“But they would only let you go through the guarded circle,” he said.
“And where would the rest of us get in?”

“He could take me as a sort of second-string medicine man,” Bill spoke
up. “Two of us could do all that was necessary. If we found Tom’s sister
at all, either two could help to get her free or it would be
impossible.”

“Yes,” agreed Mr. Gray. “Numbers would not count; we couldn’t expect to
fight against them in their own country. Those Indians still use the
old, primitive bows and poisoned arrows.”

The three chums looked at one another disconsolately.

“It looks as though we’ll be left out,” Nicky said.

“We’ll have to make the best of it, then,” Cliff stated.

“After all, the main thing is to locate my sister,” Tom added.

Nevertheless, it cast a damper on their usually gay spirits for in every
previous adventure the chums had been inseparable, had participated in
every exciting episode and had really brought every adventure to a happy
termination.

When they talked it over, however, they decided to make the best of the
situation as it then appeared, burying their personal desires for the
good of their cause.

Toward sunset they came to one of the first small islands of the
archipelago, and saw three huts nestling among the palms. From a
distance, with glasses, they made out a number of people standing on the
shore.

“They seem to be watching for us,” Nicky declared. “How do they know we
are coming, do you suppose?”

“Maybe Henry Morgan has been here and told them we might come,” Cliff
suggested.

“Look!” said Tom, excitedly pressing the glasses into Cliff’s hands.
“They’re running away!”

“To get ready for a welcome,” Nicky offered.

“No,” cried Cliff, “they’re tumbling into three canoes!”

“I see the canoes with my naked eye,” Tom agreed. “They are pushing off
from shore—they’re paddling away as fast as they can go it!”

It was a fact, and when the cruiser came near enough to lay-to and hail,
there was no response and when the chums, in the boat, rowed to the
rough corral beach there was not a soul on the island!

“That’s funny!” Nicky declared.

“They don’t seem to like company!” Cliff added.

Tom made no comment as they rowed back.

At a half dozen other islands, the next day, the same thing happened.
Small groups gathered to watch their approach, then, as though driven by
some fear of them, scrambled into canoes and disappeared among the
islands or toward the mainland.

“Do you suppose they are as afraid of white people as all that?” Cliff
wondered.

“Let’s all keep out of sight when we come in sight of the next island,
only have Bob, who is dark and might look at a distance like an Indian,
on deck,” whispered Nicky. Cliff and Tom agreed, and when Mr. Gray, Bill
and Jack, all three puzzled, heard the plan, they agreed.

The change in their plan seemed to make no difference. As they came
within sight of the next islet, canoes filled and were driven hastily
into hiding.

“I can’t understand it,” Cliff stated.

“Nor I,” Bill acknowledged, and Jack conceded the same thing.

Tom still remained mute, his face very sober.

Finally they reached a fairly clear harbor at the largest of the
islands. While they dropped anchor they watched anxiously, for there
were many canoes, of different sizes, busily traversing the waterway
between the island and the distant shore.

Except for giving the cruiser a wide berth, however, the canoes appeared
not to know that it existed.

All the next day the company waited for the approach of a canoe. With
the early sunrise a fleet of canoes, filled with women—who seemed to do
all of the paddling and all other work—set out for the mainland, paying
no attention whatever to the cruiser. At evening the fleet came back.

“We ought to do something,” Nicky urged, always anxious to act. “Let’s
land and find out what’s what!”

“You cannot hurry an Indian,” Mr. Gray counseled. “We must wait to see
what they will do.”

“More can be gained by patience than by forcing them to move,” Bill
supplemented the older man’s counsel.

And so they let another day pass.

Then a canoe approached. It contained three of the older Indians, dark,
steady, stolid men. They made gestures indicating that they desired the
boat to go away.

Bill, standing at the bow, beckoned to them, and held out for them to
see, some very flashy glass ornaments.

“For Big Chief!” he called, in Spanish.

The canoe lay quiet; the men did not move.

A long half-hour passed.

Then the men nodded, paddled closer and waited.

“Present—for Big Chief!” repeated Bill, and bent low over the coaming
and rail to hand them several brightly polished silver belt-buckles, a
glittering glass pendant, and some strings of gay beads. He handed them
down into the canoe.

The men considered them without expression. Then one looked up.

“What you want?” he asked.

“Want visit chief—give more present—show Indians how get well. We bring
big medicine.”

Taking the ornaments but hiding any show of appreciation, the men
paddled swiftly toward shore.

“I hope it works!” Bill said, rather nervously, dragging an old cigar
lighter from his pocket and snapping its steel wheel with his thumb to
ignite its wick so he could light a cigarette.

“Darn these things!” he grumbled when it failed. “Always out of whack!
And matches are so wet you get _one_ to strike out of a whole packet!”

“Let me have it,” suggested Tom. “I can turn the flint and clip the
wick. I used to do it for my—for my father.” Bill nodded, handed him the
implement and struck match after match, finally getting a light.

Tom worked over the lighter until it operated three out of four times,
filled it with gasoline from the drip of the slightly opened carbureter
drain, and, carefully closing the drain again, slipped the lighter in
his pocket as Andy called him to help get out the after anchor, because
a huge, stormy cloud was rapidly coming over and the cruiser must be
well secured. Tom forgot all about the lighter in the ensuing
excitement, for a terrific tropical wind and rain came up and everyone
had plenty to do to keep the cruiser from dragging onto reefs.

Early the next morning the canoe approached again; the storm was all
over and the harbor was like glass as the roughly hewn craft slid gently
up to the cruiser’s side.

All of the party assembled on deck to see what would happen.

One of the older trio in the canoe stood erect and surveyed the company
with expressionless, stolid gaze. Finally he spoke.

“Who doctor?” he asked. They pointed to Jack.

The man nodded, beckoned to Jack. The latter climbed, in his neat,
borrowed clothes, into the canoe.

Then the trio waited. “They want the presents,” Bill suggested and he
and Tom hurried to secure more gifts with which, if possible, to win the
good will of the chief.

When they returned, instead of taking the gifts, the men beckoned and
gestured for them to descend into the canoe, and so it was that Tom,
Bill and Jack were taken to the island while the others, with what
patience they could, mastered their disappointment and waited.

Noon came, and no one returned. Afternoon wore on and still nothing
happened, no canoe put off from shore.

Just before dusk the fleet of canoes carrying the women who did the
washing, prepared the food and other things on the mainland, came home;
still the trio did not return to the cruiser. Cliff and Nicky did not
voice their worry for they saw the uneasiness in Mr. Gray’s expression
and did not wish to add to his concern.

Just before dark the canoe returned. Tom had hardly gotten on deck with
his two companions and the canoe disappeared in the dusk when Nicky and
Cliff demanded an explanation.

“Well,” Tom started his explanation, “I don’t think it looks very good.
They took us to shore, and the island is fairly packed with the huts
they live in, and there is a big, sort of open, hut in the middle, and
they took us there.”

“The chief lived there, I guess,” Nicky broke in.

Tom nodded. “Yes,” he agreed. “He was in a hammock, lying there as
though he were asleep, and he had a lot of his chief men sitting on low
stools around his hammock. The rest of the place was simply packed with
people, men and women.”

“It must have been a sight!” Cliff declared.

“It was. And they took us to stools in the center and let us sit down.
There we sat and sat and sat!”

“I know,” Nicky agreed. “They keep you waiting for the chief.”

“Finally Bill got tired of it and stood up and made a ‘talk’ in his best
Spanish, with signs and everything. He pointed to Jack, and said he was
a doctor—of course we had given the chief our gifts at first and he
didn’t bother to thank us. Bill made a good speech, if they understood
it; they didn’t show whether they did or not!”

“Wooden Indians was a good name for them,” Bill said, coming up.

“Then we sat and sat and sat some more,” Tom went on. “It got to be noon
and the place began to get pretty strong, with the heat and the sweating
and packed people. But nothing happened.”

“It got so bad, finally,” Bill took up the story, “I felt like I had to
have a smoke, and so did Jack. They hadn’t brought any sick people to be
doctored, or made a move. And nobody talked. So I hauled out my stuff
and rolled two cigarettes. And then—here’s where Tom comes in. Go ahead,
Tom.”

“Bill didn’t have any matches—he’d used up all his packet the night
before,” Tom explained. “So he felt around and looked blank and Jack had
one match and he struck it and the head was wet so it didn’t go off.”

“That was bad,” Nicky declared. “They’d suspect you weren’t very good
makers of magic.”

“But wait!” Bill urged, and motioned to Tom.

“It wasn’t anything I did,” Tom demurred. “It was just having forgotten
that I fixed Bill’s cigar lighter—and when we needed it we had it. I
pulled it out and flicked it and it lit!”

“Magic!” chuckled Jack.

“And did it surprise them?” demanded Bill, knowing that he answered
himself.

“They were as excited as babies with new pinwheels,” Tom said. “The
chief beckoned to me and I had to go over and light the thing a half a
hundred times, and then let him try—and of course he couldn’t!”

“Tom’s stock went up about two million points!” grinned Jack.

“But it did help us,” Tom became serious. “That is—it helped us to learn
what we were wondering about—why everybody runs from us on the other
islands. But it makes our problem that much harder, too, at the same
time!”

“How can that be?” demanded Nicky.

“This way,” Tom explained, despondently. “The chief called a man who
speaks some Spanish and had him tell us. Two white men have come here
already, a few days ago. I think it was Henry Morgan and Mort Beecher.
They said they were great doctors, and they did have some medicines and
they put stuff on the Indians and told them they would be cured of their
sores and so on in a week.”

“They came in a sailing sloop,” Bill added. “It landed them and went on
down the coast toward South America, but it is coming back in a week or
so.”

“But what makes that mean anything to us, beyond the fact that they got
here first?” asked Mr. Gray.

“Henry and Mort—if that’s who it was—told the Indians they are the only
true medicine men, and they said that men would come soon and pretend to
be as great—but they would be evil and undo all the good. And this is
the diabolical part of their story—” he paused and bent forward
impressively, to add:

“They said that if their medicine did not cure—it is because the evil
ones that are coming—us!—are working with devil-medicine!”

“Good grief!” exclaimed Nicky. “That is wicked talk!”

“It has terrified the Indians,” Bill agreed. “And it was only because
Tom’s trick with the lighter caught the chief’s fancy and impressed him
that he told us. He warned us to go away. He can’t trust us, of course.”

“That does make it hard for us to do anything!” Cliff declared.

“Hard—” Nicky sniffed. “But not impossible—never say die!”

“I won’t,” Tom cried. “But what will we do?”

“Yes,” agreed Cliff, dejectedly, “what?”




                             CHAPTER XVIII
                       THE JUNGLE OPENS ITS ARMS


“Waiting for something to happen is the hardest thing in the world,” Tom
declared. He, and Nicky and Cliff sat in the shade of a small awning on
the forward deck.

“Especially waiting when nothing does happen,” Nicky put in.

“I don’t think anything will happen unless we make it happen,” he added.
“The Indians didn’t pay the least bit of attention to us all day
yesterday.”

“Well,” Cliff argued. “The day before, when Tom won the chief’s interest
with the cigar lighter, the big man told him that the Indians don’t want
to have anything to do with us.”

“I suppose he thinks he has done all that he needs to,” Tom said,
dejectedly. “They are just waiting for us to go away.”

“I hope Bill and Jack get some results,” Nicky said. The two he
mentioned had carried gifts to shore early in the morning of this, the
second day following the audience with the chief; they hoped to win him
over, to get his confidence. But while they tried they felt, from the
start, that it was a hopeless attempt.

“If only we had something to do!” Nicky argued.

“Don’t you suppose we could row to the mainland?” Cliff suggested.

“Let’s ask,” Nicky cried, jumping up.

“We could find out what all the women do after they paddle over,” Tom
said. “If we report their customs, Mr. Gray ought to be willing to let
us go.”

They asked, and pleaded when Mr. Gray hesitated. They promised to be
careful; they urged their case, agreeing to report customs and
everything they saw. The elderly scholar did not feel like accompanying
them himself, for he hated the humidity and the sun’s terrific heat; he
told them that if Andy would go along—Bob had taken the two white men in
the boat, and had brought it back—they might row a ways up the river and
they could see across the wide expanse of the inner lagoon.

“I can’t go,” Andy told them. “I’ve got to tinker with my motor—there’s
one spark plug that misses, and I want to clean the whole set and adjust
the timing of my motor.”

The trio showed disappointment.

“Take the spare rifle and get Bob to row you over,” suggested the
engineer; but they demurred among themselves. Bob, not because he was
colored, but because he had a gruff, rather surly disposition, was not a
pleasant companion on an exploring trip.

“I can’t see any harm in rowing up the river,” Andy said. “Don’t get out
of the boat and you’ll be all right.”

They promised with the utmost sincerity and meant fully to obey the
order. The pull across the hot lagoon taxed them, for the sun was hot
and even though they took turns rowing the boat was slow and they were
quite wearied when, early in the afternoon, they came to a place
opposite the spot where the women had beached their canoes.

“We can just draw up on the sand and eat our lunch,” Nicky suggested.
“It’s shady under those mangroves.”

Tom and Cliff conceded that no harm could come of that. As they watched
the women they saw that the washing for the various families was being
done. It was conducted in a way quite like that they had seen in
Jamaica, and among other tribes: the women, standing knee deep in the
river, beat and pounded the clothes in the water.

“That’s pretty hard on clothing,” Cliff said.

“The clothes they have aren’t in such good condition that they could
stand any sort of scrubbing, anyhow,” Tom agreed. “It certainly is a
primitive sight—but look! They’re running and hiding!”

As they approached the women, the latter dropped what they had, leaving
the things to drift in the slow current, and raced across the beach and
into the heavy jungle. The jungle came close to the water and was as
thick and seemingly impenetrable as any tropical growth could be; yet
the women disappeared into it.

“That’s a shame,” Cliff cried. “Their things will all be lost—row over
faster, Nicky. We’ll save the clothes.”

They spent a busy half hour recovering the pieces of cloth from the
water and piling them on shore. Though they called and tried to make the
hidden watchers understand that they meant them no harm, the boys got no
response. Rather disgusted with the Indians, they sat under a shady
clump of brush, surrounded by vividly colored birds and butterflies and
ate their lunch of sweet yams, a tin of meat and a thermos bottle of
warm cocoa. Not a very appetizing lunch to one accustomed to
refrigerators and well-stocked markets, but, to tropical appetites,
after a long row, a meal which was eaten with gusto.

“Did you ever see butterflies like these?” asked Nicky, pointing to a
bluish-silver beauty whose wings seemed iridescent in the sunlight.

“I know that father would love to have some of them,” Cliff said. “He
hasn’t any of these great silvery ones, or the deep, blue-winged kind,
in his collection.”

“Neither have I!” declared Nicky. “Let’s catch some!”

“Take the rifle along, if you go into the brush,” warned Tom. “We might
meet a jaguar or a tapir or some old thing—or snakes!—watch out for
snakes!”

Cliff put the rifle under his arm, and the trio, darting after the
bright-winged insects, raced up the beach, and into the heavy fringe of
brush.

They kept quite close together, at first, but when they had thrust a
little way into the dense growth they saw that they came out into a
fairy-land, and, forgetting all caution in the thrill of the beautiful
sight, they paused for a moment and then pressed forward.

They saw none of the Indian women; indeed, they had forgotten all about
them. The dense growth of brush, matted vines, tangled creepers, which
fringed the river, gave place to great, lofty open glades of forest
grandeur. Trees like great columns, reared their tall forms upward from
every point, making vast aisles of gloom between their huge trunks.
Overhead their leaves met and tangled, twined and held by giant
creepers, so that only a dim, softly diffused light came down to light
the magical scene.

There was, at first, a seeming silence, an awesomely deep silence; it
made the boys stop talking, or converse in a whisper, feeling some
inward tendency to be still. Gradually, however, the forest took up its
solemn conversation; the hum of insects became noticeable, the faint
crackle of twigs as some soft-footed denizen of the deep gloom made wary
way along some hidden trail; the soft plash of a fish in the hidden,
distant river; the twitter of several birds, and the soft, incessant
flutter of bright—gaudily colored wings. Most of the tropical birds are
vivid in color but have no song.

A flock of gaily plumed birds whirred by among the silences above their
heads. Cliff half-automatically lifted the rifle and then let its barrel
drop; they were too beautiful to be killed, to be dragged down, inert,
lifeless, by a cruel and senseless use of lead. Cliff was a very humane
youth and he destroyed animal life only for real needs at any time.

Came a glitter and glow before their eyes; a very battalion of gay
butterflies flitted here and there. Forgetting the silence, with a whoop
they were in pursuit. Cliff dropped the rifle.

Here and there, afar and then close, through the great boles of
century-old trees, the pursuit led them.

Sometimes in eyeshot of one another, oftener not, they caught the gay
little insects.

Finally, with whoop and call, the trio managed to locate one another and
to gather to compare their catches.

“I have twelve of the blue ones, two silver ones, six yellow ones, and
this burnished gold one.”

“Give me one of your silver ones for this red one.”

“If I had six of your blue ones I’d trade two of these golden sunshine
ones,” Nicky completed the trio of voices.

The trade was made and they rose to return to the river.

And then three faces turned to a common center in dismay.

Cliff looked at Tom and Nicky and they, in turn, regarded each the
other.

“Which way?” asked Nicky.

“You’ve got your compass, haven’t you?” asked Tom.

Nicky pulled out the little round case.

“Good gravy!” he exclaimed. “The needle is stuck. See—it doesn’t turn!”

“Well, that’s no good, then,” Cliff said, hiding his own misgivings. “We
mustn’t get frightened and lose all our good sense. Let’s sit down and
think how to go about finding our way out.”

“The sun won’t help—we can’t see where it is,” Nicky declared.

“But it’s getting dimmer,” Tom stated. “We won’t have too much time
before night—let’s see if we can’t find where I dropped the rifle. Each
one go in a different direction, and nick the trees with your knives so
you can get back.”

They started off, and, after awhile, a hail from Tom showed that he had
discovered the previous weapon. But then they all had to return to the
common center and from there, after meeting, had to go back to the spot
where the rifle lay.

“But are we any better off?” Nicky wondered. “Which way is ‘out’?”

“Let’s see if we can make the Indian women hear.”

“That won’t do. They ran before—they won’t come here.”

“I guess we’re lost,” said Tom, in a matter-of-fact voice.

“Isn’t there any woods’ sign in the tropics to show which is North, or
some direction?” demanded Nicky. “Doesn’t moss grow mostly on one side
of a tree?”

“In temperate climates I know some signs, but I don’t see any here,”
Cliff acknowledged, spying about him carefully.

“Well,” Nicky declared, “we can shout, in turn, every half minute, and
fire the rifle once in awhile.”

“We can’t waste shots,” objected Cliff. “We may need—” he broke off, not
wishing them to picture the dangers he began to foresee.

But their minds were quick; however, each hid his growing uneasiness
from his companions as well as he could.

“We’ve got a rifle with a full magazine,” Tom said stoutly. “That will
protect us and give us food until we get out—and we’ve got the lighter
of Bill’s to make a fire to cook it on. We’re not so badly off.”

“If we get excited and start planning and running around,” Cliff
suggested, “we will wear ourselves out and get nowhere. Let’s sit here
in this open glade and think. When anybody has an idea that is good
sense, we can try it.”

“I see what looks like a trail yonder,” Tom had used his eyes and he
pointed to the near end of the glade. “Let’s try it a ways—it ought to
lead toward the river.”

“Which way?” asked Nicky. “From that end of the glade or this end?”

“That’s so—it is at both sides,” conceded Tom. “Let’s try one way for an
hour and see what we see!”

At the end of that time by Nicky’s wrist watch they retraced their
way—and when darkness came on, they were still on the other trail, and
weary and excited; but no sight of the river rewarded their eager gaze,
no sound of a response came back to their loud hallos.

“That didn’t work,” said Cliff. “Maybe we’d better pick out trees and
get ourselves off the ground while its light enough to see——”

“But jaguars—cats can climb trees,” Nicky objected.

“We’re as safe on the ground,” Tom urged. “We can gather wood and make a
big bonfire and that will be better.”

In the rapidly waning light, gloomy at the best, they managed to gather
broken, half-rotted twigs, branches, small strips of bark and dead vines
and several logs, back in the glade.

They made a good pile of them, keeping together, Cliff with the rifle
always at his elbow.

“It’s watch-and-watch,” he said when they sat down to stare at the
leaping flare of their fire, keeping quite close to its cheering blaze,
“Nicky watches until nine, then Tom, then I will watch—two hours for
each, unless we all have to wake up.”

Thus, as the day’s quiet gave place to the growing bedlam of the
darkness, with hoots and wails, the strident sounds made by night
insects making an undertone to the occasional weird voice of a wild
beast, the three adventurous youths made the best of a bad situation and
sat, supperless, by the one bright spot of safety in that wild place.

The jungle had opened its arms and had folded them upon its prey.




                              CHAPTER XIX
                             WASTED EFFORT


When all attempts to persuade the chief to listen had resulted in a
final, and rather angry order for them to go, Bill and Jack gave up.

“It’s no use,” Bill said. “We are stumped. Let’s go to the dock and meet
Bob—he ought to be back with the boat pretty soon.”

They went to the ramshackle wharf made of old, rotting poles stuck into
the water, with old boards, from some wreckage, loosely laid on them for
a footpath. The dock was seldom used—only for the few occasions when
government launches came to the island to transact business with the
chief.

But after a long wait, when Bob failed to show up, Bill became uneasy
and finally hailed the cruiser by firing his pistol three times.

The boat was too far away for voices to carry, and also signs could not
be distinguished.

Bill and Jack impatient and worried, for they could not see the small
boat anywhere about, commandeered a canoe and paddled to the anchored
cruiser.

“The boys have not come back,” said Mr. Gray uneasily when they came
alongside. He told how he had given them permission to go to the river.
Andy, summoned, was crestfallen and alarmed. He related his suggestion
to the youths and Bob said that he had not been asked to be one of the
party.

“We will take the canoe and paddle over,” said Bill. “No time to waste.
It won’t be over-long till dark.” Without further word he and Jack
paddled toward the mainland. They worked swiftly, for both knew that
time was of supreme importance if any harm had come to their younger
comrades.

“You don’t think the Indians?—” began Jack.

Bill shook his head.

“Here they come, anyhow,” he stated, pointing with his paddle to the
fleet appearing at the river mouth. “We’ll ask.”

The canoes seemed to be bent on avoiding them, but Bill drew out a
soiled but fairly white handkerchief and waved it, then beckoned. A
canoe containing several younger women veered closer and the paddles
ceased to sweep the glassy water.

“You see boat—boys?” hailed Bill.

One of the women nodded and pointed back the way they had come from the
river.

“They’re back there,” Bill told Jack. “They must be all right. But we’d
better go on and make sure.”

They passed through the squadron of canoes and up the river. Long before
they reached the small, sandy beach, they discerned the rowboat, drawn
up on shore. The Indian women had left it untouched, after a curious
examination of its scanty contents.

“They’re nowhere around,” Bill exclaimed when they came closer: with
tight lips he ran the canoe into shallow water and vaulted into the
shallows.

“Tom—Nicky—Cliff!” he shouted, and waited.

The echoes were silent. Jack added his high pitched call, and they
shouted together; but the jungle held its secret. The boys, at that
time, were two miles beyond hearing, on a trail that ran almost parallel
to the course of the river.

“If they’re in the jungle, how will we locate them?” asked Jack. “I know
something about these places—once you get in, you wander and get further
away all the time.”

“We’ll fire our pistols,” cried Bill. “Push in, here, as far as we dare
go without getting lost ourselves!”

There they shouted and, at intervals, fired their pistols. But only the
silent glades and the sentinels towering high above heard the hails and
quivered a little to the strange sound of exploding powder.

“There’s nothing we can do by waiting here,” Bill said, finally. “My
idea is to go to the chief and offer him all we’ve got to put out
parties who know the trails, give them torches, and try to get some
trace of what has happened. The boys are lost. We would be lost in no
time, looking; but the Indians might not. We’ll try it. It’s the only
thing to do.”

Tired as they were, their paddles fairly flew as they made their way
back toward the cruiser.

“If the sun is setting in the open, it must be night back in the
jungle,” began Jack.

“Be still!” snapped Bill, refusing to think of harm and thus lose his
hold on his plans. They delayed at the boat only long enough to give the
details of their discovery to a perturbed Mr. Gray, a penitent engineer
and an excited colored pilot. Then they paddled for the shore.

Without ceremony they burst in at the chief’s big hut, where he was
partaking of his evening meal.

He listened to Bill’s excited story, related in Spanish.

Then he sat in his hammock, munching on a yam, without retort.

“Well,” said Bill finally, exasperated out of all patience, “we will pay
well to have men and boys take torches and scour the jungle.”

“What do you say?” demanded Jack, also in Spanish and dialect.

The chief put down his yam and stared without expression.

Finally he spoke, coldly.

“You say you much doctor-magic man!” he declared. “All right. You make
magic. You find!”




                               CHAPTER XX
                          TRAILED BY A JAGUAR


“Look, Cliff,” whispered Nicky, directing his comrade’s attention toward
a limb not far above their campfire. “See those two bright spots? Are
they a jaguar’s eyes, do you think?”

Cliff moved his head upward very gently. Tom, likewise, stared.

“Don’t anybody move,” Tom whispered. “From where I am it looks too flat
to be a cat. But it’s something.”

The tropical jungle was beginning to show its eyes: would it go further
and show its teeth and claws? After three hours of darkness, with only
the blazing fire for protection, the three chums were beginning to be a
trifle nervous, and the eyes above them, discovered by Nicky, did not
add to their ease.

“Listen!” Tom breathed, barely audibly. “Don’t shoot hastily, Cliff.
Ease your rifle up till you can get a sight.”

“Try to make the first shot count!” begged Nicky softly.

“I will!” Cliff said; but his hands were trembling so much that he
fumbled with the rifle and it clattered to the ground.

“I can’t—I—my muscles shake so!” Cliff said. “I’m not a coward, but the
first shot is so important——”

“Tom,” Nicky breathed, “you’re closest. Can you reach the gun and steady
yourself?”

Tom, rather shakily, answered. “Cliff can. Just wait, Cliff. He won’t
jump straight down into the fire. He’ll wait till one of us goes off as
far as the wood pile. There’s time to get steady. Wait a minute, Cliff,
till you get set.”

“I don’t seem able to make my muscles stop quivering,” Cliff replied, as
low as he could. “Here, Tom, you take the rifle.”

Tom extended a hand very slowly toward the weapon; Cliff pushed it
slowly toward him. In spite of their inward fear they realized that the
bright, tiny disks reflecting the firelight were noting every move; they
forced themselves to be deliberate, lest a sudden move, startling that
dusky figure above, might cause the animal—or whatever it was—to leap.

The rifle in his hand, Tom made a determined effort to hold his muscles
steady. He did not think of his nerves as being unstrung, for he had
been told often by Mr. Gray that nerves are only the messengers that
take the messages from the mind to the muscles: when the mind sent the
wrong messages or was unable to be steady, the muscles were shaken, but
not the nerves.

He drew the rifle slowly to him, got his hand onto its stock, lifted it
with a deliberate determination not to let the barrel waver.

Using every atom of his will-power to compel his mind to concentrate on
what he was going to accomplish, instead of looking at his pictures of
what might happen, he managed to gain control of himself.

Then he raised the barrel until its forward sight and its rear sight
grew a fine line to the eyes so steadily glowing above, and a trifle to
one side of their fire. Cliff, shaking with his disturbed mental
condition, and Nicky, anxious and worried, fixed their eyes on those so
high up above them and waited, tensely.

“Crack!” the rifle barked, a spurt of flame leaped from its barrel.

“Jump!” cried Tom, leaping away from the fire.

Cliff and Nicky threw themselves away from the fire, for there was a
sliding, crackling, scraping sound above the fire, and down came a long,
slender, weird looking form, to crash upon the ground just beside the
fire.

“Good grief!” cried Nicky. “It isn’t a wildcat—what is it?”

“It’s a lizard—a big lizard!” answered Tom.

“It’s what they call an iguana—a huge lizard,” Cliff said. They
approached the long reptile, which was about three feet from nose to
tail.

“I think I startled it—maybe I hit it,” Tom gasped. “Anyhow, the fall
has stunned it, I think.” He made sure by using the butt of the rifle as
a club and striking the backbone just back of the skull: the lizard
quivered, flailed its tail several times and then relaxed.

“Anyhow, it wasn’t a jaguar, I’m thankful to say!” Cliff commented.

“It’s much better than a jaguar, for these lizards are good to eat,” Tom
responded. “Goodness knows we could all eat. How about cutting out some
of the meat and roasting it on sticks?”

They did so, and as soon as they had cut away what seemed to be the most
promising parts of the flesh, Tom had another idea.

“Just take what we can eat,” he suggested. “Then we’d better drag the
rest out to the far edge of the glade and leave it. If any meat-eating
animals are around we’d rather have them get it and go away than to
invite them to risk a rush to grab it close to our fire—they might grab
us on the way!”

Accordingly they took the carcass as far away as they dared, Cliff, now
recovered from his attack of fear, watching with the rifle ready.

No beast approached while they worked, but they had hardly returned to
put their choicer meat on spits made of twigs to roast it before the
fierce blaze of their fire when they heard the unmistakable,
blood-chilling wail of a jungle cat, not far away. From here, and then
from there, first to the right, then to the left, but ever closer, the
intermittent wail continued. Then, in the dull glow from their fire they
saw fiery eyes at the edge of the glade. There was a rush, a swift
retreat—and the remains of the iguana had disappeared.

“Did you see it?” Nicky gasped.

“Jaguar, for sure!” Tom replied shakily. “Mr. Jaguar, take your supper
and don’t bother us any more. And, fellows, let’s hurry up and finish
our own eating so we won’t tempt any of his cousins and brothers to come
any closer.”

They gave the meat only time to cook, and then wasted no moments in
tasting: the flesh proved to be quite palatable and it was consumed with
the hearty avidity of appetites denied since noon. What they had left
they flung far into the darkness: sudden, rushing sounds, several shrill
squeals and one yelp very much like that of a startled dog, gave them
the assurance that the jungle denizens were on hand.

The chums changed their plans about watching, two remaining awake and
alert while one slept. Not that much sleep came to any of them.

From time to time, sometimes close, sometimes afar, they heard the
weird, child-like cry of a jungle cat; the “teesh-teesh” of some other
animal, a peccary, perhaps, and, once, the slithering progress of a
large snake, apprised them that the jungle life was close around them.

But the bright fire served to restrain jungle curiosity and to hold the
more fierce animals at bay, although during the night they saw eyes that
glinted green, with a demon-like anger smouldering in them, and knew
that the meat-eaters were abroad and watching their chance.

“Golly, I’m glad daylight’s coming,” yawned Nicky when the dim green
tracery overhead began to let in the light which showed that the sun was
getting higher. “I’ve got an idea, fellows. If I could ‘shin up’ that
branchy tree yonder, and get to the top, I could see which is East and
which is West, and we could judge which way to head for the river.”

Warning him about snakes and ants and poisonous insects he might meet
and must avoid during his climb, Cliff and Tom agreed to his plan.

When, after an arduous climb, during which he disappeared from their
sight in the heavy foliage, Nicky’s legs appeared again and finally he
slid carefully to the ground.

“I brought you some breakfast,” he said, “eggs! If we can roast them in
the coals they ought to be good. I know they are birds’ eggs and not
poisonous—I took them out of a big nest.”

“That saves us having to shoot for our breakfast,” Tom said. “Now which
way is East?”

“That way!” Nicky pointed down the trail at the closer end of the glade.

“Then the sea is in that direction,” Tom decided. “The river must be at
our right hand when we face the East, and we can’t get lost if we are
careful not to get turned around.”

“How can we avoid that?” asked Nicky.

“Well, suppose you were to stand with your arm extended toward the
East—that trail and the big tree. Then I’d go just as far as I could and
still see you plainly, and set myself exactly in the same position. Then
Cliff would go on beyond me and get himself set, picking some marker to
keep all three of us in a straight line. When Cliff gets set you, Nicky,
can go on beyond him, then I go beyond you again, and so we’d be sure we
still had our East direction right and were moving South, and so toward
the river.”

“It ought not to be very far,” conceded Cliff.

“But it’s all swamp on the South side of this glade,” objected Nicky. “I
looked, and we can’t get over it, and we daren’t wade it.”

“Well, we could go on East, down the trail, parallel with the river,”
Tom suggested. “Only, when we tried, last night, it ended ‘blind’ and so
I guess we would waste time going that way. Maybe we had better go West,
that is, up the trail. There must be some place where it will take us to
the river.”

“How did we ever get into this glade from the North, when we must have
been South of it and of the swamp when we came into the jungle?”

“I guess we wandered in a sort of wide circle,” Cliff explained.

They ate the eggs, hot: they were not as palatable as had been the
iguana meat, but it helped to stay their hunger. They were thirsty, and
began looking for water to drink as soon as they set out on the upper
trail.

They found a spring, in a little clearing, and since birds were bathing
in the water Tom decided that it was safe for them to drink from it.
They slaked their thirst and went on with a much better confidence. The
jungle had yielded its food and drink to their confidence in themselves.

“I don’t want you to think I’m a ’fraid-cat,” Nicky said presently. “Do
you fellows notice little cracklings off in the brush?”

“I’ve heard them, several times,” Tom agreed. “I wondered if some Indian
might have seen our fire and was watching, going along some other trail,
to see where we are bound for!”

“But it’s first on one side, then on the other,” Nicky protested. “Once
I heard something, sort of ‘whoosh!’ away up ahead, and now—listen!”

They drew closer together on the trail, and Cliff took a tighter clutch
of the rifle he carried. They kept still, and presently, from a point
quite close, there came the crackle of a twig.

In an instant Cliff whirled to face the point, the rifle leveled.

But then, from far ahead, there came a queer noise as if something were
breaking through brush. The sound close at hand became also more
pronounced, like the passage of a body through lush grass.

“There’s two of—whatever it is!” whispered Nicky.

Spellbound they watched the scene that developed with the swiftness of a
moving picture.

Into the path quite close to them, but ahead of their position, a dark,
almost naked Indian sprang: he carried a bow and a quiver of arrows; his
ragged trousers were torn and scratched. He glanced toward the chums
only for an instant. Then, backing toward them, he pointed up the trail,
saying no word.

Out from the brush, with a light bound, there came a dark shape, lithe
and crouched as it landed, then swiftly assuming a posture that made it
look like a great, blackish cat, squatting on its haunches, its long
tail lashing to and fro, switching the grass at either side.

Although few have seen the “black panther,” or “black jaguar” of the
Central Americas, and some deny its existence, the chums, backed by the
authority of many books they had read, recognized the true nature of the
animal. It was a black panther, or a dark specimen of the jaguar
species. Which it was did not matter. That it was there, on the path
before them, did matter.

The animal remained quiet, except for its swishing tail. The Indian,
eyes fixed on the beast, slowly, gradually crept backward to be closer
to them. Evidently he knew nothing of the use of the rifle that Cliff
held ready. He paid no heed to it, but carefully selected an arrow, and
very deliberately fitted it to his huge bowstring. Slowly he sighted,
drew the string taut, and loosed the missile.

With a snarling cry the huge cat leaped into the air, coming down on
all-fours. Swiftly, almost anxiously, the Indian drew out another
arrow—his first had only pierced the outer coat of the beast.

Before he could draw his string, the jaguar—or panther—leaped!




                              CHAPTER XXI
                         WHERE NO WHITE MEN GO


While the panther was still in midspring, the Indian flung his body
sidewise to escape the leap. He struck against the rifle barrel, and the
impact knocked the weapon out of Cliff’s hands.

Tom, quick as a cat himself, caught the rifle before it touched the
ground: the panther’s leap had fallen short by several feet and with its
eyes smouldering with hate, its red tongue playing about its snarling
lips, teeth bared, it gathered swiftly for a second leap.

Nicky jumped to one side as the Indian threw himself away: but Tom,
swiftly bringing the rifle to his shoulder, said to himself:

“Now be steady. This shot must save our lives.” And he said a quick,
earnest little prayer in his mind.

The trigger tensed: the cartridge exploded.

Crouched with muscles like steel springs, the panther never launched his
body into the air. The bullet struck his eye and thence penetrated his
skull. He rolled over, threshing his great paws, snarling and biting at
his own flesh in his impotent helplessness.

Swiftly the Indian recovered himself, and, selecting an arrow from his
quiver he watched his chance and managed to get to a point where, in an
instant of comparative quiet, he drove the arrow like a lance, burying
its point deep in the animal’s throat. There was renewed turmoil in that
jungle path, but it was short. The jaguar, or panther, according to the
natural history you choose to believe about the black species of Central
America, lay still.

The Indian turned from watching the beast and regarded the youths with
stolid, but awakened interest. His manner was not hostile. He seemed to
be wondering what course to take.

“I think he saw our fire last night and has been watching us ever
since,” Nicky said, his first remark since the exciting adventure, for
Nicky, without a weapon, felt just a trifle ashamed because he had
thought of his own safety first and had leaped aside to let Tom try to
recover the rifle.

“In a way we saved his life,” Cliff said. “Or—Tom did. He ought to be
grateful. Let’s try him with what Spanish we know.”

But the Indian did not respond either to English or to Spanish.

He said no word but turning he beckoned to them to follow him—they
sidled past the beast, giving it as wide a berth as possible in case it
still retained life enough to thresh out with those claws, curved like
scimitars, sharp as steel grapples. The Indian led them up the trail for
a short distance and then turned off with the trio following.

After an hour on the narrower, almost impenetrable way, where sharp
branches caught at them, and poisonous scorpions stood their ground and
dared intrusion with their stings all ready to back up their dare, Tom
and his comrades saw that they had been brought to a small jungle
village.

Slatternly, stout, worn old women, and sickly looking younger girls,
cleanly athletic young fellows and old men came out to stare and to
listen to the very few words with which the Indian explained.

“They are as sickly looking as the ones at Porto Bello were,” Cliff
confided to his companions. “They certainly need a doctor,” Tom
admitted. “It seems as though all the Central American Indians we have
seen are degraded and poor looking through carelessness.”

“Bad diet, too,” Tom declared. “They eat the same diet year in and year
out, and they’re too lazy—or don’t know how—to exercise. I don’t know
that we ought to pity them. Still, somehow I do.”

“Well, why shouldn’t we pity them?” demanded Nicky.

“Because they really belong to a race which had a civilization that
seems to have been as fine as ours in many ways,” Tom said. “But the
race didn’t keep up to its old standards and so these people have
themselves, and their ancestors, to blame.”

“I guess you’re right,” Nicky agreed.

They were not treated badly: their guide showed them a hut where several
women brought them a sort of stew, taken from a big pot at one part of
the small cleared square of the village. The stew was not as palatable
as some might like; but it was food and seemed to be made in a
reasonably clean way, considering the scanty provisions for cleanliness
that these people possessed.

In that village Tom and his two comrades had to remain for three days.
No restraint was put on their movements. The jungle was enough to keep
them prisoners. From the village, once they had lost their sense of the
direction whence they had come, there was no trace of the way out.
Nevertheless people came and went, going into the jungle in the morning
and returning with trapped game or birds shot with their finely
polished, long, light arrows.

Nicky, who was rather good at archery, one day made friends with one of
the younger boys who was watching a half dozen women polish and bind
pointed thorns onto sticks.

“There’s a nice, true one,” said Nicky, knowing that his words were not
understood, but intending to use the arrow to demonstrate his own skill
and impress the other youth favorably; but the Indian, catching his
hand, held him back from the tiny pile on which the arrow lay.

“Now, why did he do that?” Nicky wondered.

“Maybe they are touchy about their own property!” Tom decided.

However the youth proposed to show why he had been so quick: he touched
Nicky’s arm and the trio followed him to a spot not far away, at the
edge of the jungle. Here were several large earthen urns or shallow
pots. Each had a lid.

The boy called and a companion issued from the brush: there was a brief
pantomimic exchange between them and the latest arrival turned back into
the woods to come forth again with a cage-like enclosure made of braided
heavy vine stems, stiff enough to retain its shape. Within it, hissing
and striking, was a furious snake.

“That’s a rattler,” confided Cliff. “See its tail!”

“And it’s angry, too—I hope he isn’t going to release it!” said Tom.
Evidently the youth had another purpose.

He took a forked stick and taking the lid off one of the jars, he
reached into its depths, which were very unpleasantly odorous, and
brought out on the stick a piece of meat. It was in a very bad state of
decay already; however the youth, lifting a small slat opening in the
top of the withe cage, lowered the stick with the meat on it: then he
did all in his power to infuriate the snake by prodding at it with the
meat on the stick.

In a snake’s rage the rattler struck and struck repeatedly at the meat.
Each time, as the boys could see, more of his poison was left in the
meat. After a moment the boy took out the stick and returned the meat to
the jar, covering it. The snake was killed, the Indians’ signs
indicating that his usefulness was ended. But the white youths could see
another cage in the brush.

“I see,” Nicky said. “They let the snake strike till the old meat is
full of poison and then they leave it in these jars for awhile till the
poison gets all through the meat and it gets pretty terrible. But then
what?”

He saw very quickly. The youth brought some of the arrows and dipped the
thorn points, repeatedly, then set them aside to dry.

“He didn’t want you to shoot with a poisoned arrow,” Tom explained. “The
least nick in your skin with one of them might end in fearful agony.”

“You’re right,” said Nicky soberly, and nodded with a smile of real
gratitude to his Indian friend. The youth nodded briefly and walked
away. The tribe was pleasant and fed the youths plentifully with such
food as they had, all cooked in the one big pot, and renewed by dropping
in whatever the day’s hunting brought home. But friendliness was absent.

Nicky wondered why they were kept there, and finally he learned.

The guide who had brought them to the village came to their hut with
another, a taller, very old and very stern looking fellow. He made signs
to Tom, pointing to his pocket and then toward the small fire in a
little ovenlike place in a corner.

“Know what he’s trying to tell you?” Cliff said. “He wants you to show
that lighter of Bill’s. He must have seen us use it in the woods, when
we lit the fire the first night.”

That, clearly, was what he wanted for when Tom drew out the lighter and
made it work, the old Indian looked on with amazement. Tom made a half
gesture to hand it to him but he drew back and Cliff whispered
hurriedly:

“Don’t let them get your ‘magic’—that must be what they think it is.
Keep it in your pocket and use it as seldom as you can. The gasoline may
be dried out or the flint worn, and then it won’t work.”

“That’s so. I’ll save it all I can.” Tom agreed and put back the small
mechanical apparatus with which man has improved on the old custom of
making fire by use of flint and steel: now the steel is a wheel and by
whisking it sharply against a prepared bit of flint, a spark is made to
fall on a wick soaked with gasoline, which ignites.

Soon after the lighter was demonstrated, the Indians beckoned to the
youths, and by signs bade them follow. Half a dozen young men had packs
slung on their backs. Led by the aged Indian, and with the three white
youths in the line, they started off into a different jungle trail that
wound upward steadily, and got more difficult and hotter and more
unpleasant every hour.

“Where do you suppose they are taking us?” Nicky wondered.

Tom caught up to their guide and in pantomime tried to make him see that
they wanted to know where they were going. He pointed forward, then to
himself, then to the trail, and then forward again. The man seemed to
understand.

With a great sweep of his arm he described a circle in the air. Then the
same circle was made but pointing toward the ground, part of the
imaginary line being drawn across the trail.

Then he pointed forward and nodded: he pointed backward and shook his
head.

“Do you remember what my father said about the charmed circle—the circle
the Chucunaque Indians have established?” Cliff asked.

“Yes,” Tom agreed. “Where few white men go.”

“More than that,” Nicky added. “According to the gestures of our
brother, who ought to be initiated into the Mystery Boys order and
taught some signs that can be understood—according to him, the way leads
in but the way doesn’t lead out again!”




                              CHAPTER XXII
                          IN THE CLOSED CIRCLE


Three days were spent on that trail: at times the chums felt as though
the humid, close air would overcome them, the exertion would overwhelm
their endurance.

Nevertheless they kept on stubbornly. The Indians seemed not to mind any
amount of exertion, and it was agreed by the white comrades that they
would not show themselves weaker. Truly they were not trained to such a
life, yet they were determined to stand up—and they did. Grit carried
them along when weary muscles rebelled.

At last they came into a cleared spot in the foothills. In it was a
sizeable village, the capital city, as one might say, of the tribe.

“I’ll be mighty grateful for a hut and a long rest,” Nicky panted,
walking resolutely, with shoulders back, into the clearing.

“And so will I,” agreed Tom.

“Here too,” Cliff echoed the sentiment.

They were led across the cleared space. Around it, without any
particular order, huts were erected. They were built of an open fashion,
with stakes at the corners, and at intervals, to support the roofs of
thatch, woven together quite tightly and sloped to shed water.

Toward one of these the chums were ushered.

“Do you see what I see?” whispered Cliff, his observant eyes taking in a
squatted figure in the shade of a hut across the quadrangle.

His friends looked that way. “It’s a white man,” Nicky admitted. “But
what makes you so excited about him?”

“Well,” said Cliff, “we know that Henry and that Mort Beecher got
started ahead of us. I wouldn’t be surprised——”

At the instant that he paused the white man looked up. He turned his
head and called to another figure resting in a hammock.

“Wake up, Henry!” he cried, in a fat, hoarse voice. “Wake up. Seems like
we got visitors, seems like!”

He stood up and the chums saw a portly, very short body on two brief
pillars of legs, with a round, bullet head, twinkling eyes and a smiling
mouth, over which an extremely red nose spoke of the many nights he had
spent with Jack in Porto Bello, for there was no doubt that the man was
Mort Beecher.

While the chums paused, astonished to a degree, and hardly knowing what
action to take, with this sudden discovery, Henry Morgan rolled out of
the hammock and came to the side of the hut. He screened his sleepy eyes
from the sun and then uttered a word under his breath.

“Henry Morgan, and no mistake!” Nicky exclaimed. In sudden anger,
recalling the trick that had been played on them, he started forward;
but Tom restrained him with a hand on his arm. Nicky stopped, and after
an instant to collect himself he felt that Tom’s decision for silence
was wise.

“As I live and breathe!” cried Henry Morgan. “Who’d ever expect to see
you lads here? Hello!”

“Hello, yourself!” answered Tom, advancing. He met the outstretched
hand. He grasped its perspiring breadth and gave it a good grip.

Tom saw at once that Henry Morgan, after his first surprise, had decided
on some course of action: Tom proposed to hold himself alert, but not to
show anger or aversion until he learned the other fellow’s plans.

“How in the world did you ever get here?” demanded Henry. “Here—meet the
man I used to talk about so much—Mort Beecher. A finer pal never lived.
Shake, Mort. Shake hands with Tom, and Nicky, and Cliff. Now, we’re all
pals together! But how did you get here!”

“The Indians brought us, as you saw, just now,” Tom answered. “How did
you get here so much ahead of us?”

He put a good deal of meaning into his look and Henry looked away for a
moment: then he faced them again, grinning and speaking in the husky
voice they remembered all too well.

“When I left you and Bill—but the other lads have told you how I came
down the river from the village——”

“Yes,” Tom responded, “and they told us what you said—that we were sick
and couldn’t get away and there was no use for them to try to follow us
or to rescue us.”

“I did tell them that. Yes, I did,” Henry said, affably. Nicky thought,
“what a villain he is!” but he kept still.

“I told them that. ’Cause why? ’Cause I was anxious to get them to help
me find Mort Beecher and not to waste any time. That was good sense.
’Cause why? There wasn’t any time to be lost. If Toosa knew anything
about the Golden Sun—and that was the little girl you was looking
for!——”

“Wasn’t it a mine, instead?” interrupted Nicky.

“Mine nothing! Where did you get that fol-de-rol? No. ’Twas the little
girl, and if what he said was right—that the man I wanted was in Porto
Bello—the cruiser could go and find him and hurry down and rescue the
girl without wasting time to wait. I knew Toosa would see that you got
out all right. I had told him to. I had given him money to look out for
you!”

“Oh, yes, thought the chums, Henry Morgan did that sort of thing!”

“And then, when you boys wouldn’t come on, what was I to do? I knew
there was no time to waste. ’Cause why? ’Cause Mort might be took out of
Porto Bello and not ever be found again—or not for a good while. And
there was a innocent little golden-haired girl and her life at stake
amongst the Indians.”

His face was so earnest and his tones were so sincere that if they had
not seen his duplicity already the chums might have believed him. But,
with all he had done, they simply stood still and listened.

Henry, however—and Mort, too—seemed to think that the story was very
convincing.

“And good it was that he didn’t waste a minute,” Mort broke in. “He has
your interests at heart, has Henry. Seems like no fellow ever was as
fine as Henry, seems like. You can kick me for a football if that ain’t
so. He knew I was likely to be took from Porto Bello, so he hurried
there with a sloop and got me and we hurried here.”

“’Cause why? ’Cause we knowed the little girl’s life was in danger. So
we got it fixed up that we was doctors, so we could get into the
country. That’s so that the Indians would trust us.”

“Yes,” said Nicky. “And of course you told the San Blas Indians——”

He saw Tom touching his ear, in a Mystery Boys sign of warning, and he
changed the statement. “You told the San Blas Indians the same thing!”

“I did.” Henry grinned at them. “And I told them more, as you may have
heard. I told them that when our friends came along, to pass them right
along and help them to follow us.”

Nicky could not contain his disgust any longer. All this was a tissue of
falsehood and he hated such talk.

“You told them that they must forbid us to stay near them—said we were
evil doctors and if we came we would do harm. And what’s more, you said
that if the people you doctored didn’t get well, it was because we were
working harm on them!——”

Nicky stopped for breath and Henry, after a little start, turned to Mort
Beecher and held out his hands, palms up.

“Ain’t that Indians for you?” he pleaded for agreement. “Ain’t that
Indians? They’ll twist and alter anything you say. ’Cause why? ’Cause
they want to keep everybody out of this country. They don’t want the
dear little golden-haired girl rescued. Not they. They want her to stay
here and be a priestess and cure them and dance in their festivals and
bring them good luck. And we——”

“And we want to save her—and here we are, risking life and limb and
trying to help, and you go and get mad.” Mort Beecher drew his fat jowls
into a somber, dejected appearance. “Seems like there ain’t any
gratitude in the world, seems like.”

“Oh, all right—the Indians might have mixed up and twisted what you
said,” Tom agreed. “Nicky isn’t really mad at you—he only felt that you
ought to have brought us all along.”

“And for what?” demanded Mort Beecher. “For all of you to be killed?
Wasn’t it bad enough for us to be done that to? Wasn’t two lives enough
to risk—but where is the rest of your party?”

Then Cliff did demand silence. He fell back into an easy position with
one leg made shorter than the other, as though he were “at ease,” and
clasped both hands hanging loosely before him. That was the Mystery
Boys’ signal, “Do not speak!” Nicky saw it and Tom nodded.

“Oh,” answered Cliff, with assumed lack of interest, “they’re where they
can do more good than here——”

“I hope so. Seems like I never hoped anything so much, seems like,” Mort
declared. “That’s so.”

“’Cause why?” Henry declaimed. “’Cause we’re in the sacred circle of the
Chucunaque Indians—and who-so gets in may never get out. And yet we do
all that for you. Now, tell us how you got here?”

“The Indians brought us, I tell you,” Tom answered.

“But, for why?”

“To see their chief.”

“Well, that’s something. It’s more than we are able to do.” Henry turned
to Mort for sanction and Mort nodded.

“Seems like he won’t see us, seems like,” he acknowledged.

“Have you seen anything of my sister—had any clues?” demanded Tom.

“No,” said Mort.

“Nor can’t get any,” said Henry. “’Cause the chief won’t see us.”

“We don’t understand his language, what little he uses,” Mort added.

“And neither will you!” Henry stated flatly.

The Indian who was conducting them beckoned curtly. “Well, we haven’t
gotten anywhere,” Mort said. “So, go ahead to your hut and rest. We can
talk later.”

The Indian conducted the chums to another hut. At the time they wondered
why the five white people were not put together. However, the reason was
soon to be discovered.

They made the best of things. Their movements were not restricted any
more than in the smaller village. The same sort of general food-pots
were in evidence, into which everything that was to be cooked was
dropped, the resulting stew being dished out with calabashes as it was
required.

There were a number of Albinos, or light-faced, light-haired, pale-eyed
people, among the Indians, and no one seemed to have much use for them.
They kept a good deal to themselves.

Hammocks were provided for sleeping and rest, and several women brought
food at intervals. For the balance of that day the chums were left
alone. But when they tried to go over to talk further with Henry and
later, when Mort came to see them, Indians firmly intervened and refused
to let the two parties communicate.

“Now why is that, do you suppose?” Cliff asked.

But his chums could not furnish a reason.

That night, well after dark, great activity was to be observed in the
village; mostly it centered about the chief’s large hut, a sort of place
of assembly for the people. Heavy skins were hung around part of it and,
from where their hut was situated, the chums could not see what was
going on; but people were running about with torches, and some were
carrying bundles of torch material into the enclosure.

Finally an Indian, carrying a torch, appeared and beckoned for the boys
to follow.

“Now we’re in for something,” Nicky observed. “I’m glad of it. I get
tired of waiting. Action for mine!”

They approached the large hut.

Suddenly Tom stopped as though shot, and gripped Nicky’s arm with a
pressure that made the other wince.

Cliff, also, stopped as though an electric shock made him jump.

High and clear, from the hut, came a shrill voice, crying, in English:

“Hurry up, then! I’ll be so glad to hear somebody talk English I won’t
know what to do!”




                             CHAPTER XXIII
                          MAGIC AGAINST MAGIC


“Go slow!” Cliff urged, detaining Tom before the latter could make an
impetuous rush toward the large hut. “If your sister is in there, be
sure you won’t spoil everything by telling her—before you do tell her.”

Tom loitered. For once Nicky saw eye to eye with Cliff, and realized
that hasty action might endanger them all. He added his plea to Cliff’s
and Tom, finally, agreed.

“Yes,” he said, “we are in the Chucunaque circle. We don’t know what
they may be planning to do to us. We don’t trust Henry or Mort and we
can’t count on them. The main thing is to rescue Margery, for I am sure
she is in that hut; but we can do more, maybe, by going slow.”

They took up their pace again, following the Indian. Just ahead of them
Henry Morgan and Mort Beecher were being led in.

When the chums entered the hut they saw that an Indian somewhat more
powerful and stalwart than the others, for the Chucunaque’s were not a
large type, sat in a hammock in the center of the hut. Close to him,
squatting on the ground, were a dozen men, elderly, solemn, dignified:
the youths judged them to be councillors, as they were. Off at one side
sat two other men, surrounded by the now familiar implements of the
doctors, or medicine men, who both worked spells and tried, by their
witcheries, to cure disease: their small success was attested by the
prevalence of sickness and diseased skins among their tribesmen.

But the point to which the youths’ eyes focused, and on which every bit
of their attention concentrated was that where a girl sat—the only
female figure in the hut; she was fairly tall, a little less than five
feet and five inches, they guessed as she sat. Her clothing was of the
same sort as that of the Indian women outside; a ragged, but clean waist
of European or American style was the only feature of difference, and
that was so faded and worn that it hardly looked like anything. Beside
that a short petticoat of dull colored cloth completed the visible
clothing: her head was bare, and so were her brown, dusky limbs, and her
feet.

But she was an American, not an Indian! And the crown of long, bright
golden hair, glittering and glistening in the wavering torch-light was
all the proof that the three comrades needed to identify her.

Tom could hardly repress a cry. He held his lips tight shut. Nicky,
clutching his arm, felt the muscles stiffen, and gave his biceps a
reassuring, excited squeeze. Cliff, noting everything, saw that Tom had
regained his control and would be careful not to do anything that could
endanger their plans.

Tom saw Henry and Mort draw closer together and whisper: they, too,
realized who the girl was, in spite of her dark skin and her
expressionless face. She had been long enough among the impassive
Indians to acquire their facial stillness. When she spoke, her voice was
high and excited, like that of a girl of ten, and she talked in the same
way that a child would, using simple words, instead of using the manners
and conversation of a miss of sixteen. When the Indians took her, Tom
mused, she stopped growing up with no one to talk to in her native
language.

Henry and Mort, still whispering, were led to a point to the right of
the hammock, a little in front of the medicine men. Tom, Cliff and Nicky
were stationed at the other side, before the councillors. It was easy to
see that they were considered as separate and not friendly, for some
reason.

The girl could hardly wait until the ceremony of placing the white
people was finished: then she said, eagerly:

“Hello, white men—and you, too, boys. I didn’t know you were here. My!
It’s good to see so many people. I’m tired of Indians. They brought me
from another village. I have to listen to you and tell them what you
say. Then I will tell you what they say. How did you come here? Will you
take me away? Don’t tell them. Don’t let them know. But will you take me
away?”

“You bet!” cried Tom, forgetting himself for an instant: then he became
silent again. But the girl, without changing her expression, nodded.

“I like you,” she said. “I didn’t know boys could get in here—or men
either.”

“We’re not boys,” challenged Nicky. “We’re young fellows!”

Evidently the chief was impatient, for he could not understand what was
being said. He spoke gruffly, one word. The girl turned and made some
gestures, also speaking several strange words. Then she turned back
toward Tom, and from then on she seemed, for some odd reason, to ignore
Henry and Mort, almost—her whole mind seemed to be centered on Tom, and
she studied him and appeared to be wondering about him and he, in turn,
could not take his eyes off her face.

“The chief doesn’t like us to talk,” she explained. “But I’m glad you
came. Will you take me away? Honest—cross-your-heart?”

Tom made the gesture, Nicky and Cliff following suit. Henry and Mort
bent glowering looks on them and shook their heads at them vigorously.

For once, forgetting his manners, Nicky grinned back impudently.

“Listen,” said the girl. “The chief thinks the older men are big doctors
and he thinks you boys—young fellows!——” and she laughed at them and
clapped her hands like a teasing child of ten, “are bad doctors. He is
going to make you show him which is strongest—magic, you know. So if you
b—young men can do big magic, don’t waste any time. These Indians are
cruel. Don’t joke with them.”

Tom nodded, keeping from his face the qualms of unease that clutched at
his heart. What would the test be? How could they meet it? When they
were so close to recovering the sister he loved, must strange customs
interfere? Nicky and Cliff were perturbed, too, but they kept their
faces as impassive as they could. The Indians were not going to win!
Cliff regretted that he had left the rifle in the hut across the
clearing but he hoped they would not need it. However, he made a secret
plan to get out and secure it if things began to look black.

One of the councillors stood up and spoke briefly: the girl listened and
then turned to the white parties and translated.

“They say word has come to them that great doctors wished to come into
their country to heal their people,” she began.

“How could word come—there isn’t any newspaper or telegraph or
telephone,” cried Nicky, incredulously. The girl merely nodded toward
the medicine men as though they had secured the message in some way, and
continued her translation.

“They say they wish to see the great doctors heal their tribe and so
they let them come.”

She turned again to listen, and once more she translated.

“They say that you bo—young men—may be evil doctors. They say the first
doctors told the San Blas Indians evil doctors would follow——” Nicky
glared at Henry and Henry looked uncomfortable.

“Now they await your answers,” she said, turning first to Henry.

Henry gave out a string of pleading to establish the fact that he and
Mort were the good doctors but that if their medicines had no power it
was because of some evil influence. He did not quite dare to denounce
the boys. Margery, as Tom already called her in his thoughts, did her
duty in translating, and then she turned toward Tom, and waited.

Tom glanced swiftly toward Nicky and Cliff. He wanted to be sure they
had no message to guide him. They looked anxious and earnest, but they
had not thought out any answer. Tom, bending his head on his hands,
tried to think what reply would show that they were not evil doctors,
for it would not help much to declare it and stop: the Indians would ask
proof, and he could not think of any way to prove his claim. The chief,
his councillors and the medicine men waited without movement. They were
used to tedious conferences. The girl watched without expression.

Think as hard as he would, Tom could find nothing to say.

“We are only three young fellows who got lost in the jungle,” he said,
finally, a pleading look in his face as he confronted the sister he
dared not name. “The Indians brought us here. We don’t know why!”

She translated by gestures and a few words. The chief looked at the
councillors and they in turn consulted the medicine men. Finally one of
the medicine men stood up and addressed the chief. After he had finished
the chief spoke to the girl and she, in her turn, translated.

“The first man says the doctors told the San Blas Indians they healed by
magic and the chief wishes to see some of their magic. But he says that
the medicine men say the younger ones are magic doctors too and he had
them brought here because one of them showed his magic in the woods.”

Henry stared toward the three chums and then, putting back his head, he
laughed: Mort, in his puffy, chuckly voice, joined him.

“That’s a good one!” Henry said. “Tell the chief he can hit me for a
punchin’ bag if they know any magic. They’re just kids.”

Margery frowned but as the chief questioned she had to translate. But it
was easy to see that her sympathy was with the younger fellows.

“The chief says,” she told them all finally, “he will see which one has
magic, and if you both have magic he will see whose magic is the most
powerful.”

Suddenly Tom elevated his hand to caress his ear and Nicky and Cliff saw
the sign and folded their arms. It was a call for the Mystery Boys’
council. Tom wanted to say something he did not wish to have the other
two white men hear: he proposed to ask by their signs and they were
ready.




                              CHAPTER XXIV
                             A TIGHT CORNER


In the silence that followed the final words of the girl, the Mystery
Boys signified their readiness to enter a council. And as they folded
their arms they saw the girl stare at them amazedly and then her face
became intent, but she did not look at them. Instead, she looked up at
the roof of the hut. Anyone would think she was trying to remember
something.

But Tom was not paying any attention to her. He realized that he and his
chums were in a tight corner. The Indians were cruel and callous: when
they demanded magic, they expected magic. Failure to produce it meant
certain doom, perhaps—and Tom shuddered!—with one of those terrible
arrows he had seen the youth preparing.

And the chums knew nothing about magic! They had seen stage people
produce rabbits from supposedly empty silk hats and make coins
disappear. Of course, with the proper apparatus and lots of experience
these things could be done. Out in the jungle, among hostile people,
with no apparatus and no experience, there was no hope!

So Tom planned to communicate to his chums his idea of what they must
do. There was little time to spare. As yet the Indians were not openly
hostile. They were intent on seeing something marvelous and while that
was in their minds—and until they were disappointed—they would be quiet.

But, after that!——

Tom determined to help his sister and, if possible, to enable his chums
to escape. To accomplish that without having Henry and Mort interfere
and perhaps warn the Indians—they were capable of anything to secure
Margery’s secret of the Golden Sun for themselves—Tom made up his mind
to make one desperate effort to escape.

Tom concentrated every effort of his mind. He had convened the Mystery
Boys but he must convey his message. He knew how he proposed to do it,
and in such a way that Henry and Mort would not comprehend, while the
chums would. But it took some hard thinking to make up the sentences.

As Cliff had done, back in Mexico, Tom proposed to use the special code
in which he would say short sentences. The final word of each sentence
would have a meaning. Taken all together the last words of all the
sentences would make a sentence themselves.

He had done this when he called the chums to see what news Henry had.
Now Tom must give them a plan and do it briefly and so clearly that they
could not mistake his meaning.

Therefore he paid no attention to Margery for the moment, but held his
eyes on the floor, making up and going over his plan.

While he did this the chief spoke and Margery turned from her study of
the roof and said in English to Henry Morgan:

“The chief says you show your magic first.”

Then she studied the youths intently and appeared to be trying to recall
something. Her eyes went to the roof again and as far as she was
concerned, Henry and his magic did not exist.

Henry looked baffled for a moment.

“You see—tell him——” he cleared his husky throat, “—tell him we got to
get our magic prepared. It takes time. Ask him to let us wait till
tomorrow.”

The girl did not bother to translate. There was a wicked little gleam of
malice in her eyes, and she simply said: “Do your magic now.”

Henry consulted with Mort, while the medicine men whispered together and
one of them chuckled hoarsely. Henry sent Mort away, evidently to get
some materials for his trick, whatever it might be.

Then Tom divulged his plan.

First he picked up a small bit of loose dirt from the hut floor, and
with a slinging, underhand motion he shied it to one side. That was the
signal which meant, “I will say short sentences. The last word of each
one will have a meaning and all together they will give a message.” If
he had spoken his meaning could not have been plainer to his comrades.

They concentrated their whole attention on Tom.

Though they were too busy to notice, so did Margery. There was a growing
eagerness, a sudden wondering expression, on her face.

Had they noted Margery’s face as did the Indians, they would have seen
it light up suddenly with a great amazement. That tiny bit of earth,
shied in that way, awakened the memories she had been trying to recall.

She knew who that youth was, over across the weirdly lighted Indian hut!

He was Tom—her brother!

But she did not speak, nor did she cry out. The Indians, watching her
with their steady, black eyes, saw the first show of surprise and then
she settled back into her position, and her face became expressionless.
She was a child in her use of English because she had no one to grow up
with; but in her common sense she had all the wise patience of the
Indians. She waited quietly. This was no time for a dramatic reunion!

Tom, his sentences ready, spoke.

“Did you fellows notice the sun set? Wasn’t it like fire? I saw it over
the hut. It was a picture I’d like to take. Who is this girl? Out here
in the jungle?”

He made a sign that he was finished, but then went on speaking in a
mutter, although his friends no longer heeded him; it was done to throw
aside suspicion. His message had to be recalled. What had he said.

Margery did not understand at all. She was disappointed. When Tom used
to shy a pebble it meant that he wanted to fool his companions of the
moment and she and he would talk rapidly in a fashion to confuse his
schoolmates. They had made that up together when they played and went to
school. And here he was out in this wild place, come to her. Did he
recognize her? He had made one of their old signals. But then he went on
talking in a different code. It did not seem right and she was puzzled.
She knew it was Tom. Did he know her?

Nicky and Cliff had by that time discovered the endings of the sentences
and knew Tom’s message.

“Set fire (to) hut. Take Girl (into) Jungle!”

In a more perfect form the message meant that Tom would set fire to the
hut with the cigar lighter if he could and then they would all try to
escape in the confusion and panic and take Margery into the jungle.

Cliff and Nicky nodded.

But, suddenly, all three were startled.

Margery stamped her foot!

All three stared. They recalled that she was there and looked to see
what caused her to stamp. To their amazement she was standing up, her
arms folded.

Tom, staring, suddenly saw a great light.

He recalled that he and Margery had “made up” secrets and that some of
their old signs and secrecies had been adopted by his chums when the
trio formed themselves into their secret order.

But Margery was saying something! What was it, again?

“H. L. Listen! I know you, Tom. Keep still! No time for that. But think,
Tom! H. L. Tell me. H. L.”

“H. L.”

Tom saw it. He understood.

The signal of the pebble used to mean that they would have secrets and
she would say, “H. L.” for Hog-Latin, the higgledy-piggledy, rapid way
so many school boys and girls talk. She wanted him to tell her what he
had told his chums, and in “Hog-Latin.”

“We-kitty will-ikky set-akk—set-totty fire-ikky to-pitty hut-ikky.”

“Yes-ippy I-bitty see-kitty.”

“Then-ippy run-itty quick-itty-fast-itty with-itty you-ikky off-itty.”

They exchanged the passages of mixed words and funny endings with such
swiftness that Cliff and Nicky, a little surprised and half forgetting
their old “stunt,” had difficulty in following it; surely the other two
men, not versed in that kind of youthful foolishness, would not
understand any better than the Indians.

And so a childish custom that older people thought silly was being
turned to good account.

Without expression, shaking her head, Margery said more.

“No-kitty good-ibiddy,” she clipped out. “Get-ibbidy lost-ibbidy
in-akkity junge-y-gongle-y bangle-y do!”

That conveyed their meaning clearly to the two if to no others.

Tom had told his sister he proposed to fire the hut and then to help her
escape with them; she had said it would not do because they would be
lost in the jungles.

“Wait!” she said. “Let me think!”

At the time the attention swung from this strange scene, for the Indians
saw Mort returning with some apparatus which he set down gingerly on the
floor. Every eye was fixed on him. Forgotten was the scene which had
been enacted. Only one, a medicine man, kept his shrewd eyes fixed on
Margery as though he would try to see beneath her flesh and bone to the
working of her brain and mind.

“You had some magic—I thought the Indians said so!” she told Tom.

“Oh!” Suddenly Tom recollected the lighter. The woods Indian had
probably brought news of it.

“Yes,” he said, and explained to his sister, very briefly, that he could
make what Indians would consider a magic light.

“Splendid,” she said. “When your turn comes—we will win!”




                              CHAPTER XXV
                           WHERE WITS COUNT!


“There’s another reason, and a better one, why we daren’t try to fire
the hut and escape with Margery,” said Nicky, jogging Tom’s arm. “Look
beyond the torchlight. Shade your eyes.”

Tom and Cliff did so. At once they saw the reason Nick meant.

Waiting just outside the hut at one end were a dozen men armed with
bows—and probably with the deadly poisoned arrows.

At another point was another cluster of men, whose arms were not in
evidence; yet they seemed to preserve orderly positions and to be
awaiting some signal.

“Good grief!” Nicky said. “We are in a tight corner and no mistake!”

“Yes,” said Tom. “But I think we will get out all right. Margery doesn’t
seem to be worried.”

“Where in the world do you suppose Henry Morgan got hold of a suitcase
type moving picture machine?” asked Cliff, nodding toward the apparatus
that Henry and Mort were fussing over on the ground.

“Henry,” said Cliff, “where did you get that?”

“On the sloop,” Henry answered, fumbling with the lamp, which was of the
calcium carbide, and water, type. He did not seem to know much about it,
although Mort, who knew less, was fussing and puffing on his fat knees
and giving a multitude of instructions, none of which seemed to help.
“We thought the Indians would be puzzled about it,” Henry added. “We
borrowed it. Do you fellows know anything about it?”

“Work your own magic!” said Nicky, rather maliciously. He could not
resist the impulse to dig back at Henry for all the meanness the latter
had shown.

“You’ll be sorry for that!” said Mort shortly.

Margery looked on with much mystification, as did the Indians. When the
chief questioned his medicine men, evidently asking what sort of magic
this was to be, they seemed baffled.

Margery questioned Tom with her eyes but he smiled across at her and
while wondering, in his mind, how he was going to make any showing
against such a manifestation, he did not lose his courage or his trust
in being led to know what to do and how to do it.

“You’ll need water for that carbide,” suggested Cliff. “We’ll tell you
that much.”

“Oh, I know that—knew it all the time!” scoffed Mort. Turning to Margery
he demanded. “Have water fetched!”

“I know that sort of thing a little,” Cliff said. “Back in high school
we had an outfit of that kind. You see, it all packs in a suitcase to
make it portable.”

“Yes,” Nicky agreed. “The film is what they call non-inflamable. It
won’t burn.”

“That’s right,” Cliff agreed. “That’s why it can be used with an open
flame light. You know, don’t you, that the lamp has to be filled with
those crystals of calcium carbide—in the can, there. Then, water is put
in the container and when it is all assembled and the screw is opened,
water drips onto the crystals and they act to make gas.”

“Yes,” Nicky said. “We had something about that in chemistry class.”

But Mort and Henry were not having such a good time setting the machine
in position. They got the “head” or apparatus for jerking the bits of
exposed film down, back end foremost, and had to turn it around. That
made them fidget and sweat.

To a degree, even in face of the danger, the boys were amused at the
“hot time,” as Nicky whispered, that the older men were having to get
their magic in readiness.

Evidently the chief sensed something of the sort for he made several
impatient exclamations and his councillors stirred restlessly. But he
said nothing to Henry and Mort and, finally, they seemed to have
everything in readiness.

“Now,” said Henry, “Mort, light her up!”

Mort, with a few matches in a flat paper packet, struck the first and
tried to light the lamp. The effort was fruitless. Nervously he struck
match after match.

Tom, who sensed what was wrong, half opened his lips, but Cliff shook
his head and Tom waited.

Mort turned to Henry and demanded more matches. Curtly and bruskly Henry
made an exclamation and shoved Mort aside. Upset, the fat one lost his
balance and tumbled in a heap. This brought a grunt of amusement from
the watching Indians and Mort reddened with anger and dismay. Their
plans were not working out so well.

Henry struck his few matches and when failure met his effort to ignite
the lamp he sat back with a look of mingled chagrin and fear on his
face.

“I guess we’re whipped,” he grunted to Mort. Mort mopped his wet brow
and looked appealingly at the boys.

The chief said something as Henry rose.

“He says ‘your magic seems to fail!’” Margery translated. “Does it?”

“Yep,” said Henry, curtly, looking from side to side.

The chief turned toward Tom and his chums.

Tom had a plan. It was based on something that he knew and which Henry
and Mort had failed to recall if they, also, knew of it.

When the crystals of carbide are first exposed to water, it takes a fair
space of time for the gas to be liberated in a quantity sufficient to
generate pressure enough to force it through the burner tip.

That amount of time had elapsed, but in their haste Henry and Mort had
either failed to open the setting screw or had not tightened the base
enough to hold the pressure. Tom proposed to take advantage of this
guess and to turn the older men’s magic to his own account.

“Tell the chief,” he said to Margery, “the magic of the great doctors
has not answered their call. Then ask them if they give up to us.”

Margery spoke and gestured; then she turned to Henry.

Morosely Henry and Mort nodded.

“What else can we do?” Mort grunted. “Seems like we can’t work it, seems
like!”

“Tell the chief this,” Tom went on. “We do not work evil magic.”

“Listen!” cried Henry, suddenly, with a malicious leer toward Tom.
“First you tell the chief that our magic failed because them—them evil
ones work against us!”

Margery looked toward Tom. “Tell him,” he agreed.

She did. The chief looked toward Tom and scowled.

“Wait, though,” Tom continued, not at all frightened. “Now tell the
chief that these men admit that our magic is stronger than theirs.”

Margery, smiling in spite of the gravity of the occasion, spoke.

The chief nodded, and his next frown was turned toward Henry, who looked
a little desperate. Then he said, softly, to Mort. “But them busybody
kids can’t do what we can’t. How can they light the lamp?”

Mort nodded and perked up.

“Tell the chief,” Tom added. “Tell him that our magic is good, and it is
even stronger than the other. And to prove it we will make their own
magic work.”

When Margery had done this the chief looked at the youths with some
surprise and a little mystification. His medicine men also nodded and
motioned toward the small, compact picture machine.

“Nicky,” said Tom, “unroll that piece of cloth they brought. And you and
Cliff go to the side, about ten feet off, and hold it up, as taut as you
can!”

While they were doing as he asked, Tom bent down and examined the
picture projecting apparatus. It was not yet “threaded up” with film,
and he took from the small case one of the three rolls of films, small,
tightly rolled, in little tin containers.

Opening a “can” he unrolled a bit of the end, the blank “trailer” that
is put between the rollers and toothed gears so that when the machine is
started the picture begins properly. “It isn’t marked ‘non-flam’,” he
called to Cliff. “It’s just marked with the regular kodak marking in the
edge.”

“Then be careful,” Cliff said. “It will blaze up, then. Watch what you
do and don’t hold it still while it’s in front of the flame!”

“Maybe you’d better come and work it,” Tom urged.

Margery ran lightly across to take Cliff’s end of the sheet. She and
Nicky, tall enough to lift it four or five feet up, held the sheet.

“Now, we put the roll on this spindle,” Cliff said “Then we run the end
over this guide roller, down through this ‘gate’ and aperture plate, so
it lies flat, then over the lower guide, and fix the end onto the
spindle in the ‘take-up’ magazine at the bottom. Now she’s all set.”

He gave the attached handle a small turn and saw that the action was
perfect.

“Now for the lamp!” he said. “I hope——”

“She’s O.K.,” said Tom excitedly. “I can smell the gas and the base is
tight now.”

“Tell the chief we make the other man’s magic work!” he told Margery.

In her clear, treble tones she informed the company. Outside the men
pressed closer in. There was a tense expectancy in the air. All eyes
focused on Tom.

“I only hope the gasoline hasn’t evaporated out of this lighter,” he
muttered. “It’s a good, tight sort—well, here goes——”

He snapped the wheel. The spark ignited but did not light the wick.

Calmly, although his fingers trembled a little, he closed the small case
again and waited until the wick had a chance to be covered for an
instant to accumulate some gas. Also he wanted to control his own
muscles.

Then again he whisked the small, steel wheel.

There was a spark and the wick sprang into yellow light.

Carefully he lowered the flame, while he opened the thumbscrew on the
lantern burner. There came a slight puff of light, like a little
explosion, a sizzling flare, and then the flame settled down to an even,
vividly brilliant white glare.

Tom snapped shut the burner, shoved the lamp into place in the casing so
it was behind the film.

“Crank her, Cliff,” he urged.

And, to the marvelling gasp of the Indians and the little shriek of
amazement from Margery, there appeared on the sheet of muslin a square
of gleaming white light, covering at once by a moving picture showing a
marching army!

The Indians gasped, and several fell down on their faces.

When that reel was over the chief, after a long silence, spoke.

“Oh, dear!” said Margery. “He says the men who have failed are to be
sent to their fathers—that means——”

Cowering, shrilly screeching with fear, Henry and Mort tried to dash
toward safety. But at a sign from the chief the archers were in the hut,
and before the crawling pair of white men appeared the other group,
armed with cudgels of knobbed, polished wood.

“Stop!” shouted Tom. “Tell him to stop, Margery!”

Fearlessly he dashed in front of Henry and Mort, and faced the men with
the bows. In one hand he held the closed lighter; in the other he
unrolled a piece of leader film torn from another roll.

“Margery,” he gasped, “tell that Indian that our magic is good magic and
is stronger. But tell him that we want these men spared. Say that if he
does not we will use our magic to pour fire on his village and we will
burn it to the ground.”

Margery, white-faced under her bronze, and with tight lips, managed to
gasp out enough to make the chief listen.

Nevertheless he leaped out of his hammock and strode forward.

Tom put up a hand.

“Watch out!” he shouted.

He dropped the piece of curling film before the chief’s toes and
stooping swiftly he ignited the lighter and touched the edge of the
film.

As he leaped back, covering his face from the glare, the leader took
fire and its celluloid base, almost as combustible as dynamite, shot
into a blaze of white fire while a great, pungent puff of smoke flung
itself upward and began to belly out in the still air of the hut.

Instantly the chief dropped to the ground like one stunned, and the
archers, the councillors, the medicine man and every other Indian seemed
to run away and vanish like the disappearance of the film at the end of
the magic show.

“Well,” gasped Tom, as Nicky and Cliff dashed to his side, “Margery—come
here! I guess we’re safe for awhile.”

And again, as had been hinted when he first saved Henry Morgan’s life,
Tom had performed that service for the second time.




                              CHAPTER XXVI
                           TWO MEN DISAPPEAR


“These people will be your slaves from now on,” Margery said. “I know
them. They ran to hide because they are afraid of you. If you do what I
tell you we can get away safely after awhile!”

“All right,” said Tom.

He looked at Mort and Henry, crestfallen and a little surly, standing by
the motion picture machine.

“We’re going off by ourselves,” he told them. “I’ve got you out of the
trouble you made for yourself, Henry—twice now,” he was not boasting,
but stating it as a fact. “I think the least you can do is to be honest
with us from here on.”

Henry nodded, curtly, nudged Mort, and without a word of thanks, swung
on his heel and slunk out.

“Let’s go to my hut,” Margery suggested. “It’s more comfortable to talk,
and I’ve fixed up like a home in it.”

Unaware that the eyes of the man they had saved were still burning hotly
with resentment at his own defeat, that he watched because he was still
determined to get what he wanted, they walked across the dark square to
a small hut where an Indian girl, about a year older than Margery, slept
in a hammock. Margery stuck the torch she had brought into a makeshift
holder against a supporting pillar of wood, and showed the three chums
her makeshift home.

She had preserved some of her American taste of love and comfort, in
spite of the hardships. There, with the other girl dismissed firmly, she
and Tom took their first brother-and-sisterly embrace and the girl, now
very shy, clasped hands with the two who had come with Tom to her
rescue.

“Now,” said Tom, “Sis’, are you too tired to tell us some about
yourself? It can wait——”

“No,” she said. “I’ll feel better if we know everything all together.
I’ve had a dreadful time. But it will soon be over—thanks to you three
fine friends. I love you all!”

Then she told them her story. After her parting with Tom, when he was
prevented from going with her and his father to Mexico, she and their
father had gone to the land of the chili bean and the tamale.

On the way their father had fallen into conversation with a man who was
going back to Mexico “to work a mine.” He had tried to sell it but had
failed; its samples of ore were not very convincing, although its owner
had great faith that he was nearly ready to tap a fine vein of ore. But
his health was poor and the Mexican climate, even among the hills, was
detrimental to recovery; he wanted to dispose of his holdings.

Their father told her, Margery said, that he was going to look at the
mine before they went on to the Dead Hope, and if he liked it he might
take an option on it.

He did so, but the man, when he found that Mr. Carrol considered the
property good, begged him to buy it outright so he could take the money
and go to Nevada to grow better. Mr. Carrol had agreed to take a
half-interest and the papers had been drawn up.

They had then gone on to the Dead Hope mine. He had, in Mexico City,
left the man who sold him the half-interest in the mine.

With bated breath she disclosed his identity.

“It was Mort Beecher!” she said.

“Great grief!” gasped Nicky. “I’ll—wait till I see him——”

“Sh-h-h!” she warned. “He went off with the money father paid him and I
guess he spent it in wild parties. But let me tell you the rest.

“The first night we were at the Good Hope mine house we were waked up by
horses galloping, guns firing, men yelling. Father looked out and said
it was bandits making an attack.”

“There was gold dust there,” Tom interrupted. She nodded and went on.

“Father got his gun and told me to stay quiet and not to leave the
shack. He had to go to help the mine people. The mine was part of the
property of the firm he was paid by, you see.”

“And he left you alone?” Nicky was surprised.

“Only while he helped drive off the bandits. He thought they would be
frightened away. But——” she wiped her eyes on her sleeve, for there were
no handkerchiefs in that primitive place,
“Father—didn’t—come—back—ever!”

“No,” said Tom. “I wish we knew who fired the shot that——”

“I guess we never will know,” she said. “But this is what is important
now. Father gave me some folded papers out of his pocket and said I must
keep them until—he came back. But the fighting got worse and I was
frightened. People began falling down in the open place and I was
awfully scared.”

“It must have been terrible,” Cliff said, sympathetically.

“I saw a man coming across the open place and it was Mort Beecher, only
I didn’t recognize him at first.”

“Yes,” Tom said, “he rescued you, Henry told us.”

“But Henry said you ran out while he held the horse, and Mort saved
you,” Cliff said.

“That wasn’t so, at all,” she declared. “I did not run out! I was
obeying father. But when I saw that man coming I thought I’d hide the
papers, because father had said they were partnership agreements and a
deed. So I—put them—under a board—it was loose—right under where the old
stove stood.” The youths nodded.

“Then Mort Beecher came in and said he would save me, and he picked me
up and carried me out to a mule.”

“I’ve thought, all along, that Mort was the real bandit,” Nicky said.
“What you say all checks up. He sold part of the mine and then, when he
found out there was gold dust to be taken he wanted to get the
agreements back and have the money too!”

“But if he was the real bandit leader, why did he rescue me?”

“Didn’t he ask you about the papers?” Tom questioned.

She nodded.

“But not for a long time. After all the excitement was over. Then I said
I didn’t have any papers and he was disappointed.”

“How did he get you away—Henry said he defended the pass while you were
taken off, and that it was only ten minutes—but the gold was gone and so
were you and Mort.”

“Up the trail we stopped. Mort unloaded the sacks and dropped them over
the edge. I thought it must be awfully deep, but when he hit the burros
and sent them flying up the trail he got down over the edge of the cliff
and told me to jump into his arms.”

“And you did?” gasped Nicky.

“Yes. It was only down about six feet. Then he made me bend low and I
saw the edge hung over a sort of shallow place under it. So we hid there
while the bandits went past. After a long time he crawled up on the
trail and pulled me up, and made me give him a sack of the gold dust
first. Then we climbed an awful trail, up the side of the hill, and hid
in a cave. After that night he went away and left me; I thought he
wouldn’t come back, but he did—with food. Then we went on to where he
had a mule—he must have caught it on the pass. We rode for ever so long,
and finally we came to where a hut was. Old people lived there. He said
we were lost and begged for food and they gave us some. After that we
rode on again and he was always afraid the bandits would find us, and
our mule got worn out and we had to leave him and walk. Then we got to
where some more people lived and he bribed them with some gold dust and
they gave him a mule and then we rode from there. Finally we came to a
city; he disguised the sack with some old oilskins he found, and I think
he sold the gold dust gradually to some banks, for we stayed there—it
was a long time, I don’t remember how long.”

“The bandits must have traced him,” Nicky suggested. “For Henry said—no,
it was Jack—we found Jack in Porto Bello, but never mind—he said Mort
had told him, while they drank—they did that a lot——”

“You’re worse mixed up than a shaker full of soda water!” laughed Tom.
“What he’s trying to say is that in tracing you we found a man who told
us part of Mort’s story as Mort told it to him. It was that bandits
followed Mort and he took you——”

“On a boat, and kept me in the cabin and disguised me and said I was his
daughter——”

“And you cried and the stewardess got suspicious—” Cliff added. They
were all trying to tell what they knew.

“And we were put ashore on a San Blas Indian island,” she smiled. “Tom,
you remember how I loved to doctor my dolls and all? Well, I saw how the
Indians lived and when I could make them understand and learned a few
words I doctored them as well as I could—and all of a sudden, one night,
some Indians from inland came—and they took me away. They thought I was
a great spirit or something. But I didn’t have any medicines and I
wasn’t very old and so I couldn’t help them.”

“Why didn’t they send you back?” demanded Tom.

“Maybe they were afraid of being caught for what they had done,” Nicky
suggested.

“That must be it,” Margery agreed. “They didn’t make me prisoner or
anything and they always treat me nice; but they didn’t have any use for
me if I couldn’t cure them and so I just stayed and stayed because I
didn’t know how to get away.”

“But you’ll get away now!” declared Nicky bravely.

“But what about the deeds and the partnership papers?” demanded Tom.
“What did you do with them? They’d be mighty valuable.”

“I hid them the minute father went out,” she said.

“In the mine shack—at the Dead Hope?” Nicky cried.

She nodded.

“Under a board in the floor, under the stove,” she said.

“Golly!” cried Cliff, “that’s why Henry was so anxious to find Mort and
to get you and learn about that.”

“That—and the rest of the gold dust,” Tom agreed.

“Well, they owe us their lives now,” Nicky asserted. “We can share some
of what’s rightfully ours, and especially the half-interest in the
Golden Sun mine.”

But, outside in the dark, there was a pair of ears that heard and a
brain that was bound that no one should share except Mort and Henry.

Once before Henry had repaid the saving of his life by treachery.

He was planning to do so again.

“Well,” said Tom, “we’d better let Margery get some sleep. When the
Indians come around in the morning we can plan to leave as soon as
possible.” That was agreed to.

They were awakened soon after dawn by a tumult and excitement in the
square. Margery met them, her hair blowing in the morning breeze.

“The two white men have gone!” she cried. “They left during the night!”

“Well, I guess they have gotten enough of this place,” Tom conceded.

“But the men are getting ready to pursue them—and—”

“Don’t let them!” Tom cried. “We saved them last night. Tell the chief
it is Big Boy Tom’s will that they be allowed to go.”

Margery sped away on her light feet.

“That returns good for evil,” Tom said to Cliff and Nicky. “They only
want to escape. They don’t know what we know!”

But—they did!




                             CHAPTER XXVII
                              AGAINST ODDS


Out from the mainland came a canoe. In it were two white people. They
paddled stolidly and steadily, although several other canoes were close
behind them, and at their sides, their occupants screaming and demanding
in their high, shrill women’s voice, the return of the commandeered
canoe.

Bill, Andy, Jack, Mr. Gray and Bob, on the cruiser, at anchor not far
from a dingy, white sloop, watched curiously, and a little anxiously.
Who were the men? They were men, not boys! But they were too far away to
be recognized, if they were known, even with glasses trained on them.
All that was to be seen was the anger of the canoeists around them and
the lifting of an oar, with which they drove back too venturesome
canoes.

The cruiser’s party, having made every effort to locate the missing Tom,
Cliff and Nicky, even at risk of getting lost in the jungles themselves,
had finally been forced to give up the search. They were lying at
anchor, simply waiting, hoping against hope that something would give
them a clue to the youths.

Mort Beecher and Henry Morgan, in their commandeered—to use a polite
word—canoe, gave the cruiser plenty of seaway, and passed her well on
the far side. However, Bill, using the glasses, recognized Henry and set
up a shout. It was decided to row over to the sloop, on which they were
seen to embark; at once Bob got the boat up and he, Andy and Bill
tumbled in; but before they were half-way over the lagoon to the outer
water which had depth for the deep-keeled sloop, she had hoisted sail
and was bearing away.

“That’s funny,” Bill commented, when, giving up, they returned to the
_Porto Bello_. “They didn’t come near us, and how they did hurry that
boat away from here.”

“They could not have seen or heard of our boys,” Mr. Gray said. “They
would, in decency, have stopped to tell us, no matter how great their
haste.”

“They were in a big hurry,” Bill reflected. “I wonder why! They had no
one with them. Could they have found Tom’s sister? In that case they
would have brought her out.”

“They got into this Chucunaque country and came out safe again,”
suggested Andy. “Might the lads have got there too?”

They could come to no conclusion, and while they all agreed that there
was something decidedly strange about the haste with which Henry Morgan
and Mort Beecher sailed North, and their avoidance of the very men who
had helped Henry, they dared not go in pursuit to compel the elusive
Henry to reveal his ’Cause why!

Nearly a week later, after being treated with dignity accorded to people
of real prestige, Tom Nicky, Cliff and Margery were permitted,
well-escorted, to leave the Chucunaque’s village for the coast.

Probably the chief’s experience with the motion picture film helped to
establish them as true wonder-workers. The chief had seen Tom’s
startling demonstration of fire, when he used the strip of celluloid
“leader” torn off the end of a film. He therefore feared Tom until one
of his medicine men, a little jealous of the white lad’s superior
prestige, whispered that there was no great trick or secret, that he,
too, could produce the smoke and flame with a piece of the
picture-ribbon.

Nicky, Tom, Cliff and Margery, walking from but to hut, visiting the
hammock-bound sick people, who believed that if Tom touched them it.
would help to heal them, saw the portable picture projector apparatus,
abandoned by Henry, being examined by the chief. He gingerly touched it,
but his medicine man, with a contemptuous grunt, drew a length of the
coiling film out of the lower magazine and ripped off a short bit. This
he handed to the chief with some directions. The chief, hesitating,
walked gingerly to the fire over which the community cook-pot hung, and
stood irresolute.

“Look, Tom,” Nicky whispered. “He’s trying to nerve himself to make your
magic. If he does, we are beaten.”

“Don’t worry!” Cliff retorted. “I examined the film, this morning. I
wondered why the film was so combustible when it was to be used on a
ship and with an open light. I saw the reason. The ‘leader part’ isn’t
supposed to be ‘threaded-up’ in the beam of heat from the light; it is
to go down to the lower magazine and so it can be of ordinary celluloid
base film. But the real picture is on what is called ‘non-flam’ which is
a celluloid base especially treated and with chemical constituents that
make it smoulder when it gets hot, but it won’t burst into flame or
explode. The chief has a bit of the picture itself, so Tom’s laurels are
safe.”

It proved that he was right, for when the film was cast into the fire it
only curled up and smouldered into ash, whereas Tom, to “make good” his
own standing, at Cliff’s behest secretly secured a bit of “leader” from
a second roll of the film and then “put on a show” for the chief which
impressed the monarch so much that he ordered his bowmen at once—and the
jungle resounded to the crashing escape of a medicine man who had
advised jealously but not too wisely.

In time the sick had been touched and Margery’s request that she be
allowed to go with the chums was granted; she promised to send back, by
the guards, all the medicines on the cruiser, and when, after the days
in the jungle trails the quartet reached the head of a small stream, and
thence were hurried to the coast in canoes, they set foot again on the
smooth white deck, she kept her word. All the medicine was sent, with
careful instructions for its use according to the diseases prevalent in
the country; other gifts were heaped upon the messengers and they left
with the first smiles that any white man had seen on their stolid faces
for many years. In return they loaded Margery and the chums with their
cloth into which was woven many designs which later proved to be a key
to many links of the modern Indians with ancient civilization.

Margery was greeted with much delight by Bill and Jack. Both of them
were old enough, as was Mr. Gray, to realize that what worried Tom, her
childishness, her habits of the girl of eleven in a body of a miss of
sixteen, would soon be outgrown in new surroundings.

There was great excitement and a regular banquet to celebrate the
return, and over plates of tinned meats and broiled yams, turtle and
freshly caught fish, the youths related their experiences to an eager
audience; but they hardly finished when Bill slapped his knee, almost
upsetting all their crockery as he shouted:

“So you let Henry Morgan and Beecher go? And you thought they’d quit?
Where were you lads when you and Margery talked over her story?”

“In her hut!” cried Tom, starting as he recalled a former time when
Toosa had declined certain facts and an eavesdropper had overheard.

“You don’t mean?—” began Nicky. “Why—let me get hold of that—”

“That would explain why they avoided us and why the sloop sailed North
in such a hurry,” Jack declared. He was much more of a self-respecting
man than he had been even when the youths saw him last. He had control
of himself, and took pride in his appearance.

“Andy—Bob—” called Bill, “get up the anchors and make everything
shipshape. We’ve got enough provisions for a run back to Mexico?”

“I guess so,” responded Andy, fussing over his spark plugs.

“We’ll make it do.”

“Yes,” agreed Tom. “If what Margery said was overheard and our enemies
have a start of us, we’ll have to try hard to catch them before they get
to Mexico—”

“Anyway, before they get under those floor boards!” Nicky added.

“Make her hum, Andy,” Cliff said, taking up his duties as oiler and
engineer’s assistant.

And so again, Northbound, the _Porto Bello_ nosed into the Caribbean!




                             CHAPTER XXVIII
                              GOLDEN BAIT


During the long race back to Mexico the cruiser’s party never caught up
with the lost time. Henry and Mort were always ahead; at Colon a tramp
steamer had them aboard; at Vera Cruz they debarked; at Mexico City they
were still ahead.

So it was that when the party reached the Dead Hope mine they were quite
prepared for what they found.

Henry Morgan and Mort Beecher had come there four days before; yes, the
superintendent explained, they represented that they had bought a mine
location adjoining the Dead Hope. Yes, they asked to let them sleep in
the old shack at the edge of his Dead Hope property until they could
level off a place on the shaggy hillside for their own mine shaft and
shack. No, he told them, he did not know whether they had done any
exploring in the old shack.

On a warm afternoon Tom, Nicky, Cliff, Bill and Margery stood in the
old, rickety shack, its corrugated metal sides almost ready to drop
apart.

“You can see for yourself,” said the superintendent. “It looks as if
they’ve done some explorin’, at that.” He had been told a good many
facts concerning the adventures the chums had been through, the cause
for their trip, and some deductions concerning the solution of the
mystery of the missing gold dust which Bill, Jack and the chums had
figured out.

“They certainly have been hunting for those papers Margery hid,” Tom
said. “I guess we are beaten. If they find the papers they will destroy
the partnership agreement father got, and change the deeds in some way,
and then, of course, neither Margery nor I can do anything.”

“Well, they’ve torn up the old floor boards under the stove,” said
Cliff, and Nicky echoed his statement. Jack, who came in, stared out of
the dusty, grimy window, with its bit of rag stuffed into a broken pane,
and did not seem to care much what was going on. He appeared to be
trying to get his newly awakened memory to reveal some further pictures
of his past.

“Let’s see if there was anything under the floor—or a place for it,”
Bill suggested, but Margery touched his arm.

“I’ve been trying to remember something,” she said, “and I have. Tom,
Nicky, Cliff—Bill—” she beckoned them close and whispered. They stared
at her.

“The stove isn’t where it was when I hid the—papers!”

“No!” gasped Tom. “Then—where was it before?”

She pointed to another corner.

“The paper may still be under there, then. They haven’t torn up those
boards.” Tom started across the floor. He stopped. Nicky was scratching
his left ear. At the same instant Margery touched Bill’s arm and they
all became very quiet, except Margery who, in a whisper, gasped into
Tom’s ear: “Now do just as Bill said to do if Mort or Henry appeared.”

Tom nodded. In the dimly lit room, bare except for a bed and a stove and
a chair with one leg gone, he and Cliff and Nicky and his sister, with
Bill and Jack, were as silent as statues. So that Henry Morgan strolling
with his mind far away, got half-way through the door before he
discovered them.

“What—say!—er—” he gasped. “Why——”

“Hello!” said Tom. “How’s Mort? And how are you?”

“Um—er—oh! Fine. Fine! ’Cause why? ’Cause we see you got this little
lady safe away from the Indians. We knew you would. I said to Mort,
‘We’ve told the Indians to take good care of them till they want to
leave and then take them safe to the shore.’ He said ‘Seems like
deserting them, seems like,’ but we had to hurry, because—because——”

For once his ’Cause why was forgotten in his effort to hide his
surprise. “——We had to keep an appointment with the captain of a
sloop——”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Tom, playing a part which Bill, Jack and
the chums, and even Mr. Gray, had decided was the surest way to lull
suspicion of what they really meant to accomplish.

“I knew you’d see it. ’Cause why? ’Cause you’re a fine feller. Tom, we
fixed it all up with the Indians about letting Miss Margery go and then
we come on back here. ’Cause why? Mort had remembered about his Golden
Sun. It was a mine and he was anxious we should be partners.”

Tom felt that Henry had mixed himself up in enough half-falsehoods.

“Yes?” he said, with his eyelids lifted and brows arched, playing his
part in laying a trap. “So that’s why, in the old days, Mort didn’t tell
you where the gold dust went——”

Henry darted closer and eagerly demanded:

“Do you know? Do you know anything? I didn’t learn nothing ’cause Mort
got chased by the bandits and hid and then went to Central America.”

“I don’t think you ought to count too much on him for a partner,” Tom
added to his story as Bill had arranged that he should, if circumstances
allowed him to do so. “Henry—what would you say if I showed you how the
gold dust disappeared—and where?”

“Oh! I’d—I’d be grateful. Of course, it won’t do any good now, but it
would be nice to know.”

“Come on, then,” Tom urged, and the whole party, with Bill nudging Nicky
to prevent the youth from doubling up with glee, went up the old trail
to a spot well remembered as the point where the youths first met Henry
Morgan—the man who then boasted that he could “smell money.”

“You said, when we first saw you, that you could smell money,” said Tom.
Henry nodded. “Your nose must have been out of joint,” he said. “Look
here.” He approached the ledge, and pointed overside. Henry, cautiously,
drew close and looked; then he gasped.

“Why!—it’s only down about six feet.”

“Yes, there’s a narrow ledge about six feet down—of course the chasm is
below, but you could get down to the narrow ledge—and, here’s a little
secret—the ledge goes back in under the overhang of rock—if you get on
your stomach and look over, you’ll see!”

“I do,” said Henry, after he had looked. “It’s like a narrow cave under
this overhang I’m lying on.” He stared back again. “What’s that, like
something black, down on the ledge?”

“Oh, that!” said Tom, pretending to be uninterested. “That is the last
sack of the gold dust. Here’s where the mules were stopped and where
Mort dropped the sacks of dust and then, later, he and Margery were down
there, hiding, when the—bandits!—rode past.”

“Well, I’ll be swiggle-swiggered!” gasped Henry. “What’s going to be
done with that sack of dust? And where’s the rest?”

“Oh, a man from the Dead Hope is coming back for it—he just took another
one out. This is the last. We’re going to lock it up with the rest of
the mine’s nuggets and dust, in that old shack, tonight. In the morning
we’ll all escort it to the city. We can’t do anything more here.”

“What did you come here for?”

“Oh, just to look up some papers Margery says father gave her and she
hid in the old shack.”

They all saw the cunning light in Henry’s eyes. “But you ain’t found no
papers!”

Tom laughed. “No,” he said. “The stove has been moved since Margery hid
our papers under the boards beneath it—she thinks it used to be in the
far corner—by the window. We haven’t looked there, though. I don’t think
she remembers after all these years.”

Henry made an excuse and hurried away. Tom looked at his sister and his
chums and then, of a sudden, they all smiled.

“Well,” said Tom, “I’ve baited a trap—hope we get two rats!”




                              CHAPTER XXIX
                             THE RATS COME


Tom took a firm grip of Cliff, on one side, and of Nick, on the other;
to the latter he whispered: “Here they come! If you make a false move
I’ll make mince-meat of you!”

“I won’t,” agreed Nicky.

Black night had descended over the Dead Hope mine and its new neighbor,
the Golden Sun. The two new partners of that latest venture had hastily
taken their few belongings from the Dead Hope shack when Henry learned
from Tom that it would be needed for gold-dust storage that night.

To all appearances the shack, standing dark and still, and the hillside
behind it, were wrapped in slumber.

Two dull figures, as quiet as ghosts, slipped along in the gloomiest
parts of the shadow, close to brush, hugging the cliff, or slinking
under the shack windows.

“Seems like nobody’s around, seems like,” Mort whispered. “Ain’t that
sort of funny?”

“There was a guard,” Henry said in his hoarse, but subdued rumble. “He
ain’t around—’Cause why? ’Cause Henry attends to everything. He was
leaning out the window when I sneaked around the side of the shack first
time, spying. Well—there’s his hat.” He kicked the sombrero lying on the
ground under the window.

“Blackjack, heh?”

“Naw. Cudgel!”

“Oh.”

“Now the main thing is not to wake up the camp,” Henry said. “Last time
we played bandits we come with guns and a gang at our backs. But this
time it’s different. ’Cause we are workin’ alone and I mean to see that
you don’t get the best of me this time.”

“Seems like you never will get over that idear, seems like,” Mort
grunted. “I tell you and tell you—I had the little gal to watch out for
and I tried to find you but the others was too close behind me——”

“Well, it’s all come back to us, anyhow, except what you wasted in
Colon—one sack was all you took, wasn’t it?”

“Only one, Hen. Yes, it’s come back. Now we’d better get it and get the
papers out from where the stove used to be——”

“And we was pulling up boards in the wrong place. That’s kids for
you—she remembers where she hid stuff and her brother tells us as nice
as pie and never plans to bother to look. Thinks his sister has
forgot—like that silly old codger, Jack, we saw down to Porto Bello!”

“Yep! Well, Hen, let’s get in through the window—or will you let me hand
you the sacks and you take ’em to where we got the burros tied?”

“We’ll work right together,” Henry declared. “Here, you get in there and
I’ll be right behind you. Watch. Go easy. Don’t come down hard onto the
guard—I hit him and he dropped inward—don’t step on ’im if you can help
it!”

“I won’t—but they ain’t any guard here.”

“Maybe he crawled off from under the window. Get in—let me get there
after you. Hurry, you slow poke.”

Mort hastened all his fat bulk would permit. Then Henry got in.

“That’s strange,” he said. “I was sure the guard fell in the room when I
poked the cudgel down onto his fat head! But, he must of come to life
and crawled off. Don’t hear nothing so he hasn’t sounded any alarm!”

“Got the flashlight? Turn it this way.”

Henry unslung a small pocket lamp and switched on its beam. Throwing it
over the room he gave an exclamation of delight.

“There’s them sacks o’ dust—and some of nuggets, by the feel.”

They lost no time in dragging some of the buckskin pouches from the top
of the pile and dropping them out of the window so they could get to the
bulkier flour sacks and gunny sacks beneath them. When they had lifted
until they were tired, they decided to transfer what they had dropped
under the window to the backs of the mules.

“But wait!” admonished Mort. “Seems like we better get at the papers,
seems like. Then, if we’re chased, we know we haven’t left that
partnership agreement and deed for the kids to find.”

“Wise idea,” agreed Henry. “Take this flash, and put it so’s it can’t be
noticed outside. Then I’ll pry up the boards—let’s see—a girl of nine or
ten or so would never have tools—and she was excited when you come in,
wasn’t she, Mort?”

“Seems like she was, way I remember.”

“Now, the stove was about here—yep, here’s the spots where the heat
warped the wooden floor. Now—Mort, where was the little gal standing
that night when you come in?”

“Well as I recall—I come in the door, and she was—just about like you
are now.”

“Well, that settles it. She had just straightened up, I bet. ’Cause why?
Look at that board along the wall. Loose, I’ll bet. See! A kid could get
her fingers almost under the edge—enough to lift it—and sure enough!
Here they are!”

He wrenched savagely at the long, narrow board, and lifted it enough to
get his arm through and fish out some mouldy looking paper.

“Take care,” warned Mort. “It’s nearly falling to bits.”

“Only the outer wrappers,” Henry whispered, holding the papers close to
the electric beam, already growing dim. “See—the inside papers are all
right.”

“Well, hurry up and make sure what they are. We want the deed and we
might as well take the others and tear ’em up where the pieces won’t get
us in trouble. Hurry, though. The battery is going down on that
flashlamp.”

“It’s the deed all right,” Mort took one paper and unfolded it partly.
“I recall how this corner was tore off where it was signed, and I made a
patch onto it—only with my name instead of—that other ’un.”

“And here is the partnership paper. I won’t tear it up yet—but what are
these other things?”

“Maybe more of his deeds,” Mort said. “You know, the night you was chief
of the bandits and I helped, you said we ought to find more deeds for
mines because he was representin’ a company——”

“Well, if you hadn’t shot him!—” accused Henry.

“I shot him? You got rats! You done that!”

“Well, look at the papers and let’s go back to toting gold.”

Henry, with the flash bulb now merely a dim, yellowish filament, held a
paper close to his eyes.

“What’s this?” he almost forgot his caution.

“Well, what is it?”

“‘I—Henry Morgan—do confess,’” he began, then flung aside the paper and
opened the last one feverishly.

Meanwhile Mort strained his eyes at the first, but Henry, snatching the
lamp and using it, snarled.

“It’s got all about you being a bandit and shooting the
gringoes—“(Americans)—“and lots more, Henry.”

“Well, this confession is about you and how you stole from me and your
pals and hid the gold dust and took the little girl.”

“Well—what of it? Who put them there?”

“We did!” snapped a sharp voice.

“And you might as well sign the confessions!” said another.

Whirling, dazzled by two vivid white beams cast on them from large
flashlamps protruding through the window, the two, caught red-handed,
blinked and stammered in amazement.

“We’re the Mexican police,” declared one of three men who promptly
handcuffed the two dazed culprits.

Tom, Nicky, Cliff, Bill, Jack, Mr. Gray, the mine superintendent—and
Margery—everybody was trooping into the doorway and the small room.

“We heard every word they said, we crept right under the window,” Nicky
said. He turned to Tom, “and I didn’t make a false move, did I?”

“Not a one,” said Tom. “The only false move was the one these men made
trying to get the best of three boys, as they thought.”

“And they can sign those confessions and save you a lot of trouble,”
said one of the Mexican officials. Mort looked at Henry and his look was
returned—there was nothing else to do so the confessions checking and
verifying the duplicity of the two—and worse!—were duly signed.

“But what became of the guard I hit?” asked Henry, when he had been told
how they were surrounded all the time they talked and worked, and Tom
answered: “Oh, Nicky and I were inside here with a hat and wadded sacks
around a broomstick, to seem like a man in sombrero and poncho, leaning
out of the window. When you ‘socked’ at them we let the hat drop off and
put the rest over in the corner—there they are!”

“You certainly outwitted us,” said Mort, grudging admiration, but
compelled to admit defeat.

“And now—” it was Jack, the man who had no memory until he left Porto
Bello—“Just wait a bit. Mort Beecher—you that was with me so long in
Porto Bello, and I never guessed—listen to this! Who crept in my room in
a Colorado camp bunk house and stole my deeds, that I was carrying from
one ranch to another—and who, by doing that, ruined my reputation,
caused me to leave the State, and made the wreck who ended up on the
beach at Porto Bello?”

“How should I know?” demanded the handcuffed Mort, but he shivered.

“You should know by this!” snapped Jack. “Oh, I got my memory back at
last, and I can remember as well as anything how a piece was torn off
the bottom of one deed, the one you tore taking it out of my bunk! It
was my own deed, to my own mine, I had just bought, down in Mexico. You
thought the corner of the paper was lost. It wasn’t! It was left in my
bunk and I had it in my old wallet down in Porto Bello all the time;
only, I had been there so long I didn’t recall anything. But I brought
away the wallet and here is that piece of paper with my signature on
it!”

Eagerly Tom grasped the deed to the Golden Sun, transferred, supposedly,
to one Morton Beecher. From Jack’s worn, faded wallet he fitted to its
patched corner a bit of paper, yellow and mildewed, but an exact fit!

“So Margery and I will have you for a half-partner instead of that—” Tom
made a face toward Mort who was being led, with head bent, toward his
imprisonment and trial, with Henry, for their many sins.

“Bill,” cried Jack. “Tell you what I’ll do. You always liked mining and
you say you used to prospect in Peru for mines. How about trading my
share in this Golden Sun for your ranch in Colorado?”

“It’s a go!” said Bill.

“And our old Bill will be our partner,” chuckled Tom. “I’m glad.”

“And we’ll take Cliff and Nicky into partnership, too, won’t we?”
Margery pleaded.

“As to that!” exclaimed Tom, with a grand air, and waving a hand like an
orator, while he stuck the other arm into the bosom of his coat, “I
believe we shall have to take that up with the board of directors—in the
morning.”

“In the morning, my dear!”




                              CHAPTER XXX
                                 SUNSET


“The reason I didn’t want to talk about shares, last night,” Tom told
his sister, late the next afternoon, “was because we don’t actually own
a dollar’s worth of that mine.”

They were sitting outside the mine shack. Henry and Mort had been lodged
in a Mexican prison. They were merely waiting until Mr. Gray would be
ready to leave the mines. Bill and Jack had attended to the necessary
legal formalities. But Mr. Gray learned that the mine superintendent had
discovered a regular hoard of old Aztec relics in the fastness of the
hills and Mr. Gray proposed to go with him to inspect them the next day.
He might decide to remain the rest of the late summer and collect and
arrange the relics.

“Why, don’t she own a dollar of the mine?” Nicky demanded. “She hid the
paper. Her father paid for half the mine.”

“But he paid Mort, and Mort can’t return the money, and he had no right
to sell the mine. It was really Jack’s——”

“Well,” said Jack, ambling up, “did I hear my name mentioned?”

“You certainly did,” declared Cliff. “Tom says he can’t touch the mine
at all because it’s all yours and what his father paid——”

“Please—please!” gasped Mort’s former beach combing partner of Porto
Bello. “Don’t make me weep. Don’t make me laugh.”

“Just the same,” said Tom, “it wouldn’t be right.”

“Well,” said Jack, “let’s look at it this way. Your father paid in good
earnest.”

Tom nodded, and Margery, beside him, smiled and gave vigorous assent.

“And because Mort was greedy and all, his greed and lust has turned
against him and has brought me back to being a man through you folks.
But that don’t pay for the mine, of course. And it’s a shame, too.” He
looked over toward the mountains. The sun, declining, was taking on the
rich, golden hue, and the sky was dyed, above a blood-red line just over
the hills, with a vast, swimming, pulsating light, a vivid golden sea of
beauty.

“It’s too bad,” Jack added. “Don’t you think so, Bill?” as Bill came up.
“What with us finding that the Dead Hope vein has been struck again, and
they’ve got their gold dust back and our own mine has a vein of ore as
thick as your arm, about two feet under the rock—ain’t it too bad we
can’t sell shares to our friends?”

“Sell, yes! But not give!” said Tom.

“Well,” said Jack, “how about making me an offer. If you was to want the
half-interest, say, I might consider taking that—let me see—yes! That
cigar lighter that saved you in the Chucunaque country. You don’t smoke.
It’s no good to you.”

“It’s a keepsake,” Tom said—and then started—“Golly! It isn’t even mine
to keep. I took it from Bill.”

“I now and here make you a present of it!” said Bill magnanimously, “and
you keep it, too. Jack may own that mine, but he’s traded half to me for
my ranch, and he don’t know which half he’s traded, so I guess nobody
owns the other half—so, why not claim it from him!”

“Would that be right?” asked Margery, her eyes big and interested.

“Little sister,” said Bill kindly, “for lads like Tom, and Cliff, and
Nicky—and a girl like you!—anything a decent fellow can do is—right!”

“Thanks,” said Nicky.

“Same here,” said Cliff.

Margery wasn’t ashamed to hug Bill.

As for Tom, with just a little lump in his throat for the fine chum Bill
always was—Tom couldn’t think what to say.

So, as Bill dragged out a cigarette, Tom said nothing.

And lit the cigarette with his life-saving lighter.


                                THE END




                                FOOTNOTE


[1]This is not impossible for a clever and adept person who has the
   strange ability to identify his mind with that of another, to “see
   his pictures,” as Cliff’s father explained it to Tom later.




                          Transcriber’s Notes


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--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
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