Produced by Roger Frank








THE RADIO DETECTIVES IN THE JUNGLE

By

A. HYATT VERRILL

AUTHOR OF “THE RADIO DETECTIVES,” “THE RADIO DETECTIVES
UNDER THE SEA,” “THE RADIO DETECTIVES
SOUTHWARD BOUND,” ETC.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

NEW YORK :: 1922 :: LONDON




COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




CONTENTS

  I. Strange Places
  II. A Cry for Help
  III. The Castaways
  IV. More Mysteries
  V. The End of the Submarine
  VI. In South America
  VII. Off for the Jungle
  VIII. On the Trail
  IX. Kenaima!
  X. Red Beard Seals His Doom
  XI. Vengeance
  XII. The End of the Trail




RADIO DETECTIVES IN THE JUNGLE




CHAPTER I

STRANGE PLACES


A hurricane had swept through the West Indies leaving death and
destruction in its path and wrecking scores of vessels, uprooting
trees, stripping the tops from palms, destroying crops and blowing
down the flimsy native houses.

Now that it was over and there was no danger of its return those ships
that had escaped the storm within snug harbors began to creep forth to
resume their interrupted voyages. Some were uninjured. Others had
rigging or deck fittings carried away, while some were so badly
crippled that they limped as rapidly as possible towards the nearest
dry dock for repairs.

Among them was a lean gray destroyer which slipped out of Coral Bay at
St. John and headed her sharp prow southward. That she had borne the
brunt of the terrific gale was evident, for of her four funnels only
two were standing, her decks had been swept bare, fathoms of her
railings had been carried away and from half way up her military mast
she was white with encrusted salt. But she had received no vital
injury. From her two remaining funnels dense volumes of smoke were
pouring, a busy crowd of bluejackets labored like ants at repairing
the damages to superstructure and fittings and, despite the buffeting
she had received and the fact that half her boilers were out of
commission until the funnels could be replaced, she slid through the
oily seas at a twenty-knot clip.

To those who have followed the Radio Detectives through their previous
adventures the group upon the crippled destroyer’s decks will need no
introduction. There was the trim, spick-and-span Commander Disbrow,
the deep-sea diver, Rawlins, Mr. Pauling and his friend Mr. Henderson
and the two boys, Tom Pauling and his chum Frank.

But for the benefit of those who now meet the Radio Detectives for the
first time a few words of explanation will be needed.

Months before the story opens, Tom Pauling and Frank had discovered a
most astounding plot by means of their radio telephones and thereby
enabled Tom’s father and his associate, Mr. Henderson, who were
federal officers in the Secret Service, to make prisoners of a number
of members of an international gang of scoundrels whose activities
included the distribution of Bolshevist literature, the destruction of
property, smuggling contraband liquor into the United States and
conducting a widespread series of holdups, robberies and other crimes.
Through confessions and other evidence Mr. Pauling and Mr. Henderson
had learned that the arch criminal or master mind of the plot was
hiding in a secret lair in the West Indies which--after a series of
thrilling adventures on the part of the two boys and their companions,
including Rawlins and Sam, a Bahaman negro--had been located, only to
find that the leader of the criminals had slipped through the net set
for him.

Then, influenced by a “hunch” on Rawlins’ part, Mr. Pauling and his
companions had followed a tramp steamer, of which they were
suspicious, to St. Thomas. Although there was no evidence conclusive
enough to warrant holding the tramp, suspicion pointed to the fact
that the leader of the gang of criminals was somewhere in the
vicinity. Owing to mysterious radio messages, the party chartered a
schooner and went to the neighboring island of St. John.

Here they met a Dutch naturalist named Van Brunt who was dealing with
the “reds.” Rawlins, spying on him, was held up and narrowly escaped
death at the hands of a man whom he recognized as the master criminal
they were seeking. Later, this man was found dead and proved to be a
person disguised to impersonate the real leader, while Van Brunt
visited the schooner and convinced Mr. Pauling and Mr. Henderson that
he was innocent and knew nothing of the “red’s” activities.

Becoming friendly with the boys, the Dutch scientist took them on a
trip into the bush and while they were in a huge cave, deserted them.
Soon afterwards a severe hurricane swept the island, imprisoning the
two boys within the cavern by a tree falling across the entrance. In
the meantime the other members of the party were compelled to seek
refuge from the hurricane in the village on shore and were amazed to
see the tramp steamer entering the harbor to escape the storm. As soon
as the gale was over a searching party started out to find the missing
boys and discovered that Van Brunt’s house had been destroyed by
lightning.

While they were hunting for the boys, Tom and Frank had been made
prisoners by a red-bearded man whom they knew was one of the gang.
They had been placed on a submarine where Van Brunt confronted them,
admitting he was a member of the “reds” and had purposely betrayed the
boys. From the submarine they were taken to a locked cabin on a vessel
and later were rescued in a most astounding manner by Sam, the
Bahaman, who also killed Van Brunt. During their imprisonment the boys
had overheard a plot to capture the other members of the party by
means of a decoy letter and reaching their friends safely Tom and
Frank related their tale in time to save the others from falling into
the scoundrels’ trap. Soon afterwards a destroyer, which was in
constant touch with the schooner by radio, arrived in response to Mr.
Pauling’s summons. The tramp, in a last desperate attempt to escape,
tried to run down the schooner but failed owing to Rawlins’ quick wit.
Then, turning, the tramp endeavored to leave the harbor by a narrow
entrance, but was sunk by a shot from the destroyer’s guns.

From the boys’ descriptions and Sam’s discoveries the Americans
learned that the tramp was a “mother ship” for the submarine with a
huge cradle or opening in the hull wherein the underseas boat could
rest and be carried from place to place. But although a search was
made of the wrecked tramp no trace of either the submarine or of
bodies could be found. Mr. Pauling and the others felt convinced,
however, that the leader of the gang was still at large and while
discussing this matter their attention was drawn to a seaplane which
they decided was a United States government machine sent from Porto
Rico or St. Thomas to learn the cause of the explosion.

After the aircraft had disappeared the party returned to the destroyer
and to their amazement were given a radio message from the aviator
which Mr. Pauling recognized as coming from the arch criminal whom
they were seeking.

But although their quarry had once more escaped them and had taken to
the air, Rawlins insisted they would yet capture him and pointed out
that the seaplane must descend and that when it did they should be on
hand.

Although it seemed but a slim chance, still the diver’s hunches had
invariably proved so reliable that Mr. Pauling had at once decided to
take Rawlins’ advice and, transferring himself and his party to the
partially disabled destroyer, had at once started forth to search the
neighboring islands for the aircraft which had last been seen flying
southward.

And as the lean gray craft slipped out of the shelter of Coral Bay and
felt the heave of the Caribbean sea, Rawlins was speaking. “Airplanes
aren’t so common down here that they can fly over the islands without
being noticed,” he asserted. “If we stop in at them here and there we
ought to be able to trail him. He’d have to head for some place and by
finding out where he’s been seen we can get his direction. I’ll bet
he’s got some hang-out down here. Of course, he could land on the
water, but it would have to be in the lee of an island even if he was
going to be picked up by a ship.”

“Or the submarine,” put in Mr. Pauling. “Don’t forget that the chances
are the sub escaped and is to meet him.”

“Yes, but he can’t land on a sub and he couldn’t have started off from
it. No, he’s either got some ship or a secret landing place and hangar
for his plane on shore. Besides, if he tries sending messages the boys
can pick them up.”

“To my mind,” declared Mr. Henderson. “It is like hunting for the
proverbial needle in the haystack. There are a score and more of
islands--to say nothing of cays--and although he started south we have
no means of knowing how soon he may have shifted his course. Why, even
now, he may be over in Santo Domingo, Cuba or Tortuga or he may have
turned east to St. Barts or Barbuda. If we went to every island we
would be here for the next year.”

“I’ll say we would!” laughed Rawlins. “But we don’t need to. Once we
pick up his trail and know his course it’ll be easy. A fellow can’t
fly far in any direction without being in sight of an island and if we
lose him we can easily find his trail again by calling at an island or
two.”

“Sounds easy, I admit,” remarked Mr. Henderson rather sarcastically.
“But what is to prevent him from going straight across to South
America for example? Then we’d have a nice job trying to find where he
landed--I suppose we’d have to hunt the entire northern coast of the
continent.”

“I expect you’re jollying me a bit,” replied the diver, “but honest
Injun you know he couldn’t make a nonstop flight to South America from
here and if he took a course for there our job would be all the
easier. There are only a few islands between here and South America,
in a direct line you know. I think the best place to ask will be
Statia or St. Croix. Then, if they haven’t seen or heard him, we can
swing to the east to St. Kitts or St. Barts.”

“I’m backing your hunch you know, Rawlins,” asserted Mr. Pauling, “and
if you say St. Croix first, St. Croix it is. We’re outside now and
we’d better give Commander Disbrow his course.”

“Well, I guess we’ll make it Statia first,” replied Rawlins after a
moment’s thought. “It’s the nearest and in nearly a direct line with
the course he took. Besides, the Dutch captain of the tramp may still
be in the hospital there. If he is we can see him and maybe pump some
information from him. Perhaps, if he knows his ship’s gone to Davy
Jones and the others have skedaddled he’ll come across with a
confession to clear his own skirts.”

“Yes, that’s a good scheme,” agreed Mr. Pauling. “We’ll make Statia
first then.”

The two boys had thought St. Thomas and St. John fascinating and
beautiful, but as the towering volcanic cone of St. Eustatius or
“Statia” as it is more often called, rose above the sea with the far
reaching, rich green hills and cloud-piercing, frowning heights of St.
Kitts to the east, they could only gaze in rapt admiration and
declared they had never seen anything so wonderful or beautiful.

“Wait until you see the other islands,” said Rawlins, laughing at the
boys’ excited exclamations of delight. “Why, St. Kitts over there
isn’t anything compared to Dominica or Martinique and as for
Statia--well of course it looks high and it’s striking because it’s
small and the cone is so perfect in shape, but it’s no bigger than
little St. John and it would be only a hill on Guadeloupe or
Dominica.”

“Gee, I hope the old seaplane went everywhere so we can see all the
islands,” declared Tom. “It’s a shame we are down here and won’t see
those you talk about.”

“Maybe we will,” said the diver. “At any rate, we’re bound to see some
of them, but look over there to the west. See that big cone sticking
up to the right of Statia? Well that’s the strangest island in the
West Indies if not in the world. It’s Saba.”

“But no one lives there!” complained Frank, who was studying the
conical mass of rock rising abruptly for a thousand feet above the
sea.

“Don’t they!” exclaimed Rawlins. “I’ll say they do! But you can’t see
’em or their houses from the sea. Saba’s just a big volcano--dead of
course. The town’s in the crater--about eight hundred feet above the
sea. It’s called ‘Bottom.’ The people are Dutch and speak English and
if you visited ’em you’d have to climb a stairway cut in the rocks
with eight hundred steps. And I’ll bet my boots to a herring you can’t
guess what the folks who live up in that crater do for a living.”

“No, but I should think they might make balloons or airplanes,”
replied Tom.

“’Twould be more appropriate,” agreed Rawlins, “but instead they make
boats! Carry the lumber up that stairway--it’s called ‘The
Ladder’--build the boats in the crater and lower ’em over the mountain
side just as if they were launching ’em from a ship.”

“Oh, you’re just kidding us!” declared Tom, “That’s too big a yarn!”

“True, nevertheless,” his father, who had drawn near, assured him.
“I’ve heard of it before.”

“’Course it’s true!” avowed the diver. “And there are a lot of other
blamed funny things about Saba that are true. All the folks keep their
coffins in their houses and look after ’em just like the other
furniture and most of the young men are sailors. I know two or three
who are mates of big transatlantic liners. And the town’s so high up
they can grow potatoes and strawberries and such things there.”

“But who do they sell them to?” asked Frank.

“Take ’em over to St. Kitts mostly,” Rawlins told him.

“Well, I’d like to go there,” declared Tom. “Don’t you suppose they
saw the airplane? If they’re so high up, they might have got a good
view of it.”

“Sure they might,” agreed Rawlins. “But if they did, the folks on
Statia did too, and it’s no easy job landing at Saba--no dock or
harbor--just a tiny strip of pebbly beach among the rocks. It’s
impossible to go ashore if there’s any sea running.”

“I call that too bad!” said Frank. “I suppose there’s nothing very odd
or interesting about Statia.”

“Well, I guess it’s not so interesting as Saba,” admitted the diver.
“But it’s pretty interesting if you know it’s history. It’s the first
place where the American flag was saluted and during the Revolutionary
War it was the richest and busiest port in the world. And the biggest
auction the world’s ever seen was held there. You’ll not see any ships
or warehouses to speak of at Orange Town now, but you’ll see the
remains of the old ones.”

“Then why was it given up?” asked Tom.

“’Twasn’t!” laughed Rawlins. “At least, not purposely. You see, during
the Revolution, Statia, being Dutch and a free port, was used as a
clearing place for the French, British, and Americans. It was neutral,
and all the goods going in or out of the West Indies were sent there
and stored until called for by ships. But the English sent a warship
and seized everything, and then auctioned off the whole lot--ships and
merchandise both--and of course, the business was never resumed.”

“How do you happen to know so much about all these places, may I ask?”
inquired Mr. Henderson. “You seem to be a sort of walking gazetteer of
the West Indies.”

Rawlins chuckled. “Well, you see,” he answered, “father was a sea
captain before he took to salvage work and I used to go on trips with
him from the time I was a kid, knee high to a grasshopper. His old
hooker had a West Indian trade route and I saw nearly all the islands
and what I didn’t see for myself he told me about. Then, when I took
to diving I got a lot of work down here.”

“Ah, I understand,” said Mr. Henderson. “And, knowing the islands so
well, could you suggest any one--or several--which would be suitable
as landing places for that plane?”

“Sure,” replied the diver. “He could land at pretty nearly any of
them--or rather near them. There are long stretches of uninhabited
coast on all. Even Barbados, which is the most densely inhabited, has
plenty of places where a plane could slip in and none be wiser--only
they’d see him coming and run like blazes to watch him come down. No,
I don’t expect he’ll try landing near any of the big islands. More
likely he’d pick some small cay or outlying islet--there are several
around Martinique and Guadeloupe and--by glory, yes! There’s Aves.
Great Scott! I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Aves!” repeated Mr. Pauling, questioningly. “You mean the place down
off the Venezuelan coast--‘The pleasant Isle of Aves’--in the old
pirate song?”

“No, another one,” replied Rawlins. “A tiny bit of land about one
hundred miles west of Dominica in the middle of the Caribbean. It’s an
ideal spot. Not an inhabitant; flat as a table--although that’s no
advantage with a sea plane--and out of the course of all shipping.
I’ve a hunch that’s his place.”

Mr. Pauling laughed. “Your hunches are coming thick and fast,
Rawlins,” he said. “Is this one so strong you want to shift our course
for the island?”

The diver grinned. “Not quite,” he replied. “But if we get on his
trail and it looks like Aves I’m for it.”

“Well, we’ll soon know if he passed Statia,” remarked Tom. “We’re
almost there.”




CHAPTER II

A CRY FOR HELP


As the destroyer drew into the little port of Orange Town, it seemed
as if every inhabitant of the quaint Dutch island had come to the
waterfront to welcome her, for the arrival of any ship, let alone a
destroyer, was a remarkable event in Statia. Since the little warship
was now visiting the island for the second time within a fortnight,
the people felt as if their island must be becoming famous.

No sooner had the party landed from the cutter than Rawlins began
questioning the natives in regard to the seaplane, but for some time
no one could be found who had seen it. The diver was just about to
give up and had declared his belief that the plane had not passed the
island, when a gray-headed, broad-faced old man, whose yellow skin and
kinky hair betokened negro blood and whose features and blue eyes were
thoroughly Dutch, pushed through the crowd and told Rawlins he had
seen the machine passing over.

To the diver’s questions the old man replied that he had been working
on his little plantation on the windward side of the island when he
had heard a strange noise and, glancing up, had been amazed to see
something like a huge bird flying far overhead. For a time he could
not imagine what it was and then he remembered the pictures and
accounts of airplanes he had seen in the illustrated papers that
arrived at Statia at rare intervals and realized that he was actually
gazing upon one of the marvelous things which he had always half
believed were impossible. In fact, he added, he had come to town for
the sole purpose of relating his story to his friends, but all had
scoffed at him and had declared he had been mistaken.

“Not a bit of it!” cried Rawlins. “You saw one all right, my friend.
What direction was the plane going?”

The old man was not sure, for his mind had been so fully occupied with
the wonder of the sight that he had not noted its course, but after a
deal of thinking he decided it had been bound for St. Kitts.

“Well, that knocks out my theory about Aves a bit,” declared Rawlins.
“But there are plenty of spots around St. Kitts where he could have
landed or he might have gone on to Nevis. Now let’s get up to the
hospital and see that old walrus of a Dutch captain.”

As they walked towards the tiny hospital, the boys expressed surprise
that there seemed to be no damage from the hurricane.

“Out of its track,” explained Rawlins. “Remember, I told you those
hurricanes are narrow. Of course, there’s got to be an edge to ’em
some place, and besides, they follow pretty regular routes. I’ll bet
St. Kitts got it, and yet over here--only a few miles away--they never
felt it.”

When they reached the hospital all hopes of securing information from
the skipper of the tramp were abandoned, however, for the attendants
told the Americans that the Dutch sea captain had been taken away the
previous day by some friends who had called for him.

“That’s blamed funny!” exclaimed Rawlins. “They told me down in the
town that no ship had been in port since the hurricane.”

“Hmm,” mused Mr. Pauling. “Perhaps they were friends living on the
island.” Then, turning to the young doctor who was in charge, he
asked, “What sort of men were they? Can you describe them? Did they
mention how they arrived here?”

“Why, no, I did not ask,” replied the interne, who spoke perfect
English. “I assumed they came in a vessel--small sloops and schooners
often put in from St. Kitts and there are packets coming here from
Curacao. They seemed to be seafaring men--not Hollanders, though. One
was a heavily built man with a red beard--German or Russian I should
say. The other was an American, I think--or possibly English--tall,
and very broad, with a smooth face and dark hair.”

Mr. Pauling and the others glanced at one another with knowing looks,
and an exclamation of surprise escaped from Mr. Pauling’s lips.

“I’ll say they were his friends!” cried Rawlins, as the party, after
thanking the doctor, left the hospital. “And not far away right now.
Beat us by twenty-four hours, but, by glory, we’ve picked up their
trail!”

“But how could they get here?” asked Tom. “They didn’t come in the
airplane or by a ship.”

“By the sub, of course!” replied the diver. “I told you I’d bet she
got clear before the old tramp blew up. And now they’re hiking off to
meet that plane.”

“If they haven’t already met her,” put in Mr. Henderson. “Rawlins, I’m
beginning to have as much faith in your hunches as Pauling.”

“Well, it’s up to us to find out,” insisted the diver. “It’ll be a
hard job to trail the sub, but as long as the High Cockalorum is up in
the air, we can keep tabs on him. Let’s get a move on and strike over
to St. Kitts. The faster we get after those boys the better.”

“But how could the sub come in here without being seen?” asked Frank.

“Couldn’t,” responded Rawlins tersely, “but a small boat from her
could. Or maybe they landed at St. Kitts and came over in a sloop.
We’ll find out down at the bayside.”

“That’s one advantage of a small place where every one knows every one
else and visitors are rare,” remarked Mr. Pauling when, after a few
questions, they learned that the red-bearded stranger and his
companion had arrived in a small schooner and had departed in the same
vessel with the Dutch sea captain.

“Yes, these islands are mighty poor places for crooks,” agreed Mr.
Henderson. “I imagine that’s why every one is so honest and crime is
so rare.”

A few moments later they reached the destroyer, and as they stepped
aboard Commander Disbrow approached.

“I have a bit of news that may interest you, Mr. Pauling,” he
announced. “We picked up the _Guiana_--Furness liner, you
know--and had a chat with her. Never thought of getting any news of
your man--just wanted data on the hurricane--and she reports having
sighted an airplane, or rather a sea plane, to the south of
Montserrat. Said they thought it a United States machine and tried to
signal it but had no response. Reported it as flying south--apparently
bound for Guadeloupe or Dominica and about three thousand feet up.”

“Bully for you!” Cried Rawlins enthusiastically. “That saves us a
jaunt over to St. Kitts or Nevis. When did the _Guiana_ sight
it?”

“About five o’clock last night,” replied the Commander.

“Then he was pretty near his landing place!” declared the diver. “He
couldn’t go on after dark. Come on, Commander, let’s beat it for
Guadeloupe!”

Half an hour later Statia was scarcely more than a blue cloud on the
horizon and St. Kitts loomed hazy and indistinct, while the towering
conical volcanic cone of Nevis lay to the eastward.

Although the boys had been disappointed at not being able to visit
these fascinating islands, they had learned much about them from
Rawlins and Commander Disbrow. They had heard about the abandoned
forts on Brimstone Hill at St. Kitts and about the troops of monkeys
which haunt the old barracks and parapets. They had learned, also, for
the first time in their lives, that Nevis was the birthplace of
Alexander Hamilton and was famous as the spot where Admiral Nelson had
been married. But such matters of historical interest appealed far
less to the boys than Rawlins’ story of the submerged city of
Jamestown which was destroyed by an earthquake and sank below the sea
in 1689.

“Say, wouldn’t it be fun to go down there in a diving suit and
look around!” said Tom, when the diver had described how the
coral-encrusted ruins could still be seen through the water on calm
days.

“Yep,” agreed Rawlins. “I’ve often kind of hankered to have a look at
it--and at Port Royal, over in Jamaica. That slid into the sea one
day--with a lot of treasure in it, too. It used to be a regular
hang-out for the pirates and the whole shooting match went under
during an earthquake in 1692. Some considerable spell of time since
then, but I shouldn’t wonder if a diver could find something there.”

“Gee, I wouldn’t like to live down here where towns have the habit of
getting drowned,” declared Frank.

Mr. Pauling laughed. “People who live in earthquake or volcanic
countries become accustomed to such things,” he said. “Even St.
Pierre, Martinique, where nearly forty thousand people were killed, is
being built up and inhabited again, I hear.”

A little later, land was reported ahead and through their glasses the
boys saw a rounded, gray mass breaking the sea line. This, the
Commander told them, was Redonda, and he added that it was an
isolated, barren rock, whose only inhabitants were the lighthouse
keeper and a small company of laborers who were employed in gathering
the phosphate rock.

Then, beyond, and so green that, as Tom said, it looked like a bit of
green velvet, the island of Montserrat gradually rose above the
horizon before the speeding destroyer.

“Gosh, that _is_ an emerald isle!” exclaimed Frank.

“Yes, and a little Ireland too,” agreed Rawlins. “If you went ashore
there, you’d think you were dreaming. Every one of the niggers speaks
with a brogue and there are Mulvaneys and Dennises and Muldoons as
black as the ace of spades and some of them with red hair. You see,
Montserrat was settled originally by the Irish and the brogue and the
names have come down through generations.”

“It seems to me we’re leaving all the most interesting places without
seeing them,” said Frank regretfully. “I’d like mighty well to see
Irish negroes.”

“You must remember we’re neither on a pleasure cruise or a joy ride,”
Mr. Pauling reminded him. “And you’re fortunate even to see the
islands.”

Then, turning to Rawlins, he asked, “Have you definite plans in view,
Rawlins? I suppose there is no use in stopping at Montserrat as long
as the _Guiana_ reported the plane south of there.”

“No, I’m going to ask you to let the Commander just hustle the old
girl right along and radio Guadeloupe for information. He ought to be
able to get it now. If they sighted the plane, we’ll have to try
Dominica, but there’s no radio station there and I’m still betting on
Aves. You remember, about that looting of the bank at Dominica? Well,
if they had a hang-out at Aves, that would have been dead easy. I
think, unless we hear he passed Guadeloupe headed away from it, that
we’ll hike to Aves without stopping.”

Mr. Pauling chuckled. “It seems to me that Henderson and I are
scarcely more than accessories now,” he declared. “Everything seems to
have fallen into your hands. But that’s quite right, Rawlins. You know
the islands and we don’t, and we’re following your hunch, you know.”

A few moments later, Bancroft, the wireless operator, appeared. “We
got Guadeloupe, Sir,” he informed Mr. Pauling. “They have no report of
an airship.”

“By glory, then ’tis Aves!” cried Rawlins. “There isn’t another spot
he could have made before dark last night.”

“Unless he came down at some out of the way part of Guadeloupe,” put
in Mr. Henderson. “I’ve been talking with Disbrow and he says it’s a
wild, little known coast, with few inhabitants.”

“Yes,” agreed the diver. “But I figure this way. That’s not the first
time the Old Boy has used a plane--and you can’t grab a seaplane at
any old time and place when the spirit moves you. No, he keeps that
machine for emergencies or uses it as a regular thing between certain
bases of his own and, even if he _could_ make a landing at
Guadeloupe or one of the inhabited islands without being seen, he
couldn’t keep the plane there unknown to any one. That’s why I’m
strong on the Aves hunch. He could have anything he wanted there, and
none the wiser.”

“Your reasoning is sound,” declared Mr. Pauling, “and I agree with
you. When should we reach Aves?”

“We could make it to-night,” replied the Commander, to whom Mr.
Pauling had addressed the last query, “but I’d prefer to slow down and
make it by daybreak--its a mere speck and scarcely ten feet above
water and there’s a risk in running for it in the dark.”

“Yes, by all means, wait for dawn,” assented Mr. Pauling. “We could
accomplish nothing at night and if there are men there, our lights
might warn them.”

Accordingly, the destroyer slowed down and with the vast bulk of
Guadeloupe stretching for miles along the eastern horizon, the little
vessel slid easily through the sea towards her goal. As usual,
Bancroft or one of the boys constantly listened at the radio
receivers, but no sounds, save the messages passing between two
distant merchant ships, came in.

With the first faint streaks of light upon the eastern sky, the
destroyer picked up speed and tore southward for the tiny speck of
land that lay below the horizon ahead. The forward gun was manned and
ready for emergencies; the two boys and their companions peered
anxiously through the gray dawn for a first glimpse of the sought-for
islet, and all thrilled with expectancy and excitement.

“There ’tis!” cried Rawlins, who was the first to catch a glimpse of
the tiny gray smudge that broke the even level of the sea’s rim.

Instantly, all glasses were focused on the spot and rapidly it rose
and took form as a low, flat-topped bit of land, rimmed with white
surf and with clouds of sea birds wheeling above it. So low was the
island that within half an hour of first sighting it, the destroyer
was as close to it as the Commander dared approach and all were
anxiously searching the desolate spot for some sign of life or of the
plane.

“Looks as if your hunch were wrong for once, Rawlins,” said Mr.
Pauling. “I don’t see a sign of anything but bare rock and birds.”

“Well, it’s all-fired funny,” declared the diver, “but I’m not sure
even yet. Maybe the plane’s on the other side of the island or in some
cove. I won’t be satisfied until I’ve searched every inch of the
place.”

But when, a few minutes later, they landed upon this isolated, almost
unknown bit of forsaken land and were almost deafened by the screams,
cries, and protests of the countless thousands of gulls, terns,
gannets, pelicans and boobies that made it their home, the island
seemed absolutely devoid of all traces of human beings. Rawlins,
however, insisted there was no other place where the sea plane could
have found a resting place for the night and he searched here, there
and everywhere.

Finally, when the party had almost completed the circuit of the little
ten-acre spot, the diver, who was in advance, gave a shout.

“I’ll say they were here!” he announced as the others hurried to where
he stood at the head of a deep indentation or cove in the rocky shore.
“Look here,” he continued, pointing to the bit of sandy beach, “a
boat’s been pulled up on the sand here within the last twenty-four
hours and there are their empty gasolene tins. Guess my hunch wasn’t
so far wrong after all.”

“Hmm,” muttered Mr. Pauling, as he examined the marks on the beach and
sniffed at the empty tin cans. “I’ll have to admit your hunch was
right, but it doesn’t do us much good. Our birds have flown.”

“Yes, hang it all!” exclaimed Rawlins. “They probably saw us coming
and cleared out, but they’ll have to land again somewhere.”

“That’s quite true and all very well,” agreed Mr. Pauling, “but we
haven’t the least idea where or when. No, it’s no use trying to chase
all over the Caribbean after them. There’s nothing to do but go back
and await future developments. I’m willing to admit we’ve been
beaten.”

“Yes, the gang’s broken up and the tramp and their big submarine
destroyed. I doubt if they’ll give further trouble,” said Mr.
Henderson. “I think we’ve succeeded in accomplishing a great deal as
it is.”

While they were talking, they approached the waiting cutter. Suddenly
a screeching roar from the destroyer’s siren drowned the clamor of the
birds.

“Jove! What’s that for?” exclaimed Mr. Henderson. “Hello, Disbrow’s
signaling. Can you read the wigwag message, Rawlins?”

The diver stared fixedly at the figure of a sailor standing clearly
outlined on the destroyer’s bridge and rapidly waving the little flags
in an endeavor to convey some message to those on the island.

“Come a-b-o-a-r-d,” translated Rawlins, as the flags flashed up and
down. “I-m-p-o-r-t-a-n-t n-e-w-s.”

“By glory!” he ejaculated, as the sailor finished and the message
ended. “What in blazes has he seen?”

Rapidly, they hurried to the boat, scrambled in, and were soon
speeding towards the destroyer, all impatient to learn what had
occurred to cause them to be summoned and utterly at a loss as to what
the “important news” could be.

“Great Scott, but he’s in a hurry!” cried Rawlins, as the sound of the
anchor winch and the rattle of incoming cable reached them. “He’s
getting in his anchors already. And he’s pacing up and down as if the
deck were red hot. I wonder what’s up!”

“It’s an S. O. S.!” announced the Commander, as Mr. Pauling gained the
deck, “and it might mean anything. Came in ‘S. O. S.--submarine’ and
then stopped short. Not another word.”

Before he had ceased speaking, the destroyer’s screws were churning
the water and the island was rapidly slipping away.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Mr. Pauling. “Looks as if these men were up to
their old game! But where was the ship when she called? Do you know
her position?”

“No, only in a general way,” replied the Commander. “Bancroft got the
message by accident--was overhauling the radio compass when he picked
it up. That’s the only way we know even the direction. They’re
southwest, that’s all we know.”

“I’ll say that’s important news!” cried Rawlins. “That shows the sub’s
still afloat, but I’d like to know what the dickens became of the
plane.”

“Do you think they really sank a ship?” asked Tom. “Why, they can’t
expect to get away with that sort of thing!”

“Of course, they did,” declared Mr. Pauling. “Otherwise the vessel
would not have sent the S. O. S. and the very fact that the message
was cut off shows they did. Poor fellows! They never had a chance and
we may be too late to save them now. As for getting away with it,
these men are desperate--utterly unprincipled, as you know. Nothing
they can do will make their plight any worse. They’ve sunk ships
before--so why not again?”

“But why should they?” persisted Tom. “I should think they’d just be
trying to get away, not stopping to sink ships.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” declared Rawlins. “The whole thing’s
blamed funny. I’ve a hunch it’s all a blind. I’ll bet that message was
sent by the sub or the plane just to get us away from here--or
something.”

“Hunches or not, I’m not taking chances,” declared the Commander
stiffly. “If I get an S. O. S. I answer.”

“Righto!” exclaimed the diver. “Glad you do. And, if luck’s with us,
we may get there in time to sight the sub and kill two birds with one
stone.”

But to find a ship or its survivors when its exact latitude and
longitude are known and to find such a tiny speck upon the broad ocean
when only its general direction is known are two very different
matters. So meager had been the sudden call for aid which had reached
the destroyer that no one could say whether the ship that sent it had
been five or fifty miles away and as there had been no time in which
to move the loop antenna of the radio compass about until the exact
direction was determined, the chances of the destroyer’s finding the
vessel or any of her company were very remote. Throughout the day and
all through the night the destroyer searched, steaming in circles and
with her powerful searchlights sweeping the sea.

In the hopes that another signal might yet come in, men were kept
constantly at the radio instruments listening and sending forth
messages, but the only replies received were from far distant ships
asking what the trouble was. To all of these the operators gave what
little information they had and asked if others had heard the frenzied
call for help. But only one had, a tramp bound from Cuba for Curacao,
and unlike the destroyer she had received the S. O. S. by her regular
antenna and so could not know the direction whence it came.

“Well, some of those ships may pick up the poor rascals,” said Mr.
Henderson when on the following morning Commander Disbrow reported the
messages which had been exchanged. “But it’s odd none of them heard
the call except that tramp.”

“I think that proves the vessel was near us,” declared Tom. “If Mr.
Bancroft got it on the loop and they couldn’t hear it on their regular
aerials, the message must have been sent from very close.”

“Yes, that’s quite true,” agreed Mr. Henderson. “But it doesn’t make
matters much simpler. Even a few square miles of sea is a big place.”

“You said it!” exclaimed Rawlins. “And a blamed sight bigger to the
poor beggars hanging on to wreckage or in a small boat than to us. But
I still have an idea it was a blind. That would account for those
ships not getting it.”

“I don’t just see what you mean,” said Mr. Pauling.

“Why, if it was sent from the sub or the plane, it would be a weak
message and wouldn’t go far and it may have been sent from within half
a mile of the island. Yes, by glory!--Come to think of it, they might
have been right there alongside and just sent that message from
underwater!”

“Jove, I hadn’t thought of that!” admitted Mr. Pauling. “I wonder--”

Before he could complete his sentence, the deep-throated cry of the
lookout rang through the little ship, and at his words all crowded to
the rails and peered ahead.

“Small boat two points off the starboard bow!” was the sailor’s shout.




CHAPTER III

THE CASTAWAYS


Very small and pitiful appeared the tiny speck bobbing up and down
upon that wide expanse of restless sea in the faint morning light. But
rapidly it took on form as the destroyer slid hissing through the
sparkling water toward it. Through their glasses the boys could see
that it was a ship’s lifeboat filled with men and that one of the
occupants was standing up and wildly waving a bit of cloth fastened to
an oar.

“I’ll say they’re mighty glad to see us!” exclaimed Rawlins. “By
gravy, it makes me think of war times again! Confound those sneaking
Bolsheviks, they’re as bad as the Huns.”

“Worse,” declared Mr. Pauling tersely. “The Germans had the excuse of
war and these rascals are merely cutthroats. I wonder if this boat’s
the only one that escaped.”

“We’ll know in a moment,” said Mr. Henderson. “Lucky we found
them--there wasn’t one chance in a million. Things like this make the
most skeptical believe in the Almighty.”

“And the fact that that bunch on the sub get away with it makes a
fellow believe in Satan as well,” supplemented the diver.

A moment later the destroyer’s engines ceased to throb; she slipped
gently through the waves, and presently was resting motionless, rising
and falling, while the ocean castaways bent to the oars and pulled
around in her lee.

Then a coil of line spun from the hands of a waiting bluejacket, the
man in the bow of the lifeboat caught it and the next instant the
haggard-faced occupants of the little craft were being helped over the
destroyer’s rail.

There were twenty-two in all--a motley, cosmopolitan lot, the typical
crew of a modern steamship. Tow-headed, broad-faced Scandinavians;
sallow, black-haired, blue-cheeked Spaniards, whose greasy trousers
and grimy faces marked them as wipers, firemen and engine room crew; a
few swarthy Italians; one or two who might have been of almost any
nationality; two colored men; and a broad-shouldered, ruddy-faced
individual with keen, pale blue eyes who was evidently in command.

“Strike me pink, but we’re lucky beggars!” exclaimed the latter, as he
leaped on to the destroyer’s deck.

“Are you the captain?” asked Commander Disbrow. “Glad to have saved
you. We got your radio yesterday morning, but had little chance of
finding you. More luck than anything else. All your crew accounted
for?”

The Englishman drew himself up and saluted in true naval style. “No,
Sir,” he exclaimed. “I’m the chief officer, ship _Devonshire_,
Liverpool for Trinidad and Demerara. Captain Masters lost ’is life,
Sir--defending ’is ship, Sir.”

“Brave man!” exclaimed Mr. Pauling. “Went down with his ship, I
suppose.”

The Englishman turned and looked at him in surprise. “Whatever do you
mean, Sir?” he exclaimed. “Bless us, the ship wasn’t sunk, Sir.
Captain Masters was shot down on his bridge, Sir.”

“The ship wasn’t sunk!” cried Mr. Pauling. “Then why are you adrift in
a small boat and why did you send an S. O. S. and what _did_
occur? Come, let’s get this matter straightened out at once!”

“The ship was took, Sir. Made a prize of by the bloody
submarine--begging your pardon for the word, Sir. It was this way,
Sir. The dirty beggars never gave us arf a chance--played a dirty Hun
trick on us, the swine! You see, Sir, we sighted a drifting boat full
of men and bore down and took them abroad, Sir, and no sooner were
they over the rail than they whips out their revolvers and orders our
’ands up. Blow me for a bloomin’ fish if we wasn’t took that by
surprise, Sir, that we does it, Sir. All but the Captain and ‘Sparks.’
They were looking on--you know all hands always crowds the rails to
see what’s going on when a boat’s picked up, Sir--and it was all over
in a minute. No sooner had they stuck us up than the bloomin’ sub bobs
up. With that we was all aback and that dazed, with the suddenness of
it and the sub and all, that we don’t rightly know what to make of it,
Sir. And then ‘Sparks’ makes a dash for his room and Captain Masters
fires at the dirty swine just as one of them jumps after ‘Sparks.’ I
see, poor ‘Sparks’ stagger and lurch into his door and the bloomin’
beggar what shot him drops and the next second there’s a rifle shot
from the sub and Captain Masters springs up and pitches into the sea,
Sir. You say you got a radio from the ship, Sir? Then ‘Sparks’ must
’ave got it off before he died, Sir.”

“Yes, yes!” cried Mr. Pauling. “That accounts for the message ending
half finished; but go on, what happened after the captain and the
operator were shot?”

“Why, the blinkin’ bloomin’ devils just lined us up and ordered us
into a boat and sent a crew abroad the _Devonshire_ from the sub.
And just afore they steamed off an left us, Sir, strike me purple hif
a bloomin’ airplane didn’t show up! Blow me, but I thought we was
saved, Sir. But instead of savin’ of us the blighted plane parses us
by and goes along of the ship, Sir, and there we was adrift in an open
boat with only a gallon of water and no provisions and no compass and
a makin’ up our minds to face death and old Davy Jones like proper
British sea-man--though only five of us was British--when we sights
your little ship, Sir.”

“What course did they steer?” snapped out Commander Disbrow.

“About south by east--as near as I could judge by the sun, Sir,”
replied the officer.

The next instant, sharp, quick orders had been given, and, as if shot
from a bow, the destroyer leaped into sudden speed and surged through
the sea towards the south.

Then, as the rescued men were half starved and worn out, the questions
which Mr. Pauling and his friends were so anxious to ask were put off
until the latest victims of the dastardly “reds” could be fed and
rested.

Twenty-four hours in an open boat, (twelve of them under a blazing
tropical sun), without food and with but a gallon of water for
twenty-two men, might kill the average landsmen, but the survivors of
the _Devonshire_ seemed to be affected very little by the
hardships of their experience and declared that a hearty meal and a
few hours’ rest were all they needed to make them “perfectly fit” as
Robinson, the chief-officer, put it.

While they were resting, Mr. Pauling and his companions were busily
discussing this latest exploit of the men they were trying to run down
and by deduction and reasoning were striving to fathom the “reds”
object in taking possession of the _Devonshire_ as well as their
next moves.

“My opinion is that they are making for some port in order to escape
unsuspected,” declared Mr. Henderson. “They had no refuge they could
reach in the submarine or seaplane when they found us hot on their
trail and approaching Aves. But by steaming boldly into port with a
freight steamer, they could then desert and scatter without arousing
suspicions until they had disappeared.”

“That’s my idea also,” affirmed Mr. Pauling. “But I’m at a loss to
understand why they should continue to use the plane. If that appeared
at any port, it would at once attract attention. I should have
imagined that they would have sunk it or destroyed it and would all
have taken to the _Devonshire_.”

“Perhaps they did--later,” suggested Mr. Henderson, “but they cannot
escape us. They have only twenty-four hours’ start, we can make twice
the freighter’s speed, and the nearest port is a good thirty-six or
forty hours’ run in the direction they steamed.”

“Yes, but don’t count on their keeping that course,” said Rawlins.
“They’re foxy guys and they may have steered south by east just to
fool those boys in the boat. As soon as hull down they may have swung
to east or west--or even turned on their tracks and headed north.
Darned funny they were decent enough not to murder the whole crew. And
my idea about the plane is that they’re using her for a scout to warn
them of other ships. From a few thousand feet up, the pilot of the
plane can spot a ship way below the horizon and the _Devonshire_
can keep clear of ’em. Why, by glory! they could probably spot us and
know we’re following them. I’ll say we’ve got some job cut out for us,
if we’re going to try to run ’em down. And when it gets dark they can
slip away, easy as is. Now I don’t want to butt in all the time, but
my idea would be to fight them with their own weapons--play their own
game and fool ’em. If we shift our course as if we’d given up or were
on the wrong track and send out a few fake radio messages, they’ll
think we’ve given up and they’ll beat it for some port. Then, by
tipping off the port authorities, they can nab the bunch when they
arrive.”

“Hmm,” muttered Mr. Pauling. “A very good plan, Rawlins, except for
one or two flaws in it. For example, if we tip off the authorities,
what is to prevent those on the _Devonshire_ from hearing the
messages and acting accordingly? And if we don’t know the course
they’re actually taking, how can we shift ours in such a way as to
make them feel sure we have abandoned the chase? Finally, how will we
know what port they intend entering? They might sail for Europe or
Asia or the South Seas, for all we know.”

“Well, you’ve stumped me on the first question, I admit,” chuckled the
diver. “That’s your business Mr. Pauling--have to use some cipher I
suppose. But the others are easy. If we send radio messages to some
nearby port that we’re coming in--asking to have supplies or stores
ready, for instance--those Bolsheviks will bite all right. And as far
as knowing what port they’ll head for is concerned, if they think
they’re not being chased they’ll go to the port where there’s the
least danger and that’s where the ship’s papers are made out
for--Trinidad or Demerara.”

“By Jove! I don’t know but what you’re right,” exclaimed Mr. Pauling.
“I think I can arrange the cipher messages--in fact, in confidence, I
can let you know that a code was all arranged long before we left St.
Thomas. Every executive of every British and French colony down here
knows it. We had reasons for not giving it to the Dutch in view of the
suspicious actions of that Dutch tramp--and I’ll guarantee if the
_Devonshire_ puts into any British or French port, our piratical
‘reds’ will find they’ve stepped into a trap that’s set and baited.”

By the time Robinson reappeared on deck, looking a very different
being from the haggard, dull-eyed seaman who had been rescued from the
_Devonshire’s_ boat, Mr. Pauling had conferred with Commander
Disbrow and plans had been made in accordance with Rawlins’
suggestion. Robinson, when told of this, agreed with the diver that
doubtless the “reds” intended sailing the _Devonshire_ boldly
into some port and then slipping away, one at a time. He also declared
that he believed they would steam for either Trinidad or Demerara, as
the ship’s papers were made out for those ports. In order to consult
with him and secure his opinions, it was of course necessary to
acquaint him somewhat with the activities of the fugitives, but he
asked no questions and made no effort to learn more of Mr. Pauling’s
mission than the latter saw fit to divulge.

“Was the _Devonshire_ ever in Trinidad or Demerara, Mr.
Robinson?” inquired Mr. Pauling. “That is, with Captain Masters and
the other officers in command?”

“Not as far as I know,” replied the other. “I’ve been on her for three
years and this is my first trip out here. She’s always been in the
East Indian trade heretofore.”

“Ah, then that makes it still easier for the rascals,” commented Mr.
Pauling. “They can readily pass themselves off for the ship’s
officers. By the way, can you describe the appearance of any of the
men who boarded the ship?”

“Strike me, Sir, but I was too struck ’twixt wind and water to take
note of their appearance,” declared the officer. “I do remember one
who appeared to be in command, however--a big chappie with a red
beard.”

“That’s the one!” cried Rawlins. “By glory, I’d like to get my hands
on him!”

“So would I, old thing,” declared Robinson. “But why the bally pirates
let us free is a stumper for me. They might have known some ship might
pick us up and we’d give the bloomin’ gaff away.”

“Yes, that is a puzzle,” agreed Mr. Henderson, “but I suppose even men
of their type have a limit to the murders they commit.”

It had been decided to make for Dominica, partly because it was the
nearest British island and the survivors of the _Devonshire_
could be cared for there, and partly because Mr. Pauling and Mr.
Henderson were anxious to see and talk with the officials regarding
the looting of the bank, which had occurred some time before and which
they believed had been done by the same gang of rascals they were
trailing.

By the middle of the afternoon land was sighted, an opalescent, hazy
mass topped by great banks of clouds and looking, as Tom expressed it,
“more like a dream island than real land.”

As the destroyer drew rapidly nearer and sky-piercing peaks, vast blue
gorges, endless forest-clad mountains, and wonderful golden-green
valleys appeared, it looked more and more like a dream or a phantasy,
for the boys could hardly believe that anything real could be so
beautiful. Still it was far away and as the little warship slid
smoothly through the incredibly blue sea that showed scarcely a wave
in the massive island’s lee, the boys stood gazing steadfastly at this
most picturesque and lovely of all the lovely Caribbean islands.

“Gosh, but I’m glad we decided to come here!” exclaimed Frank as
Rawlins joined them at the rail. “When you told us back at Statia that
St. Kitts couldn’t compare with Dominica I thought you were just
joking, but gee, this is simply wonderful!”

“I’ll say ’tis!” replied the diver. “Every time I see it I get a new
thrill. And you’ll find it mighty interesting, too. It was right off
Dominica that Rodney licked the French and changed the history of the
West Indies. There’s a mountain lake in a crater and an active volcano
called the Boiling Lake here and over on the other side there’s an
Indian settlement where the last pure-blooded Caribs in the West
Indies live.”

“Oh, I do hope we stay long enough to see some of the place!” cried
Tom.

“Why couldn’t we have been here instead of at St. Thomas or St. John?”

“Perhaps, if you’d radioed the skipper of the Dutch tramp or the
red-bearded chap, they might have accommodated you and come here,”
laughed Mr. Pauling who had approached. “But, joking aside, I’d like
to see more of Dominica myself. It’s certainly a glorious sight.”

“What do they raise here?” asked Mr. Henderson, who had also joined
the group.

“Limes mostly,” replied Rawlins. “The famous Rose lime juice all comes
from Dominica. Father used to come here regularly for green limes and
juice. It’s the biggest lime producing country in the world, I’ve
heard him say.”

“Oh, I see the town!” cried Frank. “Right there at the mouth of that
big valley!”

“Yes, that’s Roseau,” said Rawlins. “Not much of a town, but with a
mighty fine botanic station. And you’ll find the natives interesting,
too. Lots of them still wear the old creole dress and they all speak a
queer Frenchy sort of lingo called Patois.”

“Why, I thought it was an English island,” exclaimed Tom.

“So ’tis,” the diver assured him. “But lots of the people don’t speak
English. It’s been French and British by turn and it’s between two
French islands--Guadeloupe and Martinique--and the country people and
most of the town’s people are more French than British.”

The island was now in plain view and as the sun sank into the west,
the great masses of clouds above the deep green mountains turned
slowly to gold and then to rosy pink; the vast gorges and ravines took
on shades of violet and deep purple; the sea appeared like a sheet of
amethyst, and as the destroyer slowly lost headway and her anchor
plunged overboard, a magnificent rainbow sprang as if by magic from
mountain side to mountain side, spanning the valley with a
multicolored bridge.

Even before the destroyer’s anchor had splashed into the sea and the
rattle and roar of her chains echoed from the hills, she was
surrounded by a flotilla of gayly painted small boats. Some were
ordinary rowboats, but many were queer-looking little craft, like big
canoes with projecting bows like the rams of old style warships and
one and all were manned by pleasant-faced, brown-skinned natives who
gabbled and chattered in a strange, utterly unintelligible jargon. But
before the boys had more than a glimpse of the boats and their
occupants, they were forced to scurry under cover, as from a clear sky
rain poured down in torrents, blotting out the distant mountains and
veiling the near-by quay and town with a white curtain.

“Golly!” exclaimed Tom. “It’s pouring cats and dogs and there wasn’t a
cloud overhead.”

Rawlins laughed. “That’s Dominica all right!” he replied. “Rainiest
spot in the world, I guess. My father used to say they measured the
rainfall here by yards and not by inches.”

“But how can it rain when there are no clouds?” persisted Tom, to whom
this phenomenon was most mystifying.

“I think I can explain that,” volunteered Commander Disbrow. “It’s the
moisture laden air from the Atlantic blowing across these
forest-covered mountains. The moisture is condensed and falls as rain
before it has time to gather in a vapor and form clouds. I’ve seen the
same thing in the Azores.”

But now the rain had ceased as abruptly as it had begun and presently
the ship’s cutter was in the water. Five minutes later the boys
stepped ashore at the little stone and concrete pier.

While Mr. Pauling, Mr. Henderson and Commander Disbrow turned up the
hill towards Government House, the two boys and Rawlins strolled
through the quaint little town and entered the big botanic station.
Never had Tom and Frank been so delighted or so enthusiastic over new
and strange sights as in Roseau, for it was utterly unlike anything
they had ever seen or imagined. The chattering colored women in their
long, trailing, stiffly starched, gaudy dresses with brilliant silk
foulards or kerchiefs about their necks and their jaunty, rainbow-hued
turbans gave a very foreign, out-of-the-world effect to the spot. The
narrow cobbled streets, with the open ditches, filled with swiftly
flowing water; the French names over the shops and stores; and the
wooden houses with outjutting balconies forming shelters for great
casks of lime juice, trays of cacao beans, and diminutive native
ponies--all lent a most picturesque touch to the place. The boys even
declared that the miserable huts with their walls made partly from
discarded kerosene tins and rusty corrugated iron and which were oddly
sandwiched in between the good buildings only added to the attractions
of the little town.

But when they reached the gardens and strolled along the perfectly
kept drives and walks between broad green lawns dotted with every
imaginable tropic shrub, palm, and flower, and wandered through dark
avenues of clove, nutmeg and cinnamon trees, with the air heavy with
the mingled odors of orchids, jasmine and spices, they could not find
words to express their appreciation.

“Gee, a fellow could wander here for a week and not see it all!”
declared Tom.

“And say, wouldn’t it be just great to ride up that valley into the
mountains?” cried Frank. “Golly, it looks wild and interesting.”

“It is,” Rawlins assured him. “Maybe you’ll have a chance to try it.
You can go to the Mountain lake and back in a day and anyway you can
climb up Morne Bruce here to-morrow morning and have a fine view of
the valley.”

Reluctantly, the boys turned back and taking a different route through
the town, reached the waiting boat. To the boys’ intense delight,
although their elders chafed at the delay, Mr. Pauling told them that
he planned to stay in Dominica to await expected news of the
_Devonshire’s_ arrival at Trinidad or Demerara and that he had no
objection to their proposed ride up the valley as it would be
impossible for the _Devonshire_ to reach port within the next
twenty-four hours.

As a result, the enthusiastic boys could scarcely wait to eat
breakfast the next morning, but hurried ashore with Rawlins and found
the ponies, which the diver had ordered through one of the native
boatmen the night before, waiting for them.

Even their boyish imaginations had never prepared them for the
beauties, the constant surprises, the strangeness and the interests of
that ride. They passed for miles beside the tumbling, roaring river
through endless lime orchards; they climbed steep grades that wound
around hillsides glorious with masses of brilliant flowers; they rode
under arches of giant bamboos rising fifty feet above their heads, and
as they mounted higher the way led through forests of stupendous
trees, enormous tree ferns, and tangled, cable-like lianas, where even
at midday, it was like twilight. Often the narrow road wound around
the verges of terrific precipices and, involuntarily, the boys
shuddered and drew back as the sure-footed mountain ponies picked
their way so close to the brink that stones, dislodged by their
passage, went crashing down to the dark forest a thousand feet
beneath. Sometimes too, they halted for brief rests and listened to
the flute-like songs of the “mountain whistler” or watched humming
birds flashing like living gems among the flowers of orchids or
begonias.

Then at last they came out upon the topmost mountain ridge and as the
heavy mist, which Rawlins told them was a cloud, drifted away, they
looked upon a vast sea of forest-covered mountains with a glimmering
little lake nestled among the verdure in a bowl-like crater at their
feet. Here, above the clouds, they ate their lunch and, heedless of
the drenching rain, returned down the mountains late in the afternoon.
As they came out upon the waterfront, they saw smoke pouring from the
funnels of the destroyer.

“Holy mackerel!” exclaimed Rawlins. “They must have heard something.
They’ve got steam up.”

Scarcely had the three scrambled into the waiting cutter, when the
little craft was speeding towards the destroyer and to Rawlins’
questions the petty officer in command replied that the Commander was
only awaiting their arrival before sailing.

No sooner had the cutter left the dock than the roar of the winch
engines and the incoming cable told of the anchor coming in, and
scarcely were the diver and the two boys over the little ship’s side
and the cutter hooked to the davit falls before the destroyer was
forging ahead and making for the open sea.

“What’s up?” cried Rawlins as he gained the deck. “Get a message?”

“Yes, an hour ago,” replied Mr. Pauling. “Here it is.”

The diver and the two boys glanced eagerly over the slip, and read:
“_Devonshire_ and crew held according to request. May, Inspector
Police. Port of Spain.”

“Hurrah!” cried the boys in unison. “They’re caught!”

“I’ll say they are!” exclaimed Rawlins. “Walked right into our trap!”




CHAPTER IV

MORE MYSTERIES


Of course, every one was highly elated at the successful outcome of
the ruse which Rawlins had suggested and all felt that at last the
long chase was over, that the leaders of the gang of “reds” were
prisoners under lock and key at Trinidad, and that soon the destroyer
would be homeward bound with her mission successfully accomplished.
And no one was more pleased at the outcome than Robinson, the chief
officer of the _Devonshire_. At the suggestion of the officials
in Dominica, it had been decided to keep him and his men on the
destroyer until definite news was received of his ship’s whereabouts
when, as he had pointed out to Mr. Pauling and Commander Disbrow, he
and his men could be put aboard the _Devonshire_ and could again
assume the duties which had been so tragically interrupted by the
rascals from the submarine. Moreover, as the Administrator of Dominica
had reminded Mr. Pauling, the presence of Robinson and his men would
be needed at whatever port the _Devonshire_ was held, in order to
identify the pirates and to testify to the facts.

And now, knowing that he would soon be back on his own ship and would
have an opportunity of telling his story to the British authorities
and would have the satisfaction of seeing the murderers of Captain
Masters and the radio operator receive their just punishment, Robinson
and his men were, if possible, more elated than Mr. Pauling and his
party.

“It means hangin’ for the bally blighters!” he declared. “Piracy
’twas--no less--and though I’ve never been to a hangin’ yet, it would
do me good to go to theirs--when I think of Captain Masters and poor
‘Sparks’ shot down in cold blood.”

“Yes, they richly deserve it,” agreed Mr. Pauling. “But I’m afraid
punishment for this crime will rob us of the chance to punish them for
the other crimes they have committed. However, it makes little
difference what government deals with them, I suppose.”

“Yes, you may be sure the British are not going to give them up,”
declared Mr. Henderson. “We may think our English cousins slow in some
things, but British laws and British justice are inexorable as well as
swift and these rascals will curse the day they ran their stolen ship
into a British port. Better for them had they given themselves up to
us.”

“I suppose we’d better send a message to Trinidad saying we’re coming
and have the _Devonshire’s_ crew and chief officer aboard,” said
Mr. Pauling. “I should have done it before. No need of cipher now.
Just see Bancroft, Rawlins, and give him this message.”

Presently the diver returned, a frown on his face. “He can’t send it,
Mr. Pauling,” he announced. “Something’s wrong with his instruments.
He says they went wrong just after we got the message this morning and
he can’t locate the trouble. Just as soon as he gets the things fixed,
he’ll shoot it off.”

“Too bad,” exclaimed Mr. Pauling, “but there’s really no hurry. Lucky
it didn’t happen when we had really important matters to send--for
example, when we notified the officials of the _Devonshire’s_
seizure.”

“And if he doesn’t get his set fixed, we can send with ours, when we
get nearer,” said Tom.

“To be sure!” assented his father. “I’d almost forgotten that--it’s
been so long since you boys were called upon.”

Interested as they were in everything pertaining to radio, the two
boys hurried to the radio room and found Bancroft busy at his
instruments and thoroughly exasperated.

“It’s just got my goat!” he exclaimed, as he glanced up at the boys’
arrival. “I never ran up against anything like it. I’ve been over the
antenna and the insulation, and I’ve worked back to the inductance and
the condensers. Everything seems ship-shape and yet the whole blamed
thing seems dead. Current’s all right, I’ve tried new tubes, and the
wave meter and ammeter tests are O. K. and yet I can’t get a blessed
reply.”

“Well, that doesn’t prove you’re not sending,” declared Tom. “How do
you know the trouble isn’t in the station you’re trying to get? Maybe
your messages are going out all right and they get them but can’t send
back.”

“Oh, I’m not such a boob as not to think of that!” retorted Bancroft.
“I’ve tried four different stations and not a reply from any. And the
radio compass is in the same fix. It’s downright uncanny, I tell you.
Look here! The filament oscillates and the ammeter registers and yet
I’ll bet there isn’t a wave going out. It’s just as if the thing were
short circuited somewhere, but I can swear it’s not. I’ve even hooked
up a whole new set.”

“Say, I’ve an idea to test it and be sure you’re not sending,” cried
Tom. “I’ll go over to the radio-compass and listen and you send and
see if I hear anything. Then I’ll send and see if you can hear. If
there’s even a trace of waves, we ought to get them at a few yards
away.”

“That’s a great scheme,” agreed Bancroft enthusiastically. “And say, I
wonder if your sets are all right.”

“We’ll try them too, after we do this,” said Tom as he left the room.

But Tom’s scheme was a dismal failure. Although the set at the radio
compass seemed in perfect working order, he could detect no sign of a
message from Bancroft’s instruments a few yards away and when: he
returned to the wireless room, Bancroft reported! that he had heard
nothing.

“Well, that does beat the Dutch,” declared Tom, “Now I’m going to test
our sets. Perhaps everything’s hoodooed. You go to the radio compass,
Frank, and Mr. Bancroft can stay here and I’ll go to our sets and
we’ll try to get some sound or to send. If they’re all dead, it must
be some atmospheric trouble. Perhaps the air’s full of electricity or
something.”

“Whew!” exclaimed Bancroft, “That gives me an idea! Perhaps it’s due
to that volcano over at Martinique--Mt. Pelee you know, the one that
destroyed St. Pierre. It’s still active and it’s only a few miles from
Dominica. If I could only get some dope from the station at Fort de
France I could find out.”

“I don’t know,” replied Tom. “I read somewhere that active volcanoes
did all sorts of queer things to ships’ compasses and if they affect
magnets, I don’t see why they shouldn’t affect radio instruments. But
if that’s it, then it’s mighty funny you got the message this
morning.”

“But I didn’t!” exclaimed Bancroft. “I haven’t received any message
since day before yesterday. That message your father got was a cable.”

“Gosh!” ejaculated Tom. “I thought all along it was a radio. I never
asked, but just took it for granted. Then you don’t know how long
these sets have been out of order?”

“Well, I know they were all right when we sent those messages off
after we picked up the _Devonshire’s_ boat,” replied Bancroft.

“Then perhaps it’s the volcano,” said Tom. “If it is, the sets will
work all right after we get farther away.”

“And we’ve forgotten something else,” put in Frank. “How can we tell
whether it’s the sending or receiving sets that have gone bad? Maybe
they all send and won’t receive or all receive and won’t send.”

“Why, of course that’s so,” assented Tom. “If it’s the same trouble
with all--the volcano or atmosphere or anything, then we may all be
sending but can’t receive. But you’re wrong, in a way, because we know
it must be in the receiving end anyway, or we’d hear some messages
from ships or shore even if they didn’t get ours. So if we’re not
sending, the things have gone wrong both ways. Well, I’m going to ours
now, so listen.”

It was now night, a dark, inky black night such as only occurs in the
tropics, with the darkness seeming to shut one in by a curtain and Tom
had actually to feel his way along the decks. The sea was fairly
smooth, and the destroyer, steadied by her swift rush through the
water, was making easy weather of it, and by the vibration of her hull
Tom knew that she was being driven at the greatest speed possible in
her still crippled condition. The decks seemed deserted, although Tom
knew that, hidden from view in the blackness, the watch was being kept
and once he glimpsed a dim, white, ghostly figure as it passed through
the rays of a running light forward and he heard faint voices from the
direction of the chart room and bridge. But somehow he had a peculiar
feeling of mystery or danger afoot and glanced nervously about. Then,
realizing how foolish he was, he shook off the childish fears of the
dark and reaching the stairs descended towards the little room where
he and Frank had installed their radio outfits.

The steel-walled, narrow alleyway was dimly lighted by screened
electric bulbs and reaching the door to the room, Tom turned the knob,
swung it open, and stepped into the black interior. With groping
fingers he reached for the switch beside the door and pressed the
button. At his touch the place was flooded with brilliant light and
dazed by the sudden glare Tom involuntarily turned his face and
blinked. The next instant the steel ceiling seemed to crash down upon
his head, his knees sagged limply, the light danced and spun about and
he felt himself sinking into a bottomless black pit.

Slowly consciousness came back to him. First, as a dull, throbbing
ache, then as a stabbing pain in his head and with the pain came the
dim memory of the blinding light, the blow and oblivion. What had
happened? What had fallen from above to strike him? Why was it so
dark? Why did he feel suffocating? Had the lights gone out? Was he
still pinned under the object which had hit him?

Perhaps, he thought, there had been an accident, a collision. Perhaps,
even now, the destroyer was sinking. He strove to turn his head, to
rise, and then, for the first time, he suddenly realized that his head
was enveloped in the heavy choking folds of a blanket, that his arms
were pinioned behind his back and with the discovery came the
terrifying knowledge that he had been struck by some one; stunned,
gagged, and bound by some enemy.

But, by whom? Who upon the destroyer could have done this? Who had
been hiding in the room and for what reason?

Choking for breath, still dazed from the blow on his head, frightened
and sick, feeling as if every breath under the smothering cloth must
be his last, Tom nevertheless thought of the others. The vessel and
his friends must be in danger; there must be mutiny afoot, and he
groaned to think that he could not warn the others; could not even cry
out. Then, suddenly he forgot all, forgot his aching dizzy head, his
gasping, choking lungs, his terror and his plight, for through the
folds of the blanket the sounds of a human voice came dimly to him.
And, as Tom’s straining ears caught the words, he could scarcely
believe he was not in a delirium. Terror froze the blood in his veins.

“Everything correct,” came faintly through the cloth. “We’ll fix the
gear so she’ll go on the rocks in the Bocas. Yes, all out of it but
this and I’ll fix this in a minute more. Oh, yes. Pretty near caught.
Fool boy bobbed up unexpectedly. Knocked him out. Oh, no, toss him
overboard presently. No, no trace.”

Then silence--and Tom, knowing his end was near, that in a few short
moments he would be cast, bound, gagged and helpless into the black
water, prayed for unconsciousness, prayed for oblivion that would end
his sufferings. But the very terror of his fate kept his mind active
and his senses alive, while each short, gasping breath he drew sent
surges of awful, crashing pain through his temples and he felt as
though his eyes were bulging from the sockets.

Then he felt himself roughly seized and being carried away bodily. He
knew that in another instant he would find himself falling, would feel
the cold waters close over him. Summoning all his fast ebbing
strength, he uttered a piercing scream and once more lost
consciousness.

Muffled by the blanket about his head, Tom’s last despairing cry could
not have been heard ten feet away; but it was enough. Less than ten
feet off, Sam the Bahaman was at that instant approaching the room,
passing through the alleyway. At the boy’s smothered cry, he leaped to
the door, flung it open and with a savage yell sprang at the figure
about to throw the apparently lifeless boy through the open gun port.

So swift and silent had been Sam’s response to Tom’s cry that the
negro’s yell was the first warning Tom’s captor had of the Bahaman’s
approach. Startled, taken utterly by surprise, he dropped the boy’s
body, whipped out a revolver and whirled about. But Sam, with head
lowered, had hurled himself like a catapult across the room. Before
the other could even aim his weapon, the negro’s head struck him
squarely in the stomach with the force of a battering ram. With a
gasping, awful gurgle the man doubled up and shot through the open gun
port into the sea. Sam, carried forward by his own momentum, grasped
the gun carriage and saved himself in the nick of time from plunging
into the water after the writhing body of his victim.

The Bahaman gave one glance through the open barbette at the racing,
black, foam-flecked waves and then, with a grin of satisfaction, he
sprang to Tom’s side, whipped off the blanket, and tore loose the
bonds about his wrists. Lifting the unconscious boy in his powerful
black arms, he raced with him to the deck and to the room where Tom’s
father and the others were chatting, all oblivious of the tragedy
which had taken place beneath their feet.

To their frenzied questions as they worked feverishly over Tom, Sam
could give but very vague and unsatisfactory replies. “Ah jus’ cotch
tha’ soun’ of tha’ young gen’man’s cry, Chief,” he told Mr. Pauling.
“An’ Ah knowed tha’ mus’ be trouble for he an’ burs’ into the room. An
Ah seed tha’ Englishman jus’ mekkin’ fo’ to heave he out the gun po’t,
Chief.”

“Englishman!” cried Mr. Pauling. “What Englishman?”

“Tha’ English sailor man, Chief,” replied Sam.

“You don’t mean Robinson!” exclaimed Mr. Pauling. “Where is he? What
happened?”

“Yaas, Chief, tha’ officer we picked up in tha’ boat, Chief. He’s
finish, Chief. Ah don’ rightly know where he gone, but Ah’ ’spec tha’
sharks got he.”

“Suffering cats!” cried out Rawlins. “Did you knock him overboard?”

Sam grinned. “Yaas, Sir,” he replied. “Leastwise, when Ah seed he
mekkin’ to heave the young gen’man out, Ah jus’ butted he afore he
could mek to shoot an Ah ’spec Ah butted he pretty hard, fo’ he jus’
mek one good grunt an’ scooned out o’ tha’ po’t like Davy Jones was
callin’ he.”

“You old black rascal!” cried Rawlins, slapping Sam on the back. “I’ll
say you butted him good--and I’ll bet he ‘scooned.’ Why, by glory, I’d
rather be kicked by a mule than butted by that kinky head of yours.”

“Jove, but this is a mystery!” exclaimed Mr. Henderson. “The fellow
must have gone crazy suddenly. Why on earth should he wish to injure
Tom?”

“Perhaps Tom can tell us, when he comes to,” suggested Commander
Disbrow. “Ah, he’s all right, he’ll be out of his faint in a moment.”

Presently Tom’s eyes opened and he looked about, a wild,
uncomprehending expression on his face. Then, realizing that he really
was among his friends, that his father was bending over him and that
he had not been thrown into the sea, he smiled and closing his eyes,
took a long deep breath.

When again he looked up, he was fully conscious and to his father’s
anxious queries declared he felt all right except weak and that his
head ached. Then, for the first time, the others discovered the great
bruised lump upon his head and as it was being bandaged Tom told his
amazing story.

“The scoundrel!” cried Mr. Pauling. “I can’t understand it. Whom was
he talking to in the room?”

“In the room!” fairly shouted Rawlins. “Don’t you see it all, Mr.
Pauling? He was talking to those blamed ‘reds.’ The whole thing’s a
frame up. They weren’t shipwrecked at all. The _Devonshire_ never
was held up. It was all a trick and I said I had a hunch it was at the
time. They just got aboard us to give them a chance to wreck the
destroyer and get away. He put the radio sets out of commission and
left the boys’ set ’til the last so he could call to his friends.”

Before Rawlins had uttered a dozen words, the Commander had slipped
from the room and before the diver had ended he had given low-toned
orders and commands.

“By Jove, I guess you’re right!” exclaimed Mr. Pauling. “But still, we
got that cable from Trinidad this morning. The _Devonshire_ must
be there.”

Rawlins snorted. “Cable nothing!” he replied. “That was a fake--sent
by the same bunch to head us for Trinidad. Didn’t Tom hear him say
they’d fix our gear to put us on the rocks in the Bocas? Why, by
gravy, they may be hanging around within sight of us now! There never
was a _Devonshire._ They just dropped off from the sub in our
course and pretended to be adrift. I’ll bet the old sub wasn’t fifty
yards away when we took ’em aboard.”

“And we thought they’d fallen into our trap!” ejaculated Mr.
Henderson. “And we were the ones who were caught.”

“A miss is as good as a mile,” Rawlins reminded him. “And we’re not
caught yet. We’ll fool ’em still and land ’em if I have to follow them
to Kingdom Come. Say, we’d better get the rest of that bunch rounded
up before they do anything or get wise to Robinson being bumped off.”

“They’re attended to,” announced Commander Disbrow, as he reentered
the room. “Every mother’s son of them is safe in double irons.”

“Bully for you!” cried Rawlins. “Now let’s put our heads together and
see how we’ll nab the rest of the bunch.”

“There we’re up against it,” declared Mr. Pauling. “If we could make
any of the prisoners confess, we might find out their plans, although
I doubt if they know them. And we haven’t the least idea as to where
the submarine is. I think it’s about hopeless.”

“I’ll be shot if ’tis,” declared the diver. “That fake British rascal
was going to get off with a whole skin with his gang somewhere. You
can bet he wouldn’t risk his dirty neck when we went on the rocks. All
we’ve got to do is pretend to fall in with their plans, keep on for
Trinidad, and watch developments. There was some plan to get this
bunch off before we got there and we’re boobs if we can’t get on to
it.”

“Yes, no doubt you’re right,” agreed Mr. Pauling. “But still I’m
doubtful of success. The criminal always has the advantage in a case
of this sort for he knows his own plans and makes them while knowing
more or less of his pursuers’ plans and movements, whereas the
authorities know nothing of his and must go largely by guess work.
Possibly the boys might send some message--asking for further orders
or pretending the exact plans had not gone through--and so get
information.”

“No, that would give us away at once,” declared Rawlins. “They knew
the radio instruments were all disabled and that Robinson, or whatever
his real name was, intended to fix the boys’ set as soon as he was
through talking, and now if we start butting in on radio again,
they’ll shy off.”

“But what did he mean about fixing the gear and the Bocas?” asked Tom.

“The Bocas are the narrow channels leading into the Gulf of Paria from
the Caribbean,” explained the Commander. “The tide runs swiftly and
there are dangerous rocky shores on either side. If a ship’s steering
gear or engines go wrong there, she’ll pile on the rocks in a moment.
I expect the rascals planned to monkey with the steering gear--though
how I can’t imagine. I’ve a gang of machinists and engineers going
over every part of the ship now. No knowing but they may have done
something already.”

“And to think we pitied them and thought them shipwrecked sailors!”
exclaimed Frank.

“Yes, and I was fool enough to give away some of our plans,” lamented
Mr. Pauling. “No doubt that confounded faker told them all to his
friends on the sub.”

“But you didn’t tell him the secret cipher you used in notifying the
authorities,” said Mr. Henderson. “How do you imagine they discovered
it and managed to get the message to you?”

“I don’t think they did,” replied Mr. Pauling. “The cable came in in
English and I had no suspicions. As long as the _Devonshire_ and
its crew were supposedly taken, I assumed that there was no further
need for secrecy and that the officials used a plain message for that
reason.”

“Hmm, I see,” mused the other. “I wonder where it was really sent
from.”

“Probably not sent at all,” declared Rawlins. “More likely a plain
fake from beginning to end, written right in Dominica and never saw
the cable office.”

“Well, what are we going to do with this gang we’ve got in the brig?”
inquired the Commander. “Take them to Trinidad?”

“I think the best and first thing is to question them,” replied Mr.
Pauling. “By taking them one at a time we may learn something.”

Accordingly, the men were brought up, shackled and under guard, and
Mr. Pauling and Mr. Henderson, who were past masters at the art of
wringing damaging admissions from criminals, questioned each of the
surly lot at length. But all their efforts to secure information
amounted to but little. The men declared they knew nothing of the
plans of their leaders; every one maintained that the story of the
seizure of the _Devonshire_ was gospel truth and all professed
entire innocence of any wrong doing. No amount of cross questioning or
threatening shook their story and not one made a statement which
conflicted with another’s.

“They’re the most accomplished set of liars I ever ran across,”
declared Mr. Pauling, “and the worst of it is, we really haven’t an
atom of evidence or proof against them. If the _Devonshire_ never
turned up, they could claim that she had been sunk by the ‘reds’ and
our own evidence as to the past activities of the villains would lend
color to these fellows’ tale. Even the fact that Robinson plotted or
planned to destroy us or that he was in league with those on the sub
would not affect these men. They could hold that he was planted on the
_Devonshire_ and the rest of her crew knew nothing of it.”

“Yes, that’s very true,” admitted the Commander, “but I would suggest
we put into Barbados and leave this crowd there. Possibly the
Admiralty Courts may be able to hold them on some charge.”

“I would, but for the fact that if, as Rawlins thinks, the sub is
watching us, our going to Barbados would arouse their suspicions and
as long as there is a remote chance of getting the leaders I’m going
to take it,” replied Mr. Pauling.

As he finished speaking, Bancroft and the boys appeared.

“We’ve found the trouble with the radio!” cried Tom. “And it’s all
right now. They’d cut the lead-in wire where it passed through an
insulating tube and had spliced the insulation together, and on the
radio compass they’d taken out a section of wire and replaced it with
a bit of stick covered with the insulation where it was connected to a
binding post.”

“I’ll say they’re clever rascals!” exclaimed Rawlins. “Well, we can
hear any messages they send now even if we don’t want to send.”

“Personally, I’m sorry that Sam butted that man Robinson overboard,”
remarked Mr. Pauling who had been deep in thought. “He’s bobbed up
twice in the nick of time to save your life, Tom, and each time he’s
killed a man who would have been more valuable alive than dead. Not
that I blame him--I owe him a greater debt than I can ever hope to
repay--but I do wish that if he’s destined to rescue you from every
scrape you get into that he could do it without always destroying our
evidence. I’d give a great deal to have a chance to put a few
questions to that Robinson.”

“And I’ll bet my boots to a tin whistle he wouldn’t have come across
with any information,” declared Rawlins. “I’ve been putting two and
two together and I’ve a hunch he’s the chap who called himself a
‘Yank’ when the boys heard him talking on the tramp back in St. John.
He was too blamed clever to give away anything and maybe, after all,
these men _are_ telling the truth and he was planted on the
_Devonshire_ and his friends seized the ship. That would account
for their letting Robinson and a boat’s crew get away--just to board
us you see. By glory, it’s such a mixed-up plot within a plot that
it’s sure got me guessing.”

“Jove, that may be so,” cried Mr. Henderson. “If so, it would explain
several puzzles. He may have intended to escape alone and let the rest
of the crowd sink or swim with us. ’Twould have been fairly easy for
him to do that--just drop over the side and be picked up by the sub at
some prearranged spot--whereas a crowd of twenty-two men would have a
hard job to clear out undetected.”

“Well, he dropped over all right,” chuckled the diver. “Only I’ll bet
the sub wasn’t standing by to pick him up.”

“Perhaps we can solve part of the mystery when we reach Trinidad,”
said Mr. Pauling. “If the _Devonshire_ is overdue, we can be
fairly sure she was seized. Whereas if she arrives with her real
officers and crew, we’ll know it was all a frame-up. But we’ll owe an
apology to her company in that case.”

Rawlins uttered an ejaculation and springing up rushed from the room.

“Well, I wonder what’s struck him now!” exclaimed Mr. Henderson.

“Another hunch, probably,” laughed the Commander. “He seems full of
them.”

“And usually pretty near the truth at that,” put in Mr. Pauling.

Five minutes later the diver reappeared. “Some one please kick me for
a blamed dub!” he exclaimed. “Here we’ve been backing and filling and
talking and discussing and guessing and we might have found out the
truth in a minute at any time.”

“If you’ll tell us what you’re driving at, we may understand,” said
Mr. Pauling. “What’s this new discovery of yours?”

“That this bunch we’ve got on board are all blamed liars!” replied the
diver. “There isn’t any such ship as the _Devonshire_. At least
none that corresponds with their story. I’ve just gone through Lloyds’
Registry and there are only three British ships of the name. One’s a
wooden bark, the other’s a little coasting steamer and the third’s a
big liner.”

“By Jove!” ejaculated Mr. Henderson.

“You’d better kick me too!” laughed the Commander. “I’m ready to join
your boob society at any time, Rawlins. I’d hate to have the rest of
the navy hear of this. Here I’m supposed to use that registry for
looking up ships and I never thought of it when the need came.”

“Well, we’re none of us infallible,” Mr. Henderson reminded him.
“However, that’s one point settled. The next thing--”

At this instant a lieutenant dashed into the room and saluted.
“Submarine on the starboard bow!” he announced.




CHAPTER V

THE END OF THE SUBMARINE


At the officer’s words every one leaped up and dashed on deck,
scarcely knowing what to expect, for the appearance of a submarine was
the last thing any had dreamed of and all felt sure the sub-sea craft
must be the one they sought. For a moment they gazed upon an
apparently bare sea, then, half a mile away, they caught a glimpse of
a dark object resembling the water-logged hull of a ship as it lifted
against the sky on a long roller. Already the destroyer’s men were at
the forward gun and with every one excited and expectant, the little
ship bore down upon the submarine.

“By glory, they must be going to surrender!” cried Rawlins. “If they
weren’t, they’d submerge.”

“Then why in thunder don’t they signal?” exclaimed the Commander.

Turning, he barked out an order and a moment later, a string of bright
flags rose to the destroyer’s stubby mast.

But there was no response from the submarine,--no answering signal.

“There’s something fishy about her!” declared Rawlins. “Guess they’ve
got something up their sleeves!”

“They won’t pull any monkey shines with me, hang them!” burst out
Commander Disbrow. Then, to the expectant gunner, “Put a shot
alongside of her!”

Hardly were the words uttered, when the decks shook to the roar of the
gun and a huge column of water rose like a geyser a few feet from the
submarine.

“That ought to wake them up!” cried Mr. Henderson.

“But it didn’t!” exclaimed the diver who was staring through his
glasses. “By glory, they must all be dead!”

The destroyer had now drawn within a few hundred feet of the submarine
and still there was no sign of life, no signal displayed upon the
wallowing craft ahead.

“I don’t like to sink her out of hand,” mused Commander Disbrow, “but
I’ll be hanged if I’ll board her until I know what’s up. See if you
can chip a bit off her conning tower, Flannigan.”

The big Irish gunner looked up and grinned as he saluted. “Thot Oi
will, Sor!” he replied as he carefully trained his gun.

And as, at the crashing report, the top of the submarine’s conning
tower vanished in a puff of smoke and a spurt of flame, the watchers
cheered lustily.

“I’ll be sunk!” shouted Rawlins when even this failed to bring any
response from the submarine. “They are dead--or else she’s deserted!”

“Have a boat lowered away!” ordered the Commander turning to the young
lieutenant, “and board that sub with an armed crew. Don’t take
chances. If you find any one, take them dead or alive--and be sure you
get the drop on them first!”

A moment later the boat was in the water, the armed bluejackets
tumbled into her and in the lee of the destroyer rapidly bore down on
the sub-sea craft while those on the destroyer watched them with every
nerve tense with excitement. They saw the boat draw alongside the
submarine, saw the officer and two men scramble on to the water-washed
deck and saw them cautiously approach the hatch with drawn pistols.
Then they disappeared and all waited breathlessly, expecting to see
them emerge with their captives. But when, a moment later, they again
came into view they were alone and gaining their boat headed back for
the destroyer.

“I’ll say she’s deserted!” cried Rawlins. “By glory, those rascals are
leaving a regular trail of deserted boats behind them. First the sub
off New York, then the schooner in the Bahamas, then that sub in Santo
Domingo and now this one! Suffering cats! They must have subs to
burn!”

“Well, if they’ve abandoned this one, I’d like to know what they’re on
now,” declared Mr. Pauling. “Perhaps they _did_ seize some other
ship after all.”

“We’ll know in a moment what’s up,” said Mr. Henderson as the boat
swept alongside.

“Forward starboard plates are stove in, Sir,” announced the lieutenant
as he approached and saluted the Commander. “Appears to have been in
collision. She’s half full of water and several bodies floating about
inside.”

“By Jove!” cried Mr. Pauling. “They’ve met their deserts at last!
Well, it’s saved us the trouble of following farther. I suppose you
did not notice the bodies sufficiently to describe them, Lieutenant.”

“Unrecognizable, Sir,” replied the young officer. “Evidently
suffocated by gas from the batteries when the water reached them. Not
pleasant to look at, Sir, but appeared to be members of the engine
room crew from their clothing.”

“Hmm, then I’m afraid we’ll never know if the leaders survived or
not,” mused Mr. Pauling. “Too bad, but it can’t be helped. I guess
there’s nothing else, Disbrow, except to land this gang we have in
Trinidad--I suppose that’s the nearest port.”

“Yes, it’s the nearest,” agreed the Commander, “but we’ll sink that
sub first. She’s a menace to navigation.”

A moment later the gun roared again and once again. Fragments of steel
plates and twisted iron mingled with the upflung water as the bursting
shells struck true and the shattered submarine sank to her last
resting place to form the tomb of those who had come to their death
within her. Now that the submarine had been destroyed there was no
chance of hearing the truth of the plans which had been made to rescue
Robinson and his fellow plotters from the destroyer and all possible
speed was made for Trinidad.

But Rawlins was still skeptical. “I’ve a hunch that old boy with the
monocle didn’t go down with that sub,” he declared as the blue waters
changed to a dull muddy brown from the mouth of the Orinoco nearly one
hundred miles distant. “I’ll bet he and Red Whiskers and some others
got away and saved their hides. They may have been picked up or they
might even have made land. And I’d like to know what became of that
blamed seaplane.”

“If they were picked up they’ll be reported,” declared Mr. Pauling.
“When we reach Trinidad, we can send out a general alarm to hold them
wherever they arrive; but personally I believe they’re dead. If the
sub was in collision, she must have been run down at night and in that
case all below were probably suffocated. The fact that there were only
a few bodies visible proves nothing, for there may have been many more
in the rooms or out of sight. Of course, the plane is unaccounted for,
but I imagine they left her somewhere and all took to the sub long
before it was disabled. You see, we have no proof that it was used
after leaving Aves--now that we know Robinson’s story was pure
falsehood.”

“Maybe,” was the diver’s comment. “But I’m still from Missouri.”

When the boys came on deck the following morning, the lofty mountains
of Venezuela loomed above the yellow-brown water ahead with blue-green
hills stretching far to east and west.

“Gosh! it doesn’t seem possible we’re looking at South America,”
exclaimed Frank. “Where’s Trinidad, Mr. Rawlins?”

“There to the east,” replied the diver. “Those mountains to the west
are at the tip of Venezuela, those lower green hills dead ahead are
the islands at the Bocas, and only the northern end of Trinidad and
those faint misty mountains in the distance are visible from here.”

Gradually, the apparently solid land ahead seemed to break up; narrow
openings of water showed between the hills and presently the destroyer
was steaming through the famous Bocas leading from the Caribbean into
the great Gulf of Paria.

“Golly, this _would_ be a nasty place to have anything go wrong!”
exclaimed Tom as the little ship passed between the jagged, rocky
islands and reefs that lined the waterway. “Maybe I’m not glad I
surprised that fellow.”

“Don’t think you’re the only one that is,” said Rawlins. “And Disbrow
isn’t dead sure something may not be wrong yet. Look at the way he’s
got men at the anchors and the way he’s just crawling along.”

But nothing happened, the destroyer passed through the Bocas in
safety, and, as the great bulk of Trinidad loomed ahead, the boys
forgot everything else in their interest in watching the beauties
unfolding as they steamed across the Gulf towards Port of Spain. They
could scarcely believe that the ranges of lofty, cloud-topped
mountains, the far-reaching valleys and the interminable shores
stretching away in the dim distance were on an island and not a
continent. When they mentioned this, Commander Disbrow explained that
Trinidad really is a bit of the tip of South America cut off only by
the narrow Bocas at the two ends of the Gulf of Paria.

“It’s wonderful,” declared Tom, “but still I don’t like it as well as
Dominica. Somehow it seems more natural for a place as big as this to
have all those mountains, but Dominica’s so different from anything I
ever imagined that it fascinated me.”

“And this is too much to take in,” added Frank. “Dominica was like a
picture that you could see all at once. Are there any interesting
things here?”

“There’s the Pitch Lake,” replied Rawlins. “Only it’s not a lake, but
a big bed of asphalt, and oil wells, and some fine water falls, and
the Blue Basin.”

“Well, I hope Dad lets us stay a day or two so we can see the place,”
said Tom. “Is the Pitch Lake near the town?”

“No--down at the other end of the island,” replied the diver. “You can
go by train and steamer or by motor car. You’ll find it a queer spot,
but hotter than blazes. When I used to come down here with Father, he
sometimes loaded asphalt at Brighton--that’s the port of the Asphalt
company--and I was always mighty glad to get away. I’ll say it’s the
hottest place in this world!”

They were now approaching the harbor and as Mr. Pauling had radioed
ahead that he had prisoners to be turned over to the authorities, a
police boat manned by gigantic black “bobbies” was waiting for the
destroyer when she at last dropped anchor off Port of Spain.

As the pompous, florid-faced inspector, followed by his half-dozen
black giants, boarded the destroyer the usual fleet of shore boats
drew close.

“Here, you!” cried Rawlins beckoning to one darky. “Hand me up a
paper.”

Tossing a shilling to the fellow, the diver seized the _Gazette_
and turned eagerly to the column headed “Maritime News.”

“Here ’tis!” he exclaimed, as he ran his eye rapidly over the various
items.

    “Barbados, 29th. Steamship _Trident_, La Guaira for European
    ports, put in with leak in port bow. Reports being in
    collision with what appeared to be a water-logged derelict on
    the night of 27th. Longitude 62° 58’ W. Latitude 12° 35’ N.
    Captain Donaldson states that he believes there were men
    clinging to the derelict as officer on watch insists he heard
    cries after striking, but no trace of men or of the derelict
    could be found although the _Trident_ stood by and burned
    flares for half an hour.”

“But how do you know that’s about the steamer that struck the
submarine?” asked Tom.

“I don’t _know_,” admitted the diver. “But I’ll bet a five spot to
a plugged nickel it is, just the same. It’s the same position--or at
least within a few miles of it--as where we found the old sub. It’d be
blamed funny if there was a derelict and that sub knocking about the
same spot. Anyhow the _Trident_ didn’t pick any one up so I guess
my hunch was wrong about Old Glass Eye getting off.” While Rawlins had
been speaking, Frank had been examining the paper and suddenly he let
out a yell that made the others jump.

“Jehoshaphat!” he cried. “Just listen to this!” Then while the others
listened he read:

    TO EXPLORE JUNGLES IN AIRSHIP

    Demerara, Tuesday. The steamship _Devon_ which arrived
    yesterday brought to our shores Messrs. La Verne and Dewar who
    plan a unique expedition into the hinterland. Messrs. La-Verne
    and Dewar brought with them on the _Devon_ the latest type of
    hydroplane or flying boat with which they will explore the
    unknown interior of the Colony. Their aircraft excited the
    admiration and wonder of everybody as the two intrepid men got
    safely off and rising gracefully from the surface of the
    Demerara River soared like a great bird above the tree tops
    and disappeared in the direction of the unknown solitudes. We
    understand that Messrs. La-Verne and Dewar are conducting
    their expedition in the interests of a large British and
    American syndicate which is interested in the development of
    the Colony’s resources. We wish the gentlemen every success
    and a safe return.

“By the great horn spoon, that’s them!” shouted Rawlins. “Steamship
_Devon_. Well I’ll be sunk! By glory! How that Robinson did fool
us! And while those chaps were watching for the _Devonshire_
which didn’t exist they let the blamed _Devon_ come in and those
two devils fly away and never even smelled a rat!”

“Then you mean--” began Tom.

But Rawlins had grabbed the paper and had rushed to the room where Mr.
Pauling and the others were talking earnestly with the Inspector of
Police.

“I’ll say they lied after all!” he burst out, as the men jumped up in
surprise at his unexpected appearance. “It was the _Devon_ they
seized--not the _Devonshire!_ And she’s got in and landed the
confounded plane and those two precious scoundrels and got safe away
again! Here ’tis, plain as can be!”

Eagerly, Mr. Pauling seized the proffered paper and read the despatch
from Demerara and even the apoplectic inspector, who had seemed about
to explode with outraged dignity at Rawlins’ impetuous interruption of
the conference, forgot his ruffled feelings and scowled fiercely at
the unoffending sheet over Mr. Pauling’s shoulder.

“Jove, you’re right!” declared Mr. Pauling at last. “A coincidence of
that sort would be impossible. We’ve been tricked again, Henderson.
Outplayed. But it may not be too late yet. Have Bancroft radio to hold
the _Devon_.”

“No use now!” announced Rawlins. “She sailed day before yesterday.
Look down in the Maritime News and you’ll find it. And there’s another
item there--it was the _Trident_ that rammed the sub.”

“But, but, my good man!” spluttered the inspector. “You can capture
her. She cannot be far away you know!”

“No?” replied the diver questioningly. “Not in miles perhaps, but
where? Did she sail north, east, south or west? The sea’s a mighty big
place and a ship’s a mighty small thing to find on it--especially when
she don’t want to be found. And what’s her name now? You can bet your
bottom dollar she isn’t the _Devon_ any longer.”

“But really, really, my good man, I’m not accustomed to being
addressed in that manner, Sir!” burst out the inspector. “I’d have you
understand I’m the Inspector of Police, Sir. Why, who under the sun
are you anyway, Sir?”

“I’m a poor boob that thought you fellows down here had common sense!”
retorted Rawlins hotly. “Why the dickens didn’t they have brains
enough to think of _Devon_ and _Devonshire_ being too blamed
much alike?”

“Come, come, Rawlins!” exclaimed Mr. Pauling in mollifying tones.
“Major May is not to blame and I suppose there really was no reason
for suspecting the _Devon_ to be the _Devonshire_.”

Then, turning to the purple-faced officer. “Major,” he said, “let me
introduce Mr. Rawlins. He’s our guide, philosopher, and friend, if I
may quote a hackneyed saying. I don’t know what we’d do without him.
He and the boys are really responsible for all we’ve accomplished and
he’s famous for his hunches.”

Rawlins grinned and grasped the inspector’s hand and the latter, as
quick to recover his temper as to lose it, smiled under his bristling
white mustache. “Jolly glad to know you!” he declared. “Sorry if I
offended you and all that. Bit peppery I expect--India and liver, you
know. Curry, and all that sort of thing. Ah, yes--and the
hunches--’pon my word, never heard of them. Sort of cocktail, are they
not?”

The diver could not restrain his merriment and Mr. Pauling and the
others grew scarlet.

“Not quite, Major,” Rawlins managed to reply. “Don’t know if I can
explain it--Yankee term, sort of slang, meaning a premonition or
something like it, a--well a hunch you know.”

But the splenetic old veteran could take a joke even if on himself and
roared with laughter at his own error.

“Jolly good thing, that about the _Devon_,” he declared when all
were on good terms once more. “Now we have a proper charge against
these rascals you have. Couldn’t see my way before--with no such ship
as the bally old _Devonshire_. Couldn’t accuse them of doing away
with a ship that didn’t exist, you know. All different now, though.
Well, I must be off. Anything I can do, just call on me. Any plans in
view?”

“I’ll say we’d better beat it for Demerara,” declared Rawlins before
Mr. Pauling could reply. “If those devils are off in that seaplane, we
may get ’em yet. They’ve got to land somewhere and they’ve got to come
back. They can’t fly clean across South America without gas.”

“Righto!” agreed the inspector. “Cousin of mine inspector there, you
know. Give him my regards. Good chap, Philip, rather new to his job,
of course, and all that sort of thing--but smart chap. Yes, he’ll do
anything to help you, rather!”

“Now, what’s this big idea about going to Demerara?” asked Mr.
Pauling, after the inspector had left accompanied by his men and with
the surly prisoners securely handcuffed.

“Why, my idea is just this,” the diver explained. “Those two rascals
have beat it for the interior in their plane. Of course, they were
that slick guy with the monocle and old Red Whiskers--but you know as
well as I do that they’re not exploring or in the interests of any
syndicate. But I will say they’ve got some sense of humor at
that--‘big American and British syndicate,’ by glory! They’re half
telling the truth at that--the ‘reds’ are _some_ syndicate, I’ll
tell the world! But that trip of theirs is just bluff. They’ve just
gone up in the bush a ways to lie low until we’ve dropped off their
trail. And I’ll say they had some everlasting nerve to use the name
_Devonshire_ and run the risk of the bobbies over there getting
suspicious when the _Devon_ came in. Expect it was so the crew
wouldn’t have trouble in remembering it. Well, as I was saying,
they’ll hide out in the bush or, by Jimminy, they may be headed for
Dutch Guiana! But, whatever it is, a plane can’t go snooping around
Guiana without attracting attention and we can trail ’em easy.”

“Admitting all that is true, as it no doubt is, whose attention is the
plane going to attract and how do you propose trailing them?” asked
Mr. Pauling.

“Also,” he added, “what makes you think the _Devon_ was seized?
Perhaps, the two took passage on her from some port with their plane.”

“I’ll answer the last question first,” replied the diver. “A couple of
chaps don’t go touring around the West Indies carrying a seaplane in
their handbag and if they’d appeared suddenly at some port, as if
flying around, the paper would have mentioned it. Trust the skipper of
the _Devon_--if he’d been genuine--to make a good yarn out of it.
Besides, if they hadn’t seized the ship, how the deuce would Robinson
have thought of using the same name and just tacking a ‘shire’ on it?
If he’d been straight--or rather if they’d just boarded the
_Devon_ as you suggest--he’d have said _Devon_. And there’s
that Anannias Club we just sent ashore. We know they lied because
there wasn’t any _Devonshire_ or I’d think they were survivors
from the _Devon_. But as long as they weren’t, then they’re part
of the gang. The only thing that gets me is where they stowed away a
big enough crew on the sub to send twenty-two men aboard us and have
enough left to man the _Devon._ And now about the other
questions. The Indians are the ones who’ll see the plane and you can
bet your boots they’ll all see it--think the Great Spirit himself’s
coming I expect. By talking to a few of the Indians, we can trail that
old plane as easy as if they were blazing their way.”

“But you forget Guiana is a big territory and a plane can hide
anywhere on the rivers,” objected Mr. Pauling. “No, Rawlins, I’m
afraid they’ve given us the slip for good.”

“Yes, I agree with you there,” declared Mr. Henderson, “but I do think
it may be well to run over to Demerara. We can have a talk with the
officials and leave them to apprehend the plane--and the _Devon_,
if it comes back.”

“Very well,” assented Mr. Pauling. “It’s two to one, so I agree.
Disbrow, we might as well get under way for Demerara.”




CHAPTER VI

IN SOUTH AMERICA


Although the two boys were woefully disappointed at not being able to
see anything of Trinidad, yet the fact that they were going to
Demerara and would actually have a chance to see something of South
America more than made up for it.

Rawlins assured them that in British Guiana they would find a far more
interesting spot than Trinidad and the boys plied him with questions.

“Isn’t that the place the blow gun and those poisoned arrows came
from?” asked Tom.

“Sure thing,” replied the diver. “I don’t know much about the
country--except what I’ve read and been told--but I’ve been at
Georgetown, or Demerara as it’s called, and you’ll find enough to keep
you busy right there.”

“Gosh, then there must be wild Indians there--if they use blow guns,”
said Frank. “Will we be able to see any of them?”

“Country’s full of them,” declared Rawlins. “But they’re all
peaceable. If we go trailing that plane into the bush as I want Mr.
Pauling to do, you’ll see Indians all right. If we don’t, you may see
a few in town. I’ve always wanted to get into the interior myself.
It’s a wonderful place--most of it unexplored--and there’s gold and
diamonds and wild animals and the highest waterfall in the world.”

“Now don’t get these boys all worked up over it, Rawlins,” laughed Mr.
Pauling. “If we don’t look out, they’ll mutiny and refuse to go home
until they’ve had their fill of sightseeing. I admit I’d like nothing
better than to stretch my legs ashore for a time and see something of
the country, but this is no pleasure jaunt, you know.”

“But if those men are there, we could go after them and then it
wouldn’t be a pleasure trip,” argued Tom.

“You can be sure it would not,” replied his father. “It’s bad enough
trailing those scoundrels all over the Caribbean, let alone trying to
run them to earth in a tropical jungle. No, I think our chase ends at
Georgetown.”

But Rawlins was not to be readily discouraged. He was a most
persistent character and having once made up his mind to follow the
“Reds” to “Kingdom Come,” as he put it, he was not easily to be
dissuaded. “I’ll say it would be a blamed shame to give up now,” he
declared. “We’ve got ’em narrowed down to two and the plane (the bunch
on the _Devon_ don’t count) and those two are the chaps you want,
Mr. Pauling. We’ve got ’em on the run--smoked ’em out of every hole
they had--chased ’em into the sea and under it and into the air. Now
they’ve played their last trump. We’d be a lot of boobs to let ’em get
away with it now.”

“But you seem to forget that we haven’t the least idea where they are
and that Guiana’s a big country,” Mr. Pauling reminded him. “I’ve been
going over the maps with Henderson and Disbrow and it’s hopeless. Why,
they may be in Dutch Guiana or Brazil or Venezuela by now. While we
were paddling up a few miles of jungle river, that plane could be
flying a couple of hundred miles. It would be worse than chasing a
bird with your hat.”

“Just the same I’ve a hunch that we’re going to get ’em,” declared
Rawlins. “And by glory, if you won’t go after ’em, I’m going to drop
off and go it alone!”

Mr. Pauling laughed. “Any one would think you had a personal grudge
against them,” he chuckled.

“So I have--confound them!” cried the diver. “Didn’t they cop my
diving suit idea and didn’t they play a dozen low-down, dirty tricks
on us? And weren’t they trying to stick a wurali-tipped dart in me
back there at St. John? Besides, I’ve never gone back on one of my
hunches yet and it’s too late to begin now.”

“Well, we’ll see what we find out over at Georgetown, before we
decide,” said Mr. Pauling. “After I talk with the officials we can
make plans for our next move. For all we know they may have important
information.”

The destroyer had now left Port of Spain far astern and was passing
out through the Bocas to the open sea. Throughout the afternoon she
steamed steadily eastward through the muddy water and when the boys
came on deck early the following morning there was still no sign of
land.

“Where’s Demerara?” asked Tom of the lieutenant in charge. “Commander
Disbrow said we’d be in by breakfast time, but I don’t see a sign of
land.”

“Straight ahead,” replied the officer. “There’s the lightship--see,
that little schooner there.”

“Yes I see it,” said Tom, “but what is it out in the ocean here for?”

The lieutenant laughed. “It’s not!” he replied. “We’re in the river
now. The lightship’s on the bar. We’ll be slowing down to take on the
pilot in a few moments.”

“In the river!” exclaimed Frank. “Oh, you’re just fooling! How can
this be a river when there are no banks?”

“Honest Injun, ’tis though,” declared the officer. “The banks are
there all right, but they’re so low you can’t see them and the river’s
thirty-five miles wide.”

“Jimminy crickets!” cried Tom. “Thirty-five miles wide! Say, I thought
the Amazon and the Orinoco were the only big rivers down here.”

“Oh, this is just a brook compared to the Amazon,” said the
lieutenant, “but it’s wider than the Orinoco. It’s really the mouth of
two big rivers--the Demerara and the Essequibo. Look, there comes the
pilot.”

A small boat had put off from the lightship and came bobbing towards
the destroyer, which had slowed down, and presently a grizzled old
negro came scrambling over the side.

With all the pomposity and dignity of an admiral he saluted the
lieutenant and climbed to the bridge and a moment later the destroyer
was steaming once more on its way under the guidance of the
incongruous old negro. Presently, far ahead, the boys saw bits of hazy
detached land. Then tall chimneys of sugar mills and the slender
towers of a wireless station became visible; the detached bits of dull
green, which the boys had taken for islands, joined and formed a low
green bank, and before they realized it, the boys found they were
passing up a wide muddy stream and that roofs, buildings and spires of
a large town were just ahead.

“Gosh, isn’t everything flat!” exclaimed Frank. “I don’t see a hill or
a mountain or anything but that line of low brush anywhere. And the
town looks as if it were below the water.”

“So it is,” replied Commander Disbrow. “Or rather it’s below the water
level. There’s a dyke or sea wall to keep the water out, there are
canals running through the streets to drain the place and there are
big tide gates, or ‘kokers’ as they call them, which are closed at
high tide and opened at low water.”

“Why, it must be like Holland then!” exclaimed Tom.

“It used to be Dutch,” explained the Commander, “and the Dutchmen
always seem to like to build towns below sea level--sort of habit, I
guess--though why they didn’t put it on high land up the river a bit
gets me. You’ll find Dutch names everywhere, too, and old Dutch
buildings, and if you went a hundred miles or so up the Essequibo
you’d find an old Dutch fort.”

The destroyer had now drawn close to the town and a few minutes later
was being moored to the government dock.

From the height of the vessel’s decks the boys could look right over
the buildings. Beyond the sea of roofs and spires they could see
waving palms, long avenues of green shade trees and busy, interesting
streets and they were fairly crazy to go ashore.

The arrival of an American warship at Demerara was such an unusual
event that a huge crowd had collected at the pier and among the
multicolored throng of black, white, and yellow were the gold lace and
uniforms of officers.

Knowing that his father and the others would be thoroughly occupied in
the formalities of an official welcome, Tom asked permission to go
ashore with Frank and Rawlins and scarcely was the destroyer moored
when the three darted down the gangway and edging through the crowd
came out on the noisy, busy street.

“Gee, this is some town!” exclaimed Tom as the three glanced about.
“They’ve automobiles and trolley cars and everything.”

“Sure it’s some town!” agreed Rawlins. “Come on, let’s take a carriage
and drive about. We’ll see it quicker and better that way.”

Tumbling into a rubber-tired Victoria driven by a grinning negro, the
diver told him to drive them about Georgetown and out to the botanic
station.

The boys were wildly enthusiastic over everything and Rawlins, who was
almost as much of a boy as themselves, pointed out the more
interesting features of the place. The picturesque Hindu men and
women, who, garbed in their native costumes, swarmed everywhere,
fascinated the boys. They were delighted with the shady streets, with
the cool houses half-hidden in masses of strange tropical flowers, and
they reveled in the calm canals spanned by Oriental-looking bridges
and filled with pink lotus and water lilies.

“It’s the quaintest, prettiest place I’ve ever seen!” declared Tom.
“And so foreign looking.”

“And these bright red roads!” exclaimed Frank. “And all those East
Indians! Why, it’s like being in another world!”

“And just look at the way all the houses are built on posts or brick
pillars!” put in Tom.

“Yes, that’s to keep them dry,” Rawlins explained. “In the rainy
season the streets get flooded at times and so they build their houses
on stilts.”

But all the other sights they had seen were forgotten when at last
they came to the huge botanic station. Here they drove for miles
through a veritable tropical forest among gigantic trees, under
trailing lianas, beside jungle streams, all of which, as far as
appearances went, might have been in the very heart of South America.
But everywhere the red earth roads were as smooth and well kept as
asphalt, the grass was green and velvety, beds of gorgeous flowers
were all about, and all the trees and plants were carefully labeled.
Only such things were in evidence to show it was a park or garden and
not the untamed wild and when, to the boys’ delight, they saw a flock
of gaudy parrots feeding overhead and caught a glimpse of huge-billed
toucans, they felt as though they were actually in the “bush.”
Everywhere, too, were canals filled with the gigantic leaves and huge
flowers of the Victoria Regia lily and at one spot was a lily and
lotus-filled lake, bordered with thickets of palms and fairly swarming
with herons, egrets, and boat-bills, with a pair of great, scarlet
macaws screeching from a dead limb over the water.

“Gosh!” exclaimed Frank. “It’s like a zoological garden, only better.
Oh, look, look there! What’s that?” As he spoke, a great, dark object
had risen through the water and with a hissing noise slowly
disappeared.

“Only a manatee,” laughed Rawlins. “Didn’t you recognize it? It was
one of those fellows that led you astray in Santo Domingo, you know.”

“But I never expected to see one here, right in the town,” declared
Frank.

“Lots of ’em in here,” said the diver, “and plenty of alligators too.
But everywhere you go about Georgetown you’ll find wild animals and
birds. See herons and egrets feeding beside the roads and scarlet ibis
on the mud flats alongside the docks. The city’s just at the edge of
the jungle, you might say, and you could go right through to the
Amazon without ever seeing a sign of civilization.”

“Golly, I do hope Dad goes after those fellows!” cried Tom. “After
seeing this place I’m just crazy to see the real jungle.”

“And Indians!” added Frank.

“Well, I’ve a hunch he’s going,” declared Rawlins. “I’ll bet a dollar
to a sixpence we’re all in the jungle inside of three days.”

From the gardens they drove through a picturesque village, swarming
with East Indians, to the seawall, then through the town to the
market, out to a big sugar estate with miles of enormous royal palms
bordering the road, and finally to the museum where they spent an hour
or more looking at the collections of native birds, animals, insects
and Indian curios.

When at last they boarded the destroyer in time for lunch, they found
Mr. Pauling and Mr. Henderson in earnest conversation with a tall,
lean-faced, quiet man dressed in spotless white and a short,
roly-poly, red-faced officer who wore a gorgeous uniform and whose
enormous, fiercely twisted mustaches belied the merry twinkle in his
eyes.

“It’s all right, Tom, come in, and you too, Frank, and you, Rawlins,”
cried Mr. Pauling, as Tom, who had burst impetuously into the room,
saw that his father was engaged and hastened to withdraw. “This is
Colonel Maidely,” he continued, introducing the officer, “and this is
Mr. Thorne. We’ve been discussing Rawlins’ idea of going into the bush
after those rascals. By the way, Rawlins, I told the Colonel your
opinion of him for letting the _Devon_ slip by and he’s prepared
to take a good dressing down!”

The jovial officer laughed heartily. “’Pon my word I deserve it!” he
declared. “Jolly stupid of me, eh? Fact was we were all so interested
in the two chaps with the plane we were careless--yes, I’ll admit it.
Wager you if it hadn’t been for that we’d have suspected her. Jolly
clever idea that--pulling the wool over our eyes with the airship! And
my word! What nerve, as you Yankees say--using a name as much like
_Devon_ as _Devonshire_! But we’ll get her yet, old
dear--don’t worry.”

“And I’m beginning to think your idea is worth trying, Rawlins,” went
on Mr. Pauling. “Mr. Thorne here is an explorer--just came in from a
long trip through the interior, and the Colonel says he knows more
about the bush than the Indians themselves. He says it will be easy to
trace the plane--just as you did--and he seems to think that in all
probability they landed somewhere and will await word from their
confederates that we’ve abandoned the chase when they can safely come
out of hiding.”

“Hurrah!” shouted Tom, quite forgetful of the strangers’ presence.
“Then we _are_ going into the bush!”

“Provided I can induce Mr. Thorne to accompany us,” said his father.
“None of us knows anything about the interior and we’d be helplessly
at sea.”

“Oh, you will go, won’t you?” begged Frank. “We’re crazy to see
Indians and wild animals and everything.”

The explorer smiled at the boys’ enthusiasm. “I’m inclined to think I
will,” he replied. “I had hoped to go to the States next week--my work
is done--but I’m anxious to be of any service I can to Uncle Sam, as
well as to my British Colonial friends, and I’m still young enough in
spirit, if not in years, to love adventure and excitement, and this
trip promises both. Yes, Mr. Pauling, you can count on me and the
sooner we get off the better.”

“Hurrah! Hip hurrah!” yelled the two boys, fairly dancing with joy.

“Bully for you!” cried Rawlins grasping Mr. Thorne’s hand. “I’ll say
you’re a good sport. Didn’t I tell you we’d be in the bush in three
days, boys?”

“Well I hope the rest of your hunch comes true as quickly,” laughed
Mr. Pauling. “I’ve been telling the Colonel and Mr. Thorne about your
famous hunches and the way they’ve saved the day so many times.”

“Bet you didn’t tell them about the inspector over at Trinidad
thinking they were a new Yankee drink!” chuckled the diver.

“My word, that _is_ rich!” choked Colonel Maidely when the
laughter had subsided, “Jolly good joke! Just like old May--wait ’til
I tell that to His Excellency and to Philip! By Jove, yes!”

Mr. Thorne rose. “I’ll be starting things going,” he announced. “Can
you gentlemen be ready to leave to-morrow morning? I think my Indian
boys are still here--at least some of them are, and if we get off on
to-morrow morning’s steamer so much the better.”

“We can be ready,” Mr. Pauling assured him. “I suppose we had better
take a radio outfit along.”

“By all means,” replied the other. “Doubtless these men with the plane
are in touch with events by radio and I count largely on trailing them
by that means. I understand you boys have a radio compass outfit.”

“Better than that,” declared Tom. “We’ve got a resonance coil.”

“Well, take it,” directed the explorer. “Don’t bother about the rest
of the outfit--except arms and ammunition and old clothes. I’ll see to
supplies and camp kit.”

“Gosh, isn’t it great?” exclaimed Tom after Mr. Thorne had gone. “Just
to think we’re really going into the jungle!”

“You bet!” agreed Frank.

“And when we get back we can go looking for that loot that they hid,”
went on Tom, “unless these rascals confess and tell us where it is.”

“Jehoshaphat! I’d forgotten all about that,” exclaimed Frank.

“You might just as well forget it, once and for all,” declared Mr.
Pauling, laughing at the boys’ enthusiasm. “I don’t think even Rawlins
has any idea of being able to recover that.”

“I’ll say I have!” cried the diver. “But it will take some figuring
with what we have to go on. But I’m more keen on getting the old High
Muck-a-Muck and his mate than finding that loot just now.”

Throughout the rest of the day the boys busied themselves with
preparations for their trip, going over their radio instruments and
packing the few belongings they were to take with them. Finally, in
the evening, when Mr. Pauling and Mr. Henderson left for the reception
at Government House, they took another long drive about the town and
outlying country with Rawlins. Early the next morning, Mr. Thorne
arrived, accompanied by two short, stockily built, broad-faced, brown
men, who shouldered the party’s baggage and carried it to a waiting
cart.

“Everything’s arranged,” the explorer told Mr. Pauling. “Most of my
boys have gone up the river, but I telegraphed for them to be ready
and I found a couple of them still in town.”

“Why, were those men you brought Indians?” asked Tom in surprise. “I
thought they were Chinese or something.”

“Akawoias,” replied Mr. Thorne. “All the Indians here have a Mongolian
appearance.”

“Gosh, if I’d known that, I’d have been more interested,” declared
Frank.

“You’ll see them and a lot more for day after day,” laughed the
explorer, “and you’ll find them very decent boys. They’ve been with me
for months.”

“Do they talk English?” asked Tom.

“Well, not exactly,” replied Mr. Thorne. “They have a queer jargon
they call ‘talky-talky’--something like Pigeon English. You’ll learn
to speak it easily enough. Now if you’re all ready, let’s be off. The
boat leaves in half an hour.”

“By the way,” remarked the explorer, as the party left the destroyer
and walked up the street towards the dock or “stelling” where the
river steamer was moored, “I’ve a bit of news for you. The seaplane
passed over Wismar and was headed almost due south. I think that
rather does away with the idea that they were making for Venezuela or
Dutch Guiana.”

“Hmm,” muttered Mr. Pauling. “Is there any place in that vicinity
where they could hide?”

“It’s the least known district in the entire colony,” Mr. Thorne
assured him. “Until I explored it, the upper reaches of the Demerara
were absolutely unknown--even the source of the river had never been
discovered--and between the Berbice and the Essequibo rivers above the
Demerara is a vast area of absolutely unexplored territory. They could
come down anywhere in that district without the slightest chance of
being seen--except by Indians--and it’s near enough the coast to be in
radio communication with a confederate here or a ship at sea. But my
own opinion is that their friends are over in Dutch Guiana. Judging by
your experiences, they have a particular fondness for the Dutch and
Dutch colonies.”

“Could they communicate with people there at this distance?” asked Mr.
Henderson.

“I don’t see why not,” replied the explorer. “In a direct line,
Paramaribo, the capital and port, is a little over two hundred miles
distant. Of course, I do not know the sending range of the plane’s
outfit, but they could certainly receive and I suppose that’s just as
important.”

“If they’ve got as good an outfit on the plane as they had on the sub
and at St. John they could send twice that distance,” declared Tom.
“Do you understand radio, Mr. Thorne?”

The explorer smiled, “As Colonel Maidley would say, ‘rawther’,” he
replied. “I don’t suppose I’m up-to-date, but it is something of a
hobby with me.”

“Gee, that’s bully!” cried Tom. “Did Dad tell you about our subsea
radio?”

Once started on this subject the two boys and Mr. Thorne forgot all
else and held an animated conversation which continued without
cessation until they reached the little river steamer and the boys’
interests were aroused by new sights.

Never had the two boys seen such an odd, many colored cosmopolitan
crowd as thronged the “stelling” and the boat. Swathed in cotton,
bare-legged and with their heads covered with immense turbans of red,
white, or green the East Indian men stalked about. There were Parsees
with their odd embroidered hats; Brahmins with the painted marks of
holy men upon their foreheads; fakirs in rags, with long matted hair
and beards, carrying their highly polished brass begging bowls and
their goatskins as their total possessions; fat, sleek “Baboos” in
silk, protecting their turbaned heads under huge, green umbrellas;
and East Indian women by the score, ablaze with color and laden down
with heavy barbaric jewelry, their wrists, ankles and arms encircled
by scores of heavy bands and rings of beaten silver and gold, their
sleek, black hair bound with dangling silver and jeweled ornaments,
huge golden hoops in their noses--clad, besides, in brilliant
embroidered jackets, fluttering gauze veils and silken draperies. A
chattering, dark-hued throng that transformed the spot to a bit of
India. Back and forth among them, elbowed the big, burly
negroes--“pork knockers,” as Mr. Thorne called them--each carrying his
“battell” or gold pan strapped to his pack and all bound for the gold
and diamond diggings. Chinese there were too, prosperous merchants in
European garments; farmers with huge, saucerlike hats, loose trousers
and blouses; Chinese women in flapping, pajamalike costumes, and
toddling Chinese kiddies that might have stepped from an Oriental
screen. To swell the crowd and add to the multiplicity of
nationalities there were sallow Portuguese, mulattoes, quadroons, and
octoroons; bronzed English planters; dark-eyed Venezuelans;
broad-shouldered, mighty-muscled “Boviander” rivermen; and half a
dozen short, deep-chested, stolid-faced native Indians or “bucks,” as
the explorer told the boys they were called.

And such confusion! Such a chaos of live stock, baggage, squalling
babies, and wildly clucking and clacking fowls! How they would ever
get straightened out; how they would ever find their own belongings,
or how the tiny side-wheel steamer could ever accommodate them all was
a mystery to the boys. But gradually order came out of chaos; the big,
heavily booted, blue-clad “bobbies” shooed and berated and shoved and
ordered and helped and at last, with a toot of the whistle, the gang
plank was drawn in, the mooring lines were cast off and loaded to the
gunwales, the little steamer swung into the swirling muddy stream and
poked her blunt bow up river to the deafening cheers, farewells, and
parting shouts of the kaleidoscopic crowd upon the stelling.

“Well, we’re off!” exclaimed Rawlins, “We may not know where we’re
going but we’re on our way!”

“Yes, and to think we’re way down in South America!” cried Tom. “I
can’t really believe it yet.”

“It isn’t much like the popular idea of South America, I admit,”
laughed the explorer who had joined them. “But you’ve only begun to
see unexpected and surprising things.”

“You’ll have to tell us everything,” declared Frank. “We want to learn
all we can and everything’s absolutely new to us, you know.”

“I’ll do my best,” replied Mr. Thorne, “but even I learn something new
every time I go into the bush.”

“If we learn where that plane’s hanging out, I’ll be satisfied,”
declared the diver.




CHAPTER VII

OFF FOR THE JUNGLE


Never will the two boys forget that first trip up the big, turbid
South American river. From start to finish it was one never ending
succession of surprises, interests, wonders and delight. The miles of
mangrove swamps, with their aerial roots drooping from the branches
into the water, lured the boys’ imaginations with their mysterious,
dark depths. A great flock of scarlet ibis, that rose from their
feeding ground upon a mud flat and, lighting on the trees, looked like
gorgeous fiery blossoms, brought cries of delight from the boys. They
watched the big greenheart rafts floating silently downstream with
their Indian crews lolling in hammocks beneath the thatched shelters
on the logs. Mr. Thorne pointed out dozing alligators which Tom and
Frank had mistaken for logs; he showed them the giant, lily-like water
plants which he said were “mucka mucka,” and he called their attention
to countless bright-plumaged birds which flitted in the foliage of the
riverside trees. At times the steamer swung in so close to shore that
the boys caught glimpses of frightened, scurrying iguanas or great
lizards; at other times, it slowed down and stopped before some tiny
thatched hut at the edge of a clearing and unloaded merchandise or
people into the huge dugout canoes that put off from shore pulled by
bronze-skinned, half-naked men.

“Are they Indians?” asked Tom, as they watched the fellows handling
the heavy barrels and boxes with ease.

“No, Bovianders,” replied Mr. Thorne, “a mixture of Dutch, negro and
Indian blood. They’re the best boatmen in the colony. I always have a
Boviander captain for my boat.”

“What does Boviander mean?” asked Frank. “Is it an Indian name?”

“It has a curious origin,” the explorer informed him. “It’s a
corruption of ‘above yonder.’ In the old days, any one who lived up
the river from the coast was said to live ‘above yonder’ and gradually
the expression was transformed to ‘Boviander.’”

“Well, that _is_ funny!” declared Tom. “I never would have
guessed it.”

“You’ll find a lot of queer expressions here,” laughed the explorer.
“You’ll hear the people speak of ‘taking a walk’ when they mean a trip
in a canoe and you’ll hear them say ‘topside’ when they mean some
place which is indefinite. They also speak of the turns of a stream as
‘streets’ and they all use the native Indian names for birds, animals,
and trees. They never say ‘tapir’ but ‘maipuri,’ a boa or anaconda is
a ‘camudi,’ a camp is always a ‘logi’ or ‘benab,’ a canoe is a
‘coorial’ and so on.”

“Gosh, I don’t believe I’ll ever understand them!” declared Tom, “but
I’m going to try. Can’t you get one of your Indians to talk? I’d love
to hear that ‘talky-talky’ lingo you spoke about.”

Mr. Thorne laughed. “All right,” he assented and, approaching the edge
of the upper deck where the first-class passengers were quartered, he
leaned over and beckoned to one of the Indian boys who was dozing in a
cotton hammock he had swung in the shade.

“Hey, Joseph!” he called. “Makeum for come here, this side.”

The Akawoia grinned, stretched himself, and came padding on bare feet
up the ladder.

“This fellow Buck name Joseph!” said Mr. Thorne, as the two boys
looked at the pleasant-faced Indian whose head scarcely reached Tom’s
shoulder. “He one plenty good boy. Makeum for tellum white boy how can
speakum talky-talky, Joseph.”

Joseph half turned his head and, fixing his eyes on the deck, twiddled
his toes in an embarrassed manner.

“No makeum for shame!” went on the explorer. “This fellows white boys
makeum plenty long walk topside ’long we. Him wantum sabby
plenty--wantum sabby Buck talk, wantum sabby bush, how can makeum for
hunt, how catchum fish. Must for tellum, Joseph, must for makeum good
fren’.”

The Indian grinned and looked up. “Me tellum, Chief,” he replied in a
soft, low voice. “Me be plenty good fren’ lon’side him. How you
call-urn?”

“This fellow makeum call Tom,” replied Mr. Thorne, introducing the
boys, “Nex’ fren’ makeum call Frank.”

Joseph shook hands gravely with the boys and smiled in a friendly way.

“S’pose you want makeum one walk. S’pose no sabby bush me tellum like
so,” he remarked, and then, evidently thinking there was nothing more
to be said, he turned and walked silently away.

“Why, that’s easy!” cried Frank as the Indian left. “I’ll bet I can
talk that now. You no sabby Tom, me tellum you all same Joseph. How
you likeum talky-talky like so?”

“Splendid!” cried Mr. Thorne, and all three roared with laughter at
Frank’s first attempt at talking the Indian jargon.

The banks of the stream had now changed from the low mangrove swamps
to bluffs and hills of sand; the dense tangle of weeds, mucka-mucka
and vines had given place to lofty trees. There were heavy forests
stretching away into the distance; tiny clearings and cultivated land
showed here and there and the boys caught glimpses of numerous,
open-sided, thatched huts among the trees. From time to time flocks of
parrots flew swiftly overhead, screeching loudly as they winged their
way across the river; herons, blue, gray and white, flapped up at the
steamer’s approach. In backwaters covered with gigantic lily leaves
the boys saw tiny brown and yellow birds running about, apparently
treading on the water, and these Mr. Thorne told them were jacanas,
whose long toes enabled them to walk upon the leaves of water plants
without sinking.

Then the current of the river became swifter, the steamer chugged and
struggled and panted and Mr. Thorne explained that the tide had
turned.

“You don’t mean to say that they have a tide clear up here!” exclaimed
Tom in surprise.

“For nearly one hundred miles up the rivers,” the explorer assured
him. “Of course, the salt water doesn’t come up here, but the tide
backs up the rivers so there is a rise and fall of nearly six feet up
to the first rapids or cataracts as they are called.”

“Jimminy, are there rapids?” asked Frank.

“Rapids!” ejaculated Mr. Thorne. “Why, my boy, there are nothing but
rapids. It’s just one rapid and fall after another.”

“Hurrah, that will be great!” declared Frank. “I’ve always wanted to
run rapids.”

“You’ll run enough to last you for life,” Mr. Thorne assured him. “And
you’ll have enough of them and to spare. It’s all right running them
when you’re coming downstream, but it’s slow, heartbreaking work going
up. Why, it often takes days to haul up a rapid that we shoot in less
than an hour coming down.”

“I see where I’d like to have that blamed old plane,” exclaimed
Rawlins, who had arrived in time to hear the explorer’s remarks. “If
they see us coming, there won’t be much chance of catching them. A
plane’s the thing for this country.”

“Leave that to the Indians,” chuckled Mr. Thorne, “When we locate the
plane the rest will be easy--that is, if we can overcome the Bucks’
superstitions enough to get them to touch the plane.”

“By glory, that’s a good idea!” declared the diver. “If they see
Indians they won’t be suspicious and they’ll never know we’re near
until we march in and say ‘hands up.’”

“They won’t see the Indians,” said Mr. Thorne decisively. “You don’t
know the Guiana red man, Mr. Rawlins. A shadow is a noisy and tangible
thing compared with him.”

“Oh, look, there’s a ship!” cried Tom, pointing ahead to where the
masts of a large vessel showed above the trees.

“Yes, she’s off Wisniar--loading greenheart, I expect,” assented the
explorer. “We’re almost at the end of our steamer trip.”

“But how did a big ship get up here?” inquired Frank.

“Ocean liners can come up here,” replied Mr. Thorne. “The river is
deep and it’s not unusual to see several big tramps up here loading
greenheart or even farther up at Akyma loading bauxite--aluminum ore,
that is. An American company is developing a large mine there.”

“Oh, there’s the town!” cried Tom.

A few moments later, the steamer was being moored to a rickety wharf
before the little settlement and the boys were surprised to see a
diminutive locomotive and a train of toylike cars standing on a track
near the landing.

“Why, they have a railway here!” exclaimed Prank. “Pshaw! this isn’t
wild a bit.”

“It’s the jumping-off place of civilization,” said Mr. Thorne. “The
railway merely runs across to Rockstone, a settlement on the Essequibo
River.”

Rapidly the motley crowd of passengers disembarked, Mr. Thome’s two
Indians, reënforced by five others who appeared to spring by magic
from nowhere, shouldered the party’s baggage, and Mr. Thorne led the
way to a large dug-out canoe which was moored near the dock.

“We’ll spend the night across the river,” he explained, as the Indians
piled their loads in the “coorial” and the boys and their companions
seated themselves. “There is a hotel here,” he continued, “but it’s a
rotten hole and my Boviander captain has a nice place where we can be
far more comfortable.”

Pushing off from shore, the Indians grasped their paddles and with
swift, powerful strokes drove the craft diagonally across the river,
swung it deftly into a small creek, and ran its bow on to a mud bank
from which a notched log led up to the higher land.

Standing at the head of the improvised steps was a powerfully built,
yellow man with grizzled curly hair, a heavy mustache and a pair of
keen gray eyes.

“Howdy!” he greeted them with a pleasant smile, “I’se please to see
you retarn, Chief.”

Mr. Thorne shook his hand warmly. “Glad you were here, Colcord,” he
exclaimed. “These are the gentlemen and the boys that are going up
river with me.” Then, turning to the others, “This is Captain Colcord,
my boat captain,” he announced. “And there’s none better in the
colony.”

The Boviander flushed under his dark skin and then, shaking hands with
each member of the party in turn, led the way along a narrow path
between the trees.

“You’ll have to tell Colcord something of our plans,” said Mr. Thorne,
speaking to Mr. Pauling in subdued tones. “He’s perfectly dependable
and can keep a secret, but we can’t accomplish much unless he knows
what we want to do.”

“Very well,” assented the other. “I trust to your judgment, Thorne.”

Colcord’s house proved a revelation to the boys. It was merely a huge
open shed, with a high, thatched roof, a floor of hewn boards raised
several feet above the earth, and one small room partitioned off by
wattled palm leaves. Its furnishings consisted of a rough table of
native wood, a few cheap chairs, a number of big hammocks, a
nickel-plated alarm clock, and an American lantern. On the rafters
overhead were spread woven palm leaf mats on which were placed Indian
baskets and trays; a huge red earthen jug of water stood on a tripod
of hard wood sticks; a long, highly polished bow and several six-foot
arrows were laid upon a timber; and a single-barreled gun stood in a
corner. It seemed scarcely more than a camp and might well have been
the home of an Indian, but they soon found that this rude and
primitive dwelling was very comfortable and that, despite its
simplicity and its meager furnishings, no necessity was lacking.

Colcord’s wife, who appeared to be of nearly pure Indian blood, was
busy over a tiny fire in a small shed in the rear and no sooner had
the Indian boatmen brought the baggage into the house than they joined
her and seemed perfectly at home. Presently the Akawoia, Joseph,
appeared, carrying a steaming earthenware pot, and Colcord rapidly
produced dishes and cutlery and set the table. As he moved about and
Joseph brought in more steaming dishes, the boys lolled in the
hammocks in the deliciously cool breeze and idly watched the chickens,
doves, and woefully thin dogs that swarmed about the house. They knew
that less than a mile distant was a town, with railway trains, a
sawmill, and shipping, and that only a few hours’ travel by steamer
was the big busy port of Georgetown, and yet, they could not help
feeling that they were in the heart of the jungle and far beyond the
reach of civilization.

“Gosh, isn’t it great!” exclaimed Tom. “This is really camping out.”

“You bet!” replied Frank. “I wonder if there are any wild animals
about.”

“Plenty deer,” declared Colcord, who overheard Frank. “I made fo’ to
kill one this marnin’. I ’spect you folks plenty hungry, no?”

“Well, I have got a mighty good appetite,” admitted Tom.

“Me too,” added Frank. “Gee, that food smells good!”

“O. K., then,” declared the Boviander. “Jus’ draw up an’ he’p
yourselves. I ’spect you’re not accustom’ to rough livin’ like this,
an I have to ’pologize fo’ not havin’ more better.”

“Now don’t say a word!” Mr. Thorne admonished him, as the party drew
chairs to the table. “I’ll bet they never tasted anything better than
this venison and yams and pepper pot, and it’s like the Ritz compared
to what we’ll be getting from now on.”

Every one declared that Mr. Thorne was right and that they had never
tasted anything to equal the roast venison, the boiled yams, the fried
plantains and the pepper pot.

The boys were particularly enthusiastic over the last and also over
the crisp, toasted cassava bread and were greatly surprised to learn
that both were made from the deadly poisonous bitter cassava root.

“The juice is the poisonous part,” explained Mr. Thorne. “After it’s
squeezed out through a cylindrical sieve called a ‘metapee’--that’s
one hanging over in the corner--any traces of the poison, which is
prussic acid, are driven off by baking the meal into these cakes. The
poisonous juice boiled down makes the pepper pot. It has the property
of preserving meat and giving it this delicious flavor. It’s really
the national dish of Guiana.”

“Well, it’s good enough to be the national dish of any country,”
declared Rawlins. “Just fill my plate up again, Mr. Thorne.”

The meal over, the party made themselves comfortable in the hammocks
and, as pipes were lighted, the explorer told Colcord that they were
going in search of an aircraft which had last been sighted flying to
the south over Wismar.

“It’s of the utmost importance that we find it,” he said. “The men in
it are desperate criminals and Mr. Pauling and Mr. Henderson are
officials sent out by the United States Government to get them. They
want those men dead or alive--alive preferably--and we expect you to
help us. We have no idea where the machine is, but we have an idea
they are hiding somewhere not far away. Now do you suppose we can
trail that plane and get the men, Colcord?”

“Yes, Sir--Chief,” replied the Boviander confidently. “But we’ll never
fin’ it over this side, Chief. That airship’s went up the Essequibo
topside. I was makin’ a walk up beyon’ Malali for locus’ gum an’ I
never cotch a glimmer of it, but ol’ Charlie--the Macusi what lives
over Mule Pen side, you know--he was huntin’ pacu on the Tukumi Creek
an’ he mek to get mos’ frighted to death when she fly over. Yes,
Chief, I sure we make our walk up the Essequibo top side we boun’ for
to find she.”

“Hmm, very likely,” agreed the explorer. “Can we get a boat at
Rockstone?”

“I can’ say rightly, Chief,” replied Colcord. “But I ’spect you can.
Le’s see, they’s seven of you, an’ we’ll need a plenty good size boat
an’ ’bout ten men an’ bowman asides me. You got Joseph, an’ Billy an’
Bagot an’ Carlos an’ Theophilus an’ Abr’ham. That’s six, an’ I reckon
I can s’cure free more boys an’ Boters for bowman, but I can’ rightly
say ’bout the nex’ man.”

“Ah can paddle,” put in Sam who had been very silent. “Ah don’ lay to
do narthin’.”

The Bovinander glanced approvingly at the Bahaman’s powerful arms and
shoulders. “Yes, son, I ’spect you can,” he agreed. “You surely is a
strong-lookin’ boy.”

Everything was soon arranged, one of the Indians was sent off to
notify the men Colcord had in view, and, in preparation for an early
start the next morning, all turned in almost as soon as it was dark.

The boys had never before slept in hammocks and, although Mr. Thorne
and Colcord showed them how to wrap themselves in their blankets and
lie diagonally across the hammocks, it was some time before they could
make themselves comfortable and go to sleep. It was a new sensation to
be thus going to bed practically in the open air and for a long time
the boys remained awake, listening to the multitude of strange and
unusual sounds which issued from every side. There were chirps,
whistles, squeaks, and strident songs of insects; thousands of frogs
croaked and barked and grunted; night birds called plaintively; owls
hooted and from the forest in the distance came a roaring,
reverberating bellow which Tom was sure must be a jaguar. But Mr.
Thorne laughed and assured him it was merely a troop of howling
monkeys or baboons and, to put the boys more at ease, he patiently
identified each of the unusual noises that disturbed them. Gradually,
realizing that there was nothing more dangerous than frogs or monkeys
to be feared, and assured by the explorer that even the vampire bats
would keep away as long as the lantern was kept burning, the two boys
quieted down and, watching the myriad giant fireflies, dropped off to
sleep.

It seemed as if they had scarcely closed their eyes when Colcord’s
cheery cry of “Fireside” aroused them and they sat up, yawning
sleepily, to find the sky across the river pink and gold with the
coming dawn.

It was cold and chilly and the steaming coffee which Colcord had ready
was very welcome.

“Golly, I thought the tropics were hot!” exclaimed Frank, as he beat
his arms about and tried to keep his teeth from chattering.

Mr. Thorne chuckled. “Not at night--in the bush,” he replied. “You’ll
find colder nights than this after we get farther up river.”

“Whew! I’ll want an overcoat then,” declared Tom, “or a furnace fire!”

But the boys’ chill was only temporary and a little exercise, combined
with piping hot food, soon made them forget all about the cold morning
air and by the time they were ready to embark in the canoe and cross
the river the air was balmy and springlike.

The boys found little of interest on their ride across from Wismar to
Rockstone by the railway, for the train passed through land which had
been stripped of its forests by the lumbermen and the few remaining
trees stood gaunt and dead above a tangle of weeds and shrubs. But at
Rockstone they were delighted, for, close to the station, flowed the
great Essequibo River, dark and mysterious, with its shores covered by
the impenetrable tropic jungle. To them this mile-wide, silently
flowing stream gave an impression of the unknown and savored of
adventures to come, for Mr. Thorne had told them that its source was
near the borders of Brazil and that much of its rapid and
cataract-filled course led through country never seen or penetrated by
white men.

The boat was ready and waiting, for the Indian sent by Colcord had
made his way across to Rockstone and had arranged everything, and
already the additional members of the crew and the bowman were stowing
the outfit in the craft.

Within half an hour of their arrival the boys and their friends were
seated under the arched canvas awning or “tent” near the stem, the
nine Indian paddlers, with Sam, were in their places, and the bowman,
grasping a huge paddle, was perched precariously on the boat’s prow.
Colcord stepped on to the stern and slipped an enormous paddle through
a bight of rope. Then, to his shout of “Way-ee-oo!” the ten paddles
dug into the water as one, the heavy, spoon-bottomed boat sprang
forward, and Colcord straining at his great steering paddle, headed
the speeding craft upstream. Five minutes later Rockstone with its
houses, its railway station and its docks, slipped from sight behind a
wooded point and only the sullen, mighty river and the endless jungle
stretched ahead.




CHAPTER VIII

ON THE TRAIL


Rockstone, the last outpost of civilization, had been left far behind
and many miles of river had been covered when at last Colcord turned
the boat’s bow towards shore and ran the craft alongside a fallen tree
that sloped from the high bank into the water.

Although the boys had seen much to interest them as they paddled
upstream, yet they were cramped and tired, for, with the exception of
a short stop for lunch at noon, they had been seated in the boat for
nearly ten hours. Moreover, after the first few miles, the river and
its banks were merely a constant repetition of what they had seen:
walls of tangled jungle like a vast green velvet curtain rising from
the river; vivid flowering trees; great azure blue butterflies; noisy
carrion hawks; chattering parrots and ungainly yelping toucans along
the shore--all reflected as in a mirror by the oily brown water.

They had expected to see Indians and to have the thrill of navigating
rapids, but Mr. Thorne explained that these would not be reached until
the following day and the boys were glad indeed to step on dry land
and stretch their cramped legs when the boat at last was run ashore
and preparations were made to camp.

Rapidly and with perfect system, the Indians commenced work, cutting
poles and stakes and in an incredibly short time a big tarpaulin had
been spread between the trees, hammocks were stretched and ready and
the savory odors of coffee, bacon, and broiling meat were wafted from
the campfire where Sam was presiding as cook.

Presently Joseph approached, naked save for a scarlet loin cloth, and
looking the thoroughly primitive Indian with a long bow and arrows in
his hand.

“Mebbe you likeum sabby how Buckman shootum fish,” he remarked.

“You bet we would!” cried Frank, jumping up. And then, remembering
that he must talk the Indian’s jargon, he added, “Me likeum too much.
Me come see.”

The Indian grinned and, without a word, turned and slipped silently
into the forest with the two boys at his heels. For a short distance
he led the way among the trees and then, turning towards the river,
came out upon a jutting rocky point. Raising his hand as a signal for
caution, he stopped, fitted a six-foot arrow to his bow, and stepped
silently towards the water’s edge. Intently the two boys watched,
utterly at a loss as to what Joseph intended to do. Then they saw him
suddenly straighten up and quickly draw the huge bow. Like a streak of
light the long arrow darted into the river. The next instant he threw
aside his bow, rushed forward, and, seizing the floating arrow,
dragged a big silvery fish upon the rocks.

“Gosh!” exclaimed Tom, as the two boys rushed forward to where the
Indian was extracting a barbed iron arrow point from the fish. “I
never saw anything like that! Why, he shot the fish with his arrow.”

“Say, that _is_ a new way of fishing!” cried Frank, as he
examined the weapon. “This arrow’s just like a harpoon with a head
fastened to a line and not to the shaft. Gee, I wish Mr. Rawlins could
have seen that.”

Joseph grinned, picked up his bow and arrow, and a moment later had
shot a second fish. Absolutely fascinated, the boys watched him as
fish after fish was secured in this novel manner and then, as darkness
was rapidly coming on, the three made their way back to camp.

Mr. Thorne chuckled as the boys enthusiatically related what they had
seen. “I forgot to tell you about that,” he said. “You should see them
shoot fish in the rapids. That’s really exciting. And they call them
too.”

“Oh, now you’re fooling!” exclaimed Frank. “How can they call fish?”

“I don’t know how they can, but I know they do,” replied the explorer.
“They stand near the water and wiggle their fingers and whistle and
the fish come up. I’ve seen it scores of times and I’ll wager you’ll
see it done too.”

“Well, I suppose we’ll have to believe it, if you say it’s true,” said
Tom, “but it does sound like a fish story.”

Sam’s cooking proved highly successful, and as they were busily
eating, Colcord suddenly jumped up and stood listening attentively.
The next moment the boys heard a slight splash and a grating noise and
one of the Indians uttered a low cry in his native tongue. Immediately
from the river came an answering call and a moment later, a canoe
appeared in the reflection of the firelight on the river. About it the
Indians gathered.

“By glory, we’ve got visitors!” exclaimed Rawlins. “Wonder who they
are.”

“Indians,” replied Mr. Thorne. “Know who they are, Colcord?”

“No, Chief,” replied the Boviander. “I ’spect they’s Wapisianas or
Macusis from topside.”

As he spoke two bronze-skinned figures approached the fire, clad only
in their scarlet “laps” or loin cloths. Without uttering a word they
passed around the fire, shaking hands with each member of the party,
and then, squatting down, remained motionless and silent for a full
minute. Evidently this was bush etiquette for Colcord and Mr. Thorne
seemed to regard it as a matter of course. Then the explorer passed
the new arrivals a tin of tobacco, Colcord filled a tin dish full of
food and set it before them, and, as the Indians began to eat, the
explorer spoke.

“You fellow makeum walk Rockstone?” he asked. “Come all time topside?”

“Makeum walk Bartica,” responded one of the red men. “Come Pakarima
like so.”

“How you callum, Macusi mebbe?” inquired the explorer.

“Arekuna,” replied the other Indian.

“Eh, eh! Arekuna!” exclaimed Mr. Thorne. “You sabby white man makeum
fly all same bird like so?” The explorer made a sound like the exhaust
of an airplane’s motor.

The Indians glanced sharply at the explorer and muttered some words in
their own tongue.

“Me sabby,” vouchsafed one of the two at last. “Me hearum. No sabby
him white man. Me sabby him peai. No likeum plenty.”

“Ah, we’re getting on the trail!” exclaimed Mr. Thorne, turning
towards Mr. Pauling. “They’ve seen or heard the plane, that’s
certain.”

“But what do they mean by ‘peai’?” asked Tom.

“Magic, witchcraft,” replied Mr. Thorne. “Anything a Buck doesn’t
understand, or fears, or thinks supernatural, is peai.”

Then, again addressing the Arekunas, he asked. “Where you seeum? You
sabby what side him go?”

“No seeum,” replied the Indian. “Makeum noise like so. Him plenty
peai. Him go Maipurisi side.”

“Good!” cried the explorer. “Trust the Bucks to know where they went
even if they didn’t see the plane. I’ll bet they’re over in that lake
on the Maipurisi. Just the place for them.”

“Didn’t I say they couldn’t sneak around here without being seen?”
cried Rawlins.

“Hmm, it doesn’t look as if we’d have much trouble in tracing them at
all events,” remarked Mr. Pauling. “How far is Maipurisi from here?”

The explorer turned to Colcord. “How far is it, Colcord?” he asked.

The Boviander considered a minute and then spoke rapidly to the
Arekunas in their own native tongue. Then, when the Indians had
answered, he replied, “Two days coming down, Chief.”

“That means about six days going up,” commented Mr. Thorne. “There are
some pretty bad falls to haul over.”

Suddenly Tom was seized with an idea and, whispering to Frank, rose
and began rummaging in a chest.

“What are you boys up to?” asked Mr. Pauling.

“Going to set up our radio receivers,” replied Tom. “Perhaps we may
hear something. We ought to be listening whenever we can.”

“Good idea,” commented his father. “After this, we’d better keep one
set ready in the boat all the time.”

As the two boys busied themselves connecting the instruments, the
Indians and Colcord watched them closely, the red men seemingly
fascinated by the mysterious-looking cabinets and their bright,
nickel-plated binding posts and glowing bulbs. Little by little they
edged nearer and nearer until a circle of naked bronze bodies and keen
black eyes was formed about the boys and their instruments.

“I’ll say they think that’s ‘peai,’” chuckled Rawlins. “I wonder what
they’d do if a signal did come in.”

“Be scared half to death,” declared Mr. Thorne. “Those are fine
instruments you have, boys.”

“We made them all ourselves,” replied Tom. “That is, all except the
resonance coil. We got that from the sub.”

As Tom spoke, he adjusted the receivers, while; Frank moved the coil
slowly about. To the Indians this evidently savored of some mysterious
religious ceremony or incantation, and the boys could not help
grinning as they saw the eager eyes of their Buck friends following
every motion of the coil.

For some time Frank tried it towards the south, but no sound came to
Tom’s ears, and it was evident that if the plane were in that
direction its occupants were not sending.

“Swing it around to the north,” directed Tom “We’ll see if we can pick
up anything from Georgetown or any ship.”

Turning, Frank moved the resonance coil around, and the next instant
the sharp “dee-dah” of a dot and dash signal buzzed clearly from the
receiver. With one accord the Indians tumbled head over heels as they
strove to get away from the spot and, with frightened exclamations and
terrified faces, picked themselves up and cowered near the fire.

“Peai!” they exclaimed. “Plenty peai! Me tellum no likeum him fellow!”
Every one burst out laughing and the Indian paddlers rather
shamefacedly attempted to grin at their own fright. But the two
Arekunas would have none of it and jabbered together earnestly in
their own tongue.

“By glory!” exclaimed the diver. “If they’re that scared at the code
signals, wouldn’t they get a jolt if they heard a voice coming in!”

“Thank Heaven they didn’t!” said Mr. Thorne. “If they had, I’m afraid
they would all have deserted.”

Meanwhile the sharp “dees” and “dahs” were coming in on the
instruments, and Tom, from force of habit, was mentally forming them
into letters and words.

“It’s some cipher message,” he announced presently. “No sense to it at
all.”

“Take it down,” exclaimed his father, suddenly interested. “It may be
for those rascals with the plane.”

Once more the message was coming in and Tom rapidly jotted down the
words and handed the paper to his father. “They’re sending the same
thing over and over again,” he said. “That’s the third time it’s been
repeated.”

Mr. Pauling eagerly scanned the message and slowly a smile and an
expression of satifaction spread across his features.

“It’s for us!” he ejaculated. “Good news. The _Devon’s_ taken!
Jove! It seems little short of uncanny to be getting word from Maidley
way up here in the jungle.”

“I’ll say ’tis!” cried Rawlins. “Bully for the Colonel! Where did they
get her?”

“Hurrah!” cried the boys. “Now these fellows up the river _are_
in a fix!”

“He doesn’t say where,” replied Mr. Pauling. “Didn’t want to use any
name, I suppose--no cipher word for that--just says: ‘Ship taken. All
on board held.’ He’s no fool, Maidley. He knew the plane would hear
this and took no chances of saying anything to make them suspicious. I
expect he thought we might be listening and broadcasted the message in
hopes we’d get it.”

“Good old scout,” declared the explorer. “Just like him to do that.”

“Can you send a message back acknowledging this?” asked Mr. Pauling,
turning to Tom.

“No,” replied Tom. “We didn’t bring our sending set. We thought if we
received it would be all we needed.”

“Hmm, too bad,” commented his father. “Sorry Maidley won’t know we got
it and will keep on sending. Those fellows may get suspicious if they
hear the same message coming in night after night.”

“He’ll know we got it before to-morrow night,” declared Mr. Thorne.
“I’ll send word to him.”

“How?” asked Mr. Pauling. “What magic do you use?”

“Easily enough,” replied the explorer. “These Arekunas are going to
Bartica. They’ll be there before noon to-morrow and there’s a
telegraph line from there to Georgetown. Write a message to Maidley
and they’ll take it to Bartica and give it to the telegraph office
there. It will be in Maidley’s hands by noon.”

“By Jove!” exclaimed Mr. Pauling. “I didn’t realize we were so closely
in touch with civilization.”

The message was soon written and Mr. Thorne handed it to one of the
still frightened Arekunas. “Must for takeum Bartica like so,” he
instructed the Indian. “No looseum. When makeum Bartica side giveum
Mr. Fowler. You sabby him fellow?”

The Arekuna slipped the folded paper into a jaguar skin pouch hanging
from his neck, “Me sabby,” he said. “Takeum Mr. Fowler same way.”

“Can you depend on those fellows?” asked Mr. Henderson.

“Absolutely,” Mr. Thorne assured him. “I’ve never known an Indian to
lose or forget a message and they’re strictly honest and trustworthy.
I’ve known an Indian to travel over three hundred miles through the
bush to return ten shillings he’d borrowed.”

“Not much like our redskins in the States,” commented Mr. Henderson.

“I don’t know about that,” declared the explorer. “I’ve always found
primitive men honest--it’s civilization that ruins them. These Bucks
are little more than vagabonds and scalawags once they become
civilized and live near the settlements.”

Presently the Arekunas silently withdrew, the Indian boatmen sought
their hammocks, and the white men and boys followed their example.
Although the boys had become somewhat accustomed to the noises of a
bush night while at Colcord’s house, yet here in their forest camp
beside the mighty river, they felt strange and nervous. The boom and
croak of frogs and the incessant sounds of myriads of insects were the
same as they had already heard, but far louder and more numerous than
at Colcord’s, and in addition there were a thousand and one other
noises for which the boys could not account and which kept their
sleepy tired eyes wide open. But the Indians were sleeping soundly;
from Rawlins’ hammock, came lusty snores and the boys, despite their
nervousness, finally lost consciousness and did not awaken until
aroused by the sounds of the Indians starting the fire at dawn.

The Arekunas had already slipped away downstream, and, by the time
breakfast was ready, camp had been broken, everything was neatly
packed in the boat, and the Indian paddlers were waiting in their
places.

For hour after hour they paddled upstream. Rocky islands appeared in
the river--some bare and carved and worn by the water into odd
grotesque forms,--others covered with trees. The current flowed more
swiftly and just before noon a dull roaring sound reached the boys’
ears, and, peering ahead, they saw a line of flashing white stretching
across the river from shore to shore.

“First rapids,” Mr. Thorne informed them. “We’ll have lunch before
hauling through, Colcord.”

“Gosh, I call those falls and not rapids!” declared Tom as the boat
was run ashore on the sandy beach of a tiny island. “I don’t see how
you expect to get this big boat through that.”

“Wait and see,” chuckled the explorer.

As Colcord leaped ashore he stopped, bent down, and examined the sand.

“Water Haas!” he exclaimed, pointing to a number of small indentations
in the beach.

“What are ‘water haas’?” asked Tom. “Some kind of animals?”

“Capybara--sort of giant Guinea pigs,” replied Mr. Thorne. “They’re
likely to be in the brush here. Get your guns and you may be able to
shoot one. They’re good meat.”

Eager for the chance to secure game, the boys and Rawlins got out the
rifles they had brought and started up the beach, following the little
trail left by the water haas. Presently they noticed that, instead of
one, there were half a dozen tracks and at Rawlins’ suggestion they
separated and cautiously approached a tangle of palms and small trees
near the upper end of the island.

Gaining the edge of the thicket, Frank, who was nearest the river,
peered through the screen of foliage. As he carefully parted the
leaves and branches, there was a startled snort and three big,
clumsy-looking brown creatures leaped from the damp ground and stood
for an instant staring towards the boy and sniffing the air
suspiciously. So surprised was Frank at the sudden appearance of the
beasts that, for a moment, he forget to shoot, and the next second the
three animals were scurrying out of sight. Hastily throwing up his
rifle, Frank blazed away at the retreating forms.

“What was it? What did you shoot?” yelled Tom, as he and Rawlins came
running at the report of Frank’s rifle.

“Don’t know if I shot anything or what they were,” replied Frank. “I
was so surprised I didn’t fire till they were running away. They went
over there.”

Hurrying to the other side of the thicket, Rawlins, who was in
advance, gave a shout. “I’ll say you shot him!” he cried. “Guess it’s
one of those water haas.”

The two boys hurried forward and found the diver bending over the dead
animal, a curious-looking creature with short stiff hair, an enormous
head and broad blunt snout.

“Why, he’s got webbed feet!” exclaimed Frank who was examining his
prize.

“And he does look like a huge Guinea pig,” declared Tom.

Elated at their success, the boys picked up the animal and hurried
back to the boat.

“Yes, it’s a water haas or capybara,” declared Mr. Thorne. “Now we’ll
have a fine feast to-night.”

“But he’s got webbed feet,” said Frank. “Can they swim?”

“Can they!” exclaimed the explorer. “Like a fish. That’s why they’re
called water haas--it’s Dutch for water horse. They’re as amphibious
as seals almost.”

“Say, let’s take a swim!” suggested Tom. “I’m hot and the water looks
fine.”

“Don’t you try it!” cried the explorer. “The place is full of perai
and you’d surely be eaten alive.”

“Why, what do you mean?” demanded Tom, puzzled. “I thought perai was
magic or witchcraft. How can that eat us?”

Mr. Thorne burst out laughing and Colcord, who stood near, shook with
merriment.

“Peai is witchcraft,” explained the explorer. “Perai is a kind of
fish--‘cannibal fish,’ they’re called sometimes. They’re the most
deadly and savage creatures in the bush. They’ll tear anything that’s
flesh to bits, in a moment. It’s lucky I stopped you in time.”

“Is that really true?” asked Mr. Pauling. “I’ve read travelers’ tales
of them, but I always supposed they were real ‘fish stories.’”

“Not at all,” Mr. Thorne assured him. “Let me demonstrate it.”

Picking up a bit of meat, the explorer stepped close to the water and
tossed it into the river. Instantly there was a splash, a flash of
silver, and the meat was dragged under. The next moment the water
fairly boiled with leaping, darting fish, and the onlookers gazed with
amazement as the voracious, savage creatures tore and snapped and bit.

“Gee, I’m glad I’m not in there!” exclaimed Frank. “They’re like
hungry wolves.”

“Worse,” declared Mr. Thorne. “They seem to go blind mad at the smell
of flesh, and their jaws are so powerful and their teeth so sharp they
can bite a piece out of a plank. A man would be torn to bits--eaten
alive--if he went in there.”

“Jiminy, I’d hate to tumble overboard!” exclaimed Tom.

“That’s the odd thing about them,” remarked Mr. Thorne as they started
back towards the boat. “They won’t touch a man if he has clothes
on--apparently do not recognize flesh if covered by garments. In some
parts of the rivers they are harmless--never touch people--and the
natives bathe freely.”

“Well, I’m not taking any chances,” declared Tom. “I’ll go without a
bath for a while.”

Embarking once more, the boat was paddled upstream and at the foot of
the roaring, rushing falls, which the boys now saw were really a
series of steep rapids, dashing and foaming over the jagged black
rocks, the craft was run alongside a smooth ledge.

“All out!” cried Mr. Thorne, leaping ashore.

Filled with interest to discover how the Indians would get the heavy
boat through that tumbling seething mass of water to the river level,
twenty feet above, the boys scrambled up over the rocks and watched
every move of Colcord and his men.

“This isn’t a bad spot,” commented the explorer. “They’ll get through
without discharging. But, in many places, everything has to be taken
from the boat and portaged for a mile or more around the rapids.
Sometimes a score of such portages must be made in order to travel a
dozen miles upstream, so you can understand how tedious and slow
traveling in the interior is.”

“This looks bad enough to suit me,” declared Tom. “I should think the
boats would get smashed all to bits.”

“They’re built for the purpose,” replied Mr. Thorne. “Tough native
wood and with spoon-shaped bottoms, so they slide off a rock in any
direction.” Some of the Indians had now uncoiled a long light rope and
were moving upstream, jumping and scrambling from rock to rock, at
times plunging into the swirling water up to their armpits or even
swimming through the racing current, until at last they gained a
precarious foothold upon a projecting ledge in midstream, well above
the falls. In the meantime, others had attached a second line to the
stern of the boat and stood waiting for orders close to the water’s
edge, while the bowman and Colcord braced themselves in bow and stern,
grasping their immense paddles.

For a moment the Boviander glanced about, studying the lashing white
foam and the jagged, black rocks, casting his eyes over the waiting
Indians to see that all were ready. Then, with a sharp “Hi-yi!”, he
dug his great paddle into the water. Instantly the bowman shoved the
craft from shore into the current; the men on the bow rope hauled and
tugged with all their strength; the captain shouted orders and threw
his weight on his six foot paddle; the bowman paddled furiously; the
men at the stern line bent to their task; and slowly the boat forged
ahead. With consummate skill the Boviander and the bowman swung the
craft to right and left, clearing the rocks by inches; the stern line
kept it headed into the torrent; and foot by foot the boat crept up
the falls. How the captain and bowman ever kept their balance as the
boat rocked and pitched and seemed about to stand on end was a mystery
to the boys, but with bodies swaying to the jerking, tossing craft
they strained at their paddles--sweating, grunting, shouting, while
about the bow the angry waters foamed and seethed and the hungry waves
leaped above the gunwhales. For a moment the craft stood motionless,
shaking and trembling to the terrific strain, and then human muscles
and human brains won. The craft shot forward, the Indians yelled and
rapidly gathered in slack, and the next instant the boat was safe from
the torrent in a calm backwater above the falls.

“Gosh, that was great!” cried Tom, as, leaping from rock to rock, the
boys made their way towards the boat.

“I’ll say ’twas!” exclaimed Rawlins. “But, by golly, if a rope had
parted we’d have been in a nice fix.”

By the time the passengers were seated the lines had been coiled away,
the Indians were once more in their places, and a moment later the
boat was speeding upstream over a stretch of tranquil water.

But now the character of the river had changed. Sand bars and wooded
islands broke its surface; the trees along the banks towered upward
for over one hundred feet; the stream twisted and turned and flowed
swiftly in dark, wine-colored currents between the islands; and even
the birds and foliage seemed different. Little fresh water flying fish
skittered away from the boat, great flocks of twittering swallows
flitted about, clouds of brilliant yellow butterflies floated back and
forth across the stream, and once or twice the boys caught glimpses of
otters swimming in the river ahead.

In places, too, gaudy flowers that had fallen from the great trees
covered the surface of the river with a solid mass of color, and the
boat seemed to be passing over some gorgeous carpet, while the
reflections of foliage and trees were so perfect that the boys had the
strange sensation of being suspended in mid-air between two forests.

Very soon, however, the tranquil water came to an end and another
series of rapids barred the way. Once more the men labored and tugged
and dragged the boat up the falls, and time after time, as the falls
were reached, the process was repeated. Then Mr. Thorne announced that
they were approaching a really dangerous spot and as the boat rounded
a bend the occupants saw a plunging, rock-strewn cataract, half hidden
in the mist rising from the roaring water at its base. Here all the
baggage was taken out and carried over the rocks and with only the
empty boat the Indians and the Bovianders prepared for a tug of war
with the falls. Over and over again they strove to gain a foothold on
the slippery rocks, and a dozen times they were swept struggling
downstream. But they laughed and yelled and shouted and seemed to
enjoy the excitement and at last won a stand, waist deep in the flood,
and by almost superhuman efforts dragged their craft to the water
above the cataract. But the most dangerous part was yet to come. A
short distance above the falls was a huge whirlpool--a dark, sinister
mass of water in a basin of steep walled rock; deep, threatening, with
its current rotating silently, swiftly around and around while, at its
center, at the very vortex, masses of foam, bubbles and driftwood had
been drawn and were constantly being sucked suddenly out of sight or
thrust bobbing above the surface.

“Ugh! Isn’t that a nasty looking spot!” cried Tom. “Say, have we got
to cross that?”

Mr. Thorne nodded. “Yes, just sit tight and don’t jump and you’ll be
all right,” he declared. “If a paddle doesn’t break we’ll get through
safely. It’s the only way and the worst spot on the river.”

As he spoke the captain was testing each paddle, examining the blades
and handles for possible cracks and at last, with the baggage stowed
snugly, the Indians and Sam in their places, Colcord told them that
all was ready.

With fast beating hearts the boys seated themselves, Mr. Thorne, Mr.
Pauling, Mr. Henderson and Rawlins took their accustomed places and
with a “Yip-yi!” from the Boviander the paddles dug into the water and
the coorial shot out upon the swirling black surface of the pool.

With every ounce of their strength, with their muscles straining under
their bronze skins, the men plied their paddles and Colcord and the
bowman swung their weight upon their huge paddles at bow and stern.
For an instant the boat hung motionless, the bow quivered and vibrated
to the drag of the current and then the craft darted ahead. High above
the gunwales boiled the maelstrom as the centre of the whirlpool was
reached, the boat seemed actually to stand on end, it slid up a hill
of water and ere the boys realized it was accomplished the coorial had
dashed beyond the danger point and was safe in a narrow, swiftly
flowing channel above the pool. And at this instant, just as the boat
had gained safety, there was a sharp report and one of the Indians
tumbled head over heels as his paddle broke short at the blade!

“Gee!” cried Frank. “It was lucky that didn’t happen a minute sooner!”

“I’ll say ’twas!” agreed Rawlins. “We’d have been goners if it had,
sure.”

“A miss is as good as a mile,” laughed Mr. Thorne. “You have to trust
a lot to luck in this work.”

“Same as in diving,” remarked Rawlins.

“Well, Colcord, I guess we can call this a day’s work,” said the
explorer as the boat swung into the broader river and tranquil water.
“Find a good spot and we’ll make camp for the night.”

The boat was soon run ashore, the tarpaulin was quickly stretched and
the crew lolled about, glad of a chance to rest their weary muscles.

“I suppose we might as well listen and see if we hear anything,”
suggested Tom, as Sam busied himself with the cooking.

“Yes, take every chance you get,” said his father. “We’re getting
nearer and nearer to the spot all the time.”

But no sound came into the receivers and with Sam’s call to dinner the
instruments were laid aside.

But when dinner was over, the boys once more adjusted their receivers
and prepared to listen to anything that might be passing through the
air. Tom clamped the phones to his ears, Frank turned the resonance
coil about and as it pointed towards the south, Tom fairly leaped from
his seat.

“Jumping Jiminy!” he exclaimed. “They’re talking!”

“What?” cried Mr. Pauling. “Are you sure? Get what they say!”

Tense with excitement, leaning forward with breaths coming fast, all
were silent, listening with straining ears to the faint buzzing sounds
from the instrument while Tom rapidly jotted down the message.
“They’ve stopped!” he announced at last. “I guess--Gosh! What’s that?”

As he had been speaking, Frank, thinking the signals over, had turned
around and as he did so, sharp “dees and dahs” once more issued from
the receiver. Instantly all were again silent, glancing at one another
with wonder and amazement on their features, for the signals were
coming in with the coil pointed to the east! A moment later the sounds
ceased and Tom handed the slip of paper to his father.

“By glory!” ejaculated Rawlins. “Some one must have answered them!”

“Sounded like it,” agreed Mr. Henderson. “But it couldn’t be any one
on the _Devon_. We know she’s captured.”

“And it did not come from the direction of Georgetown,” said Mr.
Thorne. “Whoever was sending that message is to the east--in Dutch
Guiana I think.”

“It’s meaningless gibberish,” declared Mr. Pauling who had been
studying the sheet of paper. “Just numbers and nothing more.”

“Cipher, of course,” commented Mr. Henderson. “Well, that proves they
were talking to some one who replied. Otherwise the two messages would
not be in the same cipher.”

“I can decode it--if I take time,” declared Mr. Pauling. “But I
suppose if I do, it will be of little use--probably in Russian.”

“Well it’s blamed good news anyway,” cried the diver. “It proves the
old rascal and the plane are still ‘topside’ as the Indians say.”

“And also that we haven’t rounded up all the gang yet,” added Mr.
Pauling.

“No doubt they landed some one from the _Devon_,” suggested Mr.
Thorne, “or already had confederates in Surinam.”

“In a way I’m glad they have,” declared Mr. Pauling. “Otherwise they’d
not have any one to talk with. Better listen a while longer, boys.”

But no other signals came in and at last, yawning and tired, the two
boys put away their instruments and with the others crawled into their
hammocks and fell instantly to sleep.




CHAPTER IX

KENAIMA!


For the next three days the boat was worked steadily up the river;
paddled swiftly through long stretches of tranquil water; hauled up
falls; dragged through rapids and ever penetrated deeper and deeper
into the heart of the vast wilderness.

From time to time they had met Indians, sometimes individuals paddling
silently close to shore in tiny canoes of bark which Mr. Thorne said
were known as “wood skins”; sometimes families in big dugouts
accompanied by flea-bitten, woefully thin dogs, naked brown children
and all their household belongings, and once they had paddled up a
creek and had visited a large Indian village where the boys had found
a thousand things to interest them.

But while every Indian was questioned, few could give any information
in regard to the plane, although many had seen or heard it as it had
flown southward more than a week before.

Each day and every night too, the boys had listened at their radio
sets, but no more messages from the plane had been heard and all had
begun to think that the aircraft had departed and that the long
journey would prove fruitless. The boys, however, had had the time of
their lives. They had taken numerous trips into the bush with Joseph
and the other Indians. They had shot deer, wild turkeys, peccaries and
a tapir, while a splendid jaguar skin and two beautiful ocelot hides
were safely stowed among their belongings as trophies of their prowess
as hunters, and Rawlins treasured a huge snake skin from a twenty foot
anaconda that he had secured.

Much of Mr. Pauling’s time had been spent trying to decipher the
messages the boys had received from the plane and the “reds’”
confederate, for it was his boast that there never had been a secret
code which he could not interpret.

“I guess I’ve had my trouble for nothing,” he announced one afternoon.
“I’ve got it, but as I expected, it’s in some foreign tongue--Russian
most likely. Yet it doesn’t look exactly like Russian either. It’s not
German, but whatever it is, it’s no value to us now. Of course, we can
get it translated eventually, but I’d give a lot to know what it
says.”

“May I see it?” asked the explorer. “Possibly I may be able to
identify it, even if I can’t read it.”

“Certainly,” replied Mr. Pauling, handing him the sheet he had covered
with writing.

Mr. Thorne glanced at the paper. “Why, it’s Dutch!” he exclaimed.
“Here, Colcord, can you read this?”

The Boviander fished a pair of battered spectacles from his pocket,
adjusted them low on his nose and looking, as Tom said, as grave as if
he were about to preach a sermon, he peered at the writing.

“Yes, sir, Chief,” he declared after a minute’s study. “I ’spec’ I
can. I don’ comprehen’ Dutch too much, Chief; but I can tell yo’ what
it mean.”

“All right, what is it?” replied Mr. Pauling.

“This firs’ one say as how they need help,” declared the Boviander, as
he ran his blunt brown forefinger along the lines. “It say how they
bus’ up the apperatix an’ can’t fly an’ don’ have food.”

“By Jove!” cried Mr. Pauling. “That’s good! Machine disabled, eh? Good
for you, Colcord, we’ll get them yet. Go on, what’s next?”

The Boviander grinned and peered about over his spectacles vastly
pleased to find himself the center of interest and able to exhibit his
superior knowledge. Then, again studying the writing, he continued:

“I can’t ’lucidate all the words, Chief. But here ’bout it say
something ’bout the ship bein’ los’ and some fellow makin’ afraid for
to talk.”

“Jove! then they know the _Devon’s_ taken,” ejaculated Mr.
Henderson, “and whoever was talking has got cold feet and has quit.
That’s the reason we heard nothing more. Is there anything else,
Colcord?”

“Plenty else,” replied the captain, “but this specie of Dutch I don’
rightly know, Chief.”

“Well, by the great horn spoon, we’ve found out all we want to know!”
exclaimed Rawlins. “They’re here; they’re helpless--at least as far as
getting away is concerned--and they’re short of grub. By glory! my
hunch is working out O. K., I’ll say.”

Only two days’ travel now lay between them and the Maipurisi district
where the plane was supposed to be and as they gathered about the camp
fire that night, plans were discussed and formed as to their actions
and procedure when they neared the hiding place of the two fugitive
criminals.

“I think the best plan is to run up Unuko Creek,” said Mr. Thorne.
“It’s scarcely ten miles across from there to Maipurisi and we can
send a couple of the Bucks over to scout and report. Then, when we
locate the plane, we can go overland, surround them and call upon them
to surrender while we are hidden in the bush. As they can’t get off in
the plane and have no boat or canoe, they’ll be helpless.”

“Yes, that sounds like a good scheme,” agreed Mr. Pauling, “but can
you be sure your Indians will manage to keep out of sight? Moreover,
if by chance they were seen or captured, are you sure they would not
give away our presence?”

The explorer smiled. “If you’d ever seen one of these Indians stalk
game you would not ask the first question,” he replied. “Do you notice
that they always use small bore, muzzle-loading guns and double ‘B’
shot and yet they kill tapir and jaguar? They could only do that by
getting so close to their quarry that the light charge of shot acts
like a solid ball. In other words, they creep within a dozen feet of
the most wary creatures in the South American jungle and an Indian who
can do that could sneak into those fellows’ camp and be within arm’s
reach without being seen or heard. As for being captured, why there’s
no more chance than of capturing a ghost! And if by a miracle they
were seen why should those rascals ever suspect the Bucks knew
anything about them or us, or had any connection with officers whom
they probably imagine are hundreds of miles distant? No, don’t worry
on that score.”

At this moment a low, plaintive, long-drawn whistle was borne faintly
from the forest across the stream and instantly the Indians leaped up
and stood motionless, listening intently and peering apprehensively
across the river.

Once more, from the black depths of the jungle, came the mysterious
sound and hastily gathering up their half-finished meal, the Indians
came crowding close to the group of white men.

“Eh, eh, Joseph! Why makeum for ’fraid like so?” queried Mr. Thorne.
“What you sabby?”

Joseph turned fear-wide eyes and terrified features towards the
explorer. “Kenaima!” he exclaimed in a whisper.

Mr. Thorne whistled. “So that’s it!” he ejaculated. Then, turning to
the Indians, “No makeum ’fraid, Joseph! Kenaima no makeum walk this
side. No huntum you fellow Buckman same way!”

“Please tell us, what _does_ he mean?” begged Tom, utterly at a
loss to understand what had frightened the Indians or what the
explorer was talking about. “What _is_ a Kenaima?”

“The blood avenger,” replied Mr. Thorne in a low voice. “If an Indian
is killed, tribal law demands that his slayer must be destroyed, and
not only the assassin must pay the penalty but all his relatives as
well. The man chosen to wreak vengeance is the ‘Kenaima’ or, as the
Indians believe, a man in whom the spirit of vengeance takes up its
abode until its mission is accomplished. Until the Kenaima kills his
victim he cannot see or speak to any living being, but must live
alone, ever trailing the one he seeks until he has wreaked vengeance.
He may chose either one of two forms--the ‘tiger Kenaima’ or the snake
or ‘camudi Kenaima.’ If the former, he must strike down his man with a
short club, if the latter he must strangle him, but in either case he
must not kill his victim outright at once. Instead he must disable him
and then return three days later when the wounded man is put out of
his misery by the Kenaima driving a wooden spear through his body.
Then the avenger must lick the blood from the spear or--so they
believe--the spirit of vengeance will not leave and the Kenaima will
go mad, ranging the forests and killing all he meets.”

“Uugh! it makes me shiver,” cried Tom, edging closer to his father and
the fire.

“And I thought these Indians were peaceable!” exclaimed Frank as he
glanced nervously about.

“So they are--usually,” declared Mr. Thorne. “But they have their own
laws and customs and the Kenaima is one of them. Nothing can stamp it
out.”

“By glory, I’d hate to kill one of them!” exclaimed Rawlins. “But what
happens if the fellow gets away--reaches civilization for instance?”

“He never gets away,” the explorer informed him gravely. “The Kenaima
is tireless, relentless. If one is killed, another takes his place and
there are two deaths to avenge. Why, I’ve known a Kenaima to trail his
victim into Georgetown and strike him down on the street!”

“By Jove!” ejaculated Mr. Pauling. “And these Indians think there’s
one about, eh?”

“They think that whistle was one,” replied Mr. Thorne. “I can’t say,
but I know the Bucks claim the Kenaima warns friends to keep away by
uttering a whistling sound. He must not be seen and the Indians are
deathly afraid when they hear it. No power on earth could induce one
of these men to cross that river to-night or to enter the jungle over
there to-morrow.”

“Great Scott, I don’t blame ’em!” declared the diver. “Say, I wonder
who the poor devil is that he’s after!”

“Gosh I won’t be able to sleep to-night,” said Tom. “It makes my blood
run cold, just to think of it.”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed his father. “Probably that whistle was merely a
night bird of some sort. These Indians are superstitious and imagine
all sorts of things. Besides, we have nothing to fear. None of us has
injured an Indian.”

But despite Mr. Pauling’s assurances and the fact that after a time
the Indians gradually drifted back to their own fire and crawled into
their hammocks, the boys tossed and remained wakeful for hours,
starting up at each unusual sound and listening with straining ears
for the uncanny, mysterious whistle. But it was not repeated and at
last, worn out and sleepy, the boys’ drowsiness overcame their nervous
fears and the gruesome blood avenger was forgotten in a dreamless
slumber.

With the bright sunshine of the following day it seemed very silly to
have been afraid of the supposed Kenaima and the boys discussed it
without the least shivery sensations running up and down their spines
as had been the case the night before. But they noticed that as the
boat left camp, the Indian paddlers kept close to shore and glanced
furtively across the river and that even Colcord seemed to feel
relieved when they reached a bend and the locality of the strange
whistling sound was left astern.

But even then the Indians acted strangely. Heretofore, they had
laughed and joked or had sung rollicking chanteys in unison to the
strokes of their paddles, but to-day they were quiet, talking together
in low tones, constantly edging the boat towards the center of the
river, despite Colcord’s efforts and commands, and plying their
paddles more vigorously than ever before.

“I believe there’s something afoot,” declared Mr. Thorne. “I’ve lived
a long time among these people and I’m convinced they have a sixth
sense--mental telepathy or something--by which they know intuitively
when there is danger near and I’m beginning to think that there may be
a Kenaima about.”

“Why don’t you ask them?” inquired Mr. Henderson.

“Torture wouldn’t force them to tell,” responded the explorer. “Even
to mention the avenger by name is considered dangerous--I’m surprised
that Joseph dared utter the word last night.”

“But if he’s only after one person, why should they he afraid?” asked
Frank. “They know he’s not after them.”

“Very true,” replied Mr. Thorne. “But they fear that he may not have
driven the spirit of vengeance from his body--if he’s killed his
man--and that being the case he is liable to kill and attack any one.”

“Hmm, uncomfortable sort of chap to have at large in the bush,”
commented Mr. Pauling. “Does that ever occur?”

“Yes, frequently,” said Mr. Thorne. “It may seem preposterous to us,
but the Indians believe so thoroughly in their superstitions that if a
Kenaima does not succeed in carrying out his entire purpose he goes
crazy and does run amuck.”

“Ah, I understand, sort of auto suggestion,” remarked Mr. Pauling.

It was now time to think of stopping for the noonday rest and lunch
and at Mr. Thome’s orders, Colcord headed the boat towards shore.

Instantly, the Indians stopped paddling, jabbered excitedly together
and then one of their number spoke vehemently to the Boviander in the
Akawoia tongue.

“He say they not goin’ make camp ashore, Chief,” announced Colcord.
“They boun’ for to make stop at a islan’.”

Mr. Thorne raised his eyebrows, “Oh, very well,” he replied. “It’s
just the same as far as I’m concerned.”

“Not taking any chances, I see,” laughed Mr. Henderson as the
mollified Indians again took up their paddles and headed for a small
barren island in midstream.

While Sam was cooking lunch, the two boys and Rawlins strolled about
the island, hunting for turtle eggs in the sand and amusing themselves
by chasing the big lizards that ran scuttling across the pebbles.

As they reached the upper end of the island, the river beyond a sharp
turn came in view and the boys called the diver’s attention to
hundreds of great black birds, wheeling and circling above the trees
half a mile distant.

Rawlins looked at them a moment. “They’re buzzards,” he announced.
“Vultures--wonder what they’ve found up there.”

“Gee, but there’s a bunch of them!” exclaimed Tom.

Then, at Sam’s shout, they hurried back to the boat and busied
themselves with their meal.

As the boat once more moved upstream and passed the island, the great
flock of buzzards still soared in the clear blue sky above the forest.

“What do you suppose they’ve found?” Frank inquired of the explorer.
“They were there when we walked about the island. Isn’t it funny they
don’t go down and eat if they’ve found a dead animal?”

“Possibly it’s a wounded creature,” replied Mr. Thorne. “They often
follow a sick or injured animal until it dies. Or again there may be a
king vulture there. The black rascals won’t dare touch carrion until
the king’s gorged himself.”

“King vulture!” exclaimed Tom. “What’s he?”

“It’s a large species of vulture--light colored--sort of creamy white
with red and blue head, and nearly as big as a condor. They always go
singly and if one of them alights near a carcass, the black vultures
keep off until he’s finished. That’s why they’re called king
vultures.”

“I’d like to see one,” declared Frank. “Let’s go over and see if he’s
there and what they’ve found.”

“Very well,” laughed Mr. Thorne, glad to humor the boys’ curiosity.
“Whatever it is, is near the river. Colcord, run over to that point
and we’ll have a look at what the buzzards are after.”

As the boat approached the spot, the boys saw that trees and rocks
were black with the loathsome birds which rose on flapping wings as
the craft touched the shore and the boys and the others sprang on to
the rocks.

Whatever had attracted the scavengers was evidently just within the
verge of forest and climbing the bank, Rawlins, who was in advance,
saw a huge white and black bird flap up from a clump of grass a few
yards away.

“There goes the old king!” he exclaimed.

Anxious to catch a glimpse of the great bird, the boys stopped and
craned their necks and the diver stepped forward towards the clump of
coarse grass.

The next instant a cry of mingled horror and surprise rang through the
forest and Rawlins, pale and with a strange expression on his face,
came hurrying back.

“Don’t go in there!” he cried. “Come on back to the boat, boys!”

“But what--what is it?” cried Tom. “What _did_ you see? You look
as if you’d seen a ghost!”

“Worse!” exclaimed the diver. “It’s a man! A man staked out--”

“A man!” yelled Frank and then, seized with sudden terror, the two
boys turned and fled headlong towards the boat.

“You mean there’s a human body in there?” demanded Mr. Pauling who,
attracted by Rawlins’ excited tones, had hurried forward. “Come on,
brace up, Rawlins! A dead man can’t hurt you! We can’t leave a human
being to be eaten by vultures.”

With a great effort, Rawlins recovered himself. “Guess it was the
shock of seeing him,” he declared, rather shamefacedly. “But by glory,
it is a rotten sight!”

“Rotten or not we’ll have to bury him,” declared Mr. Pauling. “He’s an
Indian I suppose.”

“Indian nothing!” cried Rawlins. “That’s the worst of it! It’s a white
man!”

“By Jove!” ejaculated Mr. Pauling. “Who could it be?”

The next instant they had reached the thicket and at the sight which
greeted them, even Mr. Pauling, Mr. Henderson and the explorer drew
back filled with nauseating horror.

Stretched at full length upon the ground was the body of a man, with a
long staff of wood driven between his shoulders and pinning him to the
earth. And then, as they took a second glance, horror gave way to
amazement, for fringing the dead man’s face pressed against the forest
floor was a huge red beard!

“Jumping Jupiter, it’s he!” cried Rawlins. “Old Red Whiskers himself!”

“And killed by a Kenaima!” exclaimed Mr. Thorne.

“Jove, no wonder those Indians were nervous!” ejaculated Mr. Pauling.

“I’ll say they had reason to be!” declared Rawlins. “But what in
blazes started a Kenaima after this guy do you suppose?”

Mr. Thorne had stepped to the edge of the trees. “Come here, Colcord,”
he called, “and bring a couple of shovels along. Better bring Sam too.
No use trying to get one of the Bucks.”

But when the Boviander arrived, he took one glance at the body and
then, throwing down the shovels raced back to the boat. Too much
Indian blood flowed in his veins for him to approach a victim of the
Kenaima and as he reached the boat a low, terrified wail arose from
the throats of the Indians: “Kenaima! Kenaima! Kenaima!”

Leaping into the craft they seized their paddles.

“Come on!” shouted Mr. Thorne. “Run for your lives! They’re crazed
with fear! They’re going off!”

Shouting to Colcord and the Indians, the explorer tore down the bank
and across the rocks with the others at his heels. Already the boat
was several yards from land, but as he heard Mr. Thorne’s commands and
realized what he was doing, Colcord checked the boat, uttered sharp
orders to the Indians and with Sam’s help swung the boat ashore. The
four men and the boys leaped in and instantly the terrified Indians
dug their paddles into the stream and drove the boat madly from the
accursed spot.

“Too bad, but it can’t be helped,” muttered Mr. Thorne. “I hate to
leave him, but there’s nothing to be done.”

“Well, he’s tossed many a poor devil to the sharks!” exclaimed
Rawlins. “So I guess it kind of evens up things. But by glory, I’d
like to know where his mate is.”




CHAPTER X

RED BEARD SEALS HIS DOOM


Far up in the Guiana jungles and strangely incongruous and out of
place in the heart of the bush, a seaplane rested half drawn upon the
shore of a small lake. High above the mighty trees it had flown from
Georgetown, following the course of the great river stretching like a
silver ribbon through the endless jungle and like a giant bird it had
circled and swooped to the surface of Maipurisi Lake. For a hundred
miles and more its occupants had seen no break in the forest, no sign
of civilization, no house or clearing save the scattered thatched
benabs of Indians or the small, half-cleared patches of forest that
marked the red mens’ gardens. Hounded from one secret rendezvous to
another, their submarine wrecked and many of her crew killed in a
collision; with their own steamship blown up in St. John’s harbor and
with a destroyer hot on their trail, the master mind of the gang of
international rogues and his trusted assistant had sought refuge in
the heart of unknown Guiana. Confident that they had thrown their
pursuers off their track; certain that their fellows had hoodwinked
their enemies and had wrecked the destroyer in the Bocas, and
congratulating themselves on their clever ruse of boldly entering
Denierara and departing in an airship while posing as explorers, yet
the two rascals were taking no chances.

They well knew that the men trailing them were no amateurs; that they
were matching wits with the most resourceful members of the Secret
Service and they also knew that their enemies, by almost uncanny
intuition, had foreseen and had checkmated their every move for weeks
past. There was a chance that in some way their well-laid plans had
miscarried: that the destroyer had escaped destruction, and that
finding--as they inevitably must--that the story of the
_Devonshire_ was a myth and that an aircraft had left the
_Devon_, Mr. Pauling and the others would leave no stone unturned
to capture the ship and her crew. The two arch fiends had no desire to
be present when this took place.

Months before this they had kept British Guiana in view as a last
resort in case of just such an emergency as had arisen, for Van Brunt
had told of an ancient ruined city hidden in the heart of the
unexplored district. A city of a prehistoric race upon the shores of a
great lake and within the ruins of which were vast stores of golden
ornaments and bullion. But he had never divulged the exact locality of
this lost and supposedly fabulous golden city of Manoa--the El Dorado
that sent Sir Walter Raleigh on his travels. Van Brunt was no fool and
he knew his fellow rogues too well to trust them with his secret, but
he had sworn that, should occasion arise, he would accompany them and
guide them to the lost city.

But Van Brunt had met a sudden and violent death upon the tramp and
his secret had died with him. Not until the two men in the plane had
looked down from the clouds upon that vast, illimitable sea of green
stretching away in billowing hills to the distant mountains, did they
realize what a hopeless task it would be to locate the city by the
lake. That mattered little, however. For the present, they planned
merely to hide for a short time, to await word from confederates in
Dutch Guiana that the coast was clear and then, by an easy flight,
travel into the Dutch colony, gather their men together to resume
their interrupted activities and wreak vengeance on those who had
relentlessly hunted them down. So, having left every trace of
civilization far behind, and feeling confident that even the Americans
would never dream of attempting to trail them into the heart of the
hush, they selected Maipurisi as a promising spot and swiftly dropped
to the smooth surface of the lake.

But fate was against them. As their great plane dropped below the tree
tops and, with the cessation of the motor’s exhaust, skittered across
the black surface of the forest lake, an unseen, undreamed of snag lay
hidden among the lily pads and with a rending, sickening sound, the
thin skin of their boat was ripped open for a dozen feet. The
propeller had not ceased to revolve and realizing their one chance lay
in making the shore, the pilot switched on the motor and slowly the
crippled plane dragged across the few hundred feet of water until its
bow grated on the sand.

With the after half of its hull submerged, injured beyond repair, but
safe from sinking, the now useless aircraft rested like some huge
wounded bird in the shelter of the overhanging trees.

Cursing and raging, the two men clambered out. Their plight was indeed
serious and none realized it better than they. The machine in which
they had expected to fly so easily to the Dutch colony was absolutely
useless; they had no boat, canoe or other craft and to tramp through
the bush to civilization would, they knew, be practically impossible,
even had they known the way. They were as effectually stranded as
though marooned on a desert island in mid-ocean and, worst of all,
they were not over supplied with provisions. They had counted on
staying but a few days in hiding and had carried supplies accordingly
and now, for all they knew, they might be weeks in the jungle. They
had no firearms save their automatic pistols and as neither was
familiar with the bush or an experienced hunter, they felt sure that
they would starve before they could secure enough game to keep them
provided with food if they had to do their killing with their pistols.

Their only hope was in their radio. With this they could communicate
with their friends and make known their plight, but even if their
fellows in Surinam started out to rescue them they knew it would be
many days--weeks perhaps--before their friends could traverse the
country and paddle up the rivers to the spot where they were stranded.
Moreover, they did not know their exact position. They had followed
the courses of the Demerara and Essequibo rivers in a general way, but
they had cut across forests between the streams and their map showed
no lake to correspond with Maipurisi. And worst of all there was no
one at fault, no one to blame but fate and so, to relieve their
feelings, they cursed their pursuers, cursed their luck, cursed
everything and everybody until they could curse no more.

But swearing did no good. The parrots screamed and the monkeys
chattered mockingly from the tangled tree tops. A bold carrion hawk
cocked his head on one side and screeched derisively and a big
alligator, lifting his head cautiously above the surface of the lake,
cast a baleful eye upon them and promptly submerged.

Then, realizing that whatever the future held they must live for the
present, the two men ceased their futile ravings and busied themselves
salvaging everything possible from the crippled plane. The radio set
was unhurt, their pistols and ammunition were safe; they found matches
in watertight containers and there was a small ax. But much of their
food was ruined. It had been stowed in the hull and while the canned
goods were of course uninjured, the flour, sugar, salt and dry
provisions were water soaked and ruined.

Between them and starvation were provisions for less than three days,
aside from what game they might be lucky enough to obtain, and as they
once more commenced to curse in half a dozen languages, the rain came
down in torrents. Their only shelter was the plane and splashing
through the water they clambered aboard and shivering and drenched
cowered in the protection of the broad wings. Chilled to the bone,
utterly miserable they sat there, until at last, unable to endure it
any longer, the huge red-bearded giant jerked out an oath and leaping
ashore, gathered wood and pouring gasoline over it succeeded in
starting a fire.

Encouraged by the warmth, both fell to work and ruthlessly cutting
struts and stays, dragged the wings of their machine ashore and by
dint of hard work managed to brace and guy them into position to form
a water-tight shed. A portion of another wing served to keep their
bodies from the sodden ground and had they been well supplied with
food their predicament would not have been so bad.

Misfortunes seldom come singly, however, and when, in somewhat more
cheerful mood, they attempted to get into communication with their
friends by radio, they discovered that the apparatus would not work.
Fortunately for them, the red-bearded man was an expert mechanic and
electrician and he diligently set to work. The motor was still in good
condition and after he had overhauled the instruments and had set them
up on shore the motor was started and the batteries recharged.

All this took time, however, and in the meantime the slender stock of
provisions was dwindling at an alarming rate. They tried adding to
their larder by hunting, but with no success. The birds kept high in
the trees, the pheasants and wild turkeys they flushed gave them no
chance of a standing shot and the only animals they saw were agoutis
that flashed out of sight like streaks of brown light and a few
monkeys romping among the branches far above their heads. They had no
knowledge of trapping, they possessed no fishing tackle and when, in
desperation, they succeeded in shooting an alligator, the creature
promptly sank and was lost. Knowing nothing of the bush and fearing to
poison themselves, they refrained from eating the berries, fruits, and
nuts which they found. Had they but known it, they could have
sustained life for weeks on the Souari nuts and palm berries that were
abundant all about their improvised camp.

Even the narrow trails and paths through the forest were meaningless
to them and their untrained eyes could not distinguish between the
game trails and an Indian pathway which led to a large Akuria village
less than five miles distant. And when at last their radio was in
working order and they sent out their first message calling for help
and the answer came back, their worst fears were realized. The
_Devon_ had been taken, those on board were prisoners and their
friends in Surinam not only stated that they were suspected and dared
not attempt an expedition, but added that the Americans had left for
the bush, that they were even now in the interior and that to attempt
to communicate by radio would be merely to divulge their whereabouts
to Mr. Pauling and his party.

Resourceful, bold and self-confident as the two were, yet now they
could see nothing but death or capture in store for them. Indeed, if
some miracle did not intervene, death would most certainly be their
portion, for they well knew that to be taken prisoners meant an end on
the gallows or in the electric chair for them and both vowed to take
their own lives before submitting to their pursuers.

But as long as they were alive there still remained a chance that they
might escape. The Americans might fail to locate them--although
knowing that the boys possessed the latest devices in the way of radio
instruments they were confident the messages which had passed between
themselves and their confederates had been heard--and in the past they
had always managed to slip out of the tightest places by some means.

Their one hope was in a boat, in a craft of some sort in which to
navigate the lake and the rivers. They swore and racked their brains
striving to devise some means of constructing a raft or a makeshift
which would float. With their single, short-handled ax it was an
impossible task to cut trees large enough to support their weight--and
even had it been possible this would require so much time that the
last of the food would be gone ere they could embark. Then they
attempted to make use of the plane’s wings and although these floated,
the men’s weight sank them so low that the hollow surfaces were ankle
deep with water. Moreover, they were too clumsy and unwieldy to
navigate.

In every effort, every plan, they were balked and then, when their
case seemed utterly hopeless, fate suddenly seemed to favor them. In a
despairing attempt to secure something to eat, the two had pushed
through the forest until, a mile or more from their stranded aircraft,
they had come out at a small, dark creek and there, drawn upon the
bank, was a canoe. Beside it a naked Indian was squatting, cleaning a
string of fish and the next instant the two desperate men had leaped
from cover and had seized the dug-out. The Indian, startled at this
sudden and unexpected appearance of the unkempt, wild-looking men, had
uttered a frightened cry, and dropping his fish, had sprung away. But
as he saw the strangers taking possession of his craft and realized
they were human beings and not spirits or “bush devils” he rushed to
the canoe, jabbering excitedly in his native tongue and strove to
prevent the rascals from shoving his boat into the stream.

But he might as well have essayed to stem the flow of the river or to
argue or plead with the forest trees. The “reds” were desperate; a
human life more or less meant nothing to them and the red-bearded
giant whipped out his pistol and fired. With a gurgling moan the
Akuria staggered back, swayed drunkenly and dropped limply upon the
muddy shore. The murderer, seizing a paddle swung the canoe into the
creek and headed it towards the lake.

But their crime had been witnessed. Unseen among the trees, a mere
brown shadow in the jungle, the dead Indian’s companion had peered
from his hiding place and had seen all. And although the two in the
canoe never dreamed of it, they were nearer to death at that instant
than ever before in their lives of crime.

Slipping a tiny arrow into his long blowpipe, the watching Indian
rested the deadly weapon across a low-growing branch and with a puff
of his breath the fatal dart flashed silently through the air straight
at the red-bearded fellow’s chest. But at the same instant the man
leaned backward to avoid an overhanging limb and the tiny messenger of
death sped by and dropped harmlessly into the water unseen and
unsuspected by the intended victim. Before another dart could be
fired, the canoe had slipped behind a bend and the Indian, baffled,
stepped from his hiding place and hurried to the side of his dead
tribesman. A single glance sufficed to show that he was beyond human
help and only stopping to cover the body with broad palm leaves, the
Akuria sprang into the jungle and silently as a shadow raced along a
dim and indistinct trail toward the distant Akuria village.

As he came into the clearing and uttered the moaning wail that told of
death, the Akurias swarmed about like a hive of angry bees. Instantly
two men were despatched in a canoe to bring in the body of the
murdered Indian and with scowling brows, flashing eyes and vehement
gestures, the villagers gathered about their wrinkled old chief,
demanding vengeance. Gravely the old man spoke, promising that tribal
law and tribal customs would be followed to the letter and as the
women and boys drifted back to their huts, the chief and the older men
entered the great, conical-roofed house in the center of the village
and seated themselves in a circle with the younger men standing about.

Presently, from his sacred hut, the “peaiman” or medicine man
approached, his face concealed by a baltata mask, a gorgeous feather
crown upon his head, strings of tinkling seeds about his neck, his
body hideously painted and bearing a calabash rattle in one hand and a
carved and decorated staff in the other.

Prancing and dancing, chanting a low, monotonous dirge, the peaiman
moved through the silent throng of Indians to the side of the fire in
the center of the immense house. Squatting beside the flames, the
medicine man made mystic figures in the air with his wand, muttering
in a low voice meanwhile, and punctuating his words with angry shaking
of his calabash rattle. At last he straightened up, fumbled in the
monkey-skin pouch at his side and drew forth a bundle of feathers
tightly wrapped with bark fiber so that only the ends of the quills
were visible. Holding the bundle forth, the medicine man spoke and
gravely and silently the men approached, each in turn drawing a
feather from the bundle.

As the plumes were drawn from their covering and showed green, red,
yellow or blue, sighs or low moans came from the lips of those who
drew them, until at last, the Indian who had witnessed the murder of
his fellow approached and drawing a feather, uttered a cry of triumph
as he held it up for all to see. The plume he had drawn was black as
night!

The next second he had slipped away and the gathering Indians,
preceded by the medicine man, filed from the house and squatted on the
bare ground without; all eyes fixed upon a small hut near the edge of
the forest. Presently from this, a weird figure emerged. Upon its head
was a halo-like crown of macaw feathers, and about its shoulders and
waist were mantles of ink black plumes of the Curassow or “powi.” From
head to foot the copper brown skin was hidden under a coat of scarlet
paint striped and spotted with black and white, with two staring eyes
and a grinning, fang-filled mouth painted upon the chest. In one hand
he held a long bow and arrows, in the other a short, carved,
paddle-shaped club of dark, heavy wood.

Stepping to the edge of the jungle, the man turned and faced the
silent waiting tribesmen. For a moment he stood there, motionless as a
statue, and then, with a swift movement, he tore off his feather
headdress, cast it on the ground, tossed his bow and arrows beside it,
whirled his club about his head and with a ringing, blood-curdling
scream, leaped into the forest and disappeared.

The tiger Kenaima was on the murderer’s trail!




CHAPTER XI

VENGEANCE


With hopes revived the red-bearded man and his companion paddled their
stolen canoe up the creek and after some trouble reached the lake
where their dismantled plane was drawn upon the shore.

Now that they had a craft all their cocksureness had returned to them,
for they knew that in the maze of waterways they could escape from
their pursuers. Now that luck had again turned in their favor they had
no fears but what they would ultimately reach some port where they
would be safe. Moreover, the matter of food did not trouble them. They
knew that there were Indians scattered through the forest. Van Brunt
had told them that all the Guiana tribes were mild, peaceable people
and they felt confident that they could wrest supplies from the red
men even if they had to shoot them down to accomplish their ends.

But they were not such fools as to start out without some supplies and
necessities. There were still a few provisions remaining in their
shelter, as well as matches and other necessities, and beaching their
canoe, they hastily gathered what belongings they desired and pushing
off deserted their hapless airship with a curse and paddled towards
the nearest river. Before they had started, however, they had studied
their maps and had laid their plans. Although the Maipurisi Lake was
not shown, they knew in a general way where they were and they judged
that Mr. Pauling and his companions would follow the shortest and most
direct route, for they did not delude themselves with the idea that
the Americans were ignorant of their hiding place. In fact, they felt
confident that their radio conversation had been overheard and while
it had been in cipher and in Dutch at that, they had too much respect
for their enemies’ intelligence and experience to assume that the
Secret Service men had been unable to translate their messages.

The leader, like all successful crooks, always acted on the theory
that those who sought him knew far more than he planned to have them
and he invariably made his plans accordingly. So now he reasoned that
they would have information that the plane had passed over Wismar
headed southward, that they would follow up the Demerara River and
that having heard his radio signals and thus having located him, they
would cut across by one of the streams that led towards Maipurisi.
Accordingly, he decided that the only safe route was to make their way
to the Essequibo, descend that river and then, before they reached the
outskirts of civilization, follow some tributary that led westward to
the Venezuelan boundary. Once in that republic they would be far more
secure than even in Dutch Guiana, and, moreover, in order to reach the
Dutch colony they would be obliged to cross districts where Mr.
Pauling’s party had already passed and where, no doubt, watch would be
kept for them.

But for once the crafty master mind of the cutthroat gang had reasoned
erroneously. He had not taken the Indians into consideration; he did
not dream that these primitive savages were the most observant of
people; that an airplane, even flying thousands of feet above their
villages, would be heard and seen and would cause such wonder and fear
that the news of its passage would be spread far and wide. It never
entered his mind that the Americans were accompanied by Indians and
were guided by a man who had spent years in the bush and was
thoroughly familiar with Indian ways and Indian character. And so, as,
mightily pleased at the good fortune which had fallen them, the two
men headed their canoe westward towards the Essequibo, they were
running straight into the clutches of their enemies.

Had they but known of the sharp eyes that watched their every movement
and of the sinister being who, armed with the sacred Kenaima club, was
threading the jungle in their direction, they gladly would have sought
the Americans, for the punishment which awaited them in the Courts of
Justice was nothing compared to the awful vengeance that lurked in
that hideously painted savage on their trail.

In their aircraft, speeding through the sky at eighty miles an hour,
the distance from the great river to the lake had seemed nothing. From
far aloft, the country had been spread like a map beneath them and
from the height of a few thousand feet the lake had appeared close to
the big river with only a few miles of winding, forest-fringed creeks
connecting the two. But they soon realized that what seemed a short
run by aircraft was interminably long when paddling along the twisting
waterways in a canoe. They had expected to come out upon the bosom of
the Essequibo by nightfall at the latest, but sundown found them still
upon the dark and dismal creek surrounded by jungle. As they knew that
they could not go on in the darkness, they were compelled to stop and
camp for the night.

Fortunately the red-bearded fellow had had the foresight to strip some
of the waterproof linen covering from the plane’s wings and this they
erected for a tent. They built a rousing fire and tired out with their
unaccustomed labor of paddling, stretched themselves on another strip
of linen and prepared to sleep. They were no longer worried, all their
self-confidence had returned and they joked and laughed to think how
the Americans would have all their long trip for nothing and would
find only the useless, deserted aircraft at the end of their journey.
Their one regret was that they could not be present to gloat over the
discomfiture of their enemies and to see their puzzled looks and hear
their comments when they found the fugitives flown and were utterly at
a loss to fathom the means of their escape.

But despite their feeling of security, they were uneasy. They had
nothing to fear for they knew there were no hostile Indians in the
country; they had the utmost contempt for any wild animals and they
were armed and could protect themselves even if they were attacked.
Yet as the hours passed and the myriad strange noises and calls and
cries of the wild things shrilled and grunted and croaked through the
jungle, the slender highly strung leader tossed uneasily on his hard
couch and found himself staring, wide-eyed and sleepless into the
blackness of the night. His companion--brutal, phlegmatic and
absolutely without nerves, was snoring lustily, and ashamed of his
ridiculous fears, the other tried to follow his example.

Then, just as he was dozing off, a low unearthly cry reverberated
through the forest, a blood-curdling moan, rising and falling in weird
cadence like the wail of a Banshee. At the sound, the noises of frogs,
insects and night birds ceased as with one accord and an awful deathly
silence followed. With a sharp cry of terror the man sprang up, a cold
sweat breaking out on his skin, shivers running up and down his spine
and yet his companion slumbered on.

Never in his life had this unprincipled, heartless villain known the
meaning of fear, but like all of his sort he was an arrant coward at
heart and, though he would be the last to admit it, thoroughly
superstitious, and that awful cry, ringing through the midnight
forest, was enough to bring terror to the bravest man.

In a vague way he knew that jaguars dwelt in the forest, but Van Brunt
had often talked of the bush and had laughed at the idea of a jaguar
attacking a human being. It never entered his mind that the moaning
scream, like that of a tortured soul, was merely the hunting cry of
the big spotted cat. To him it was supernatural, something that could
not come from a form of flesh and blood, and trembling and shaking he
cowered there under his shelter with straining ears listening for a
repetition of the awful sound. For a space he was tempted to arouse
his sleeping comrade, but pride stopped him. The red-bearded fellow
had not heard the cry, he would scoff at the story, would claim his
comrade had been dreaming or had had a nightmare and would curse at
being aroused, and so he kept his vigil alone, starting at each sound
of crackling twig or rustling leaf, gasping when a frog plumped with a
splash into the creek and shivering as he crouched beside the fire.

But the minutes passed, the cry was not repeated, the frogs and
creeping things resumed their chorus and at last, utterly exhausted,
the man threw himself upon the rough couch and slept.

With daylight the memories of the terrors of the night seemed scarcely
more than a dream and, indeed, the man tried to convince himself that
it had been a dream and forebore mentioning it to his companion. But
all through the day, as they paddled down the creek, he was nervous.
He had a strange unaccountable sensation of being followed and from
time to time he glanced back, half expecting to see something--he did
not, could not imagine what--behind them. So strong was this feeling
that when noon came and they stopped for lunch, he insisted upon
landing at a small island in the creek and as the red-bearded man had
long been accustomed to obeying his chief without question, he made no
comment and followed commands.

Throughout the afternoon they paddled on and again sunset found them
upon the creek and they began to fear that they had lost their way,
that through some error they were following the wrong watercourse and
that they would not reach the river by continuing. And yet they could
not see how this could be. They had passed no branches or other creeks
of any size, the water still flowed in the direction they were going
and reasoning that it must eventually empty into a larger stream, they
dismissed their fears on this score, decided that they had
miscalculated the distance and the speed of their canoe and prepared
to camp.

The leader, however, had no desire to repeat his terrifying
experiences of the preceding night and once more he headed the canoe
for a tiny islet in the stream. Leaving his companion to start the
fire and prepare for the night, he followed about the shore of the
island, pushed through the tangle of brash, investigated it
thoroughly, and convinced that there was nothing on the place which
could possibly be feared, he returned with an easier mind to the camp.

Feeling perfectly secure, he soon fell asleep beside his comrade, but
his slumber was uneasy; he awoke from a fearful nightmare shaking as
if with fever and tossing an armful of dry wood on the dying fire, he
squatted near it. Suddenly, from a tree above his head, an owl uttered
its mournful cry and so frazzled were the man’s nerves that he jumped
and yelled in alarm. Drowsily the red-bearded fellow opened his eyes,
mumbled an oath when the other confusedly tried to explain and was
soon snoring again. Ashamed of his fright at the owl, the leader threw
himself down and closed his eyes, blaming his own foolishness. But
though the monotonous chirping of insects and the soft gurgle of the
water lulled and soothed, he found himself still straining his ears
for any unusual sound and was as nervous as ever.

Once he thought he heard the sound of a cautious footstep and
instantly he sprang up, cocked pistol in hand and peered anxiously
into the shadows. For a brief instant he seemed to glimpse a moving,
shapeless form and raising his weapon he was about to fire, but his
hand shook and trembled so he could not aim. Before he could steady
himself by an almost superhuman effort, there was nothing to be seen
but the dark sluggishly flowing creek and the ghostly outlines of the
trees.

But sleep was out of the question. For hour after hour he sat wide
awake and with every sense alert until the gray dawn broke and the
shadows of the night gave way to the faint morning light. Rising, he
stepped towards the canoe and as he crossed the narrow strip of muddy
shore between the water’s edge and the fire he halted in his tracks,
staring with unbelieving eyes at the ground. Plainly visible in the
oozy soil were the imprints of naked human feet!

Some one had been there in the darkness! Some one had crept about the
camp, and with fears once more aroused, but with murder in his heart,
the fellow cocked his pistol and hurriedly strode about the islet. But
there was no sign of a human being. No boat, no mark of a canoe having
been drawn ashore; only those footprints near the fire, footprints
which came from nowhere and led nowhere. As far as appearances went
the being who made them might have dropped from the sky and afterwards
have taken flight on wings.

All of the man’s superstitions were now aroused and regardless of his
companion’s possible sneers and scoffings, he shook the slumbering
red-bearded fellow awake and showed him the footprints. But the burly
rascal gave little heed to them, declaring they were merely footprints
of some Indian and might have been there for days. Swearing
vociferously that he didn’t see what there was about an Indian’s track
to cause worry anyway, he vowed that he for one would be glad to run
across an Indian or an Indian village in order to get food, for unless
they gained the river and managed to secure provisions they would be
facing starvation as there were barely two days’ rations remaining.

But even with this very real and pressing danger confronting them, the
memory of the mysterious footprints were uppermost in the leader’s
mind. He was brave enough in the face of real danger; as long as
tangible enemies were to be met he had nerves of steel, and he had
never quailed when peril threatened. But this nerve-wracking, haunting
fear of an unknown, invisible something was beyond his control and
somehow he could not avoid connecting the terrible wailing cry he had
heard with the strange footprints on the island. And then, just before
noon, the creek widened and, through the trees ahead, the broad river
came into view and a great weight seemed lifted from his mind as the
dismal creek was left behind.

Just below the mouth of the creek they stopped for their midday rest
on a jutting, wooded point. The meal over, the red-bearded man yawned
prodigiously, vowed he was going to have a nap before going farther
and lighting his pipe, threw himself down in the shade of a tree. The
other, all his fears flown, now they were on the big river and with
the bright sunshine all about, remarked that he would wander off in
the hope of finding game and filling the magazine of his pistol with
cartridges, he fastened the canoe securely, and puffing contentedly at
his pipe strolled up the bank into the forest.

There was little undergrowth, the huge trees, with their outjutting
roots and their drapery of trailing vines and lianas, stood well apart
and treading softly and glancing here and there, the man walked among
the trees with pistol cocked and ready.

From the lofty branches bits of falling fruit and nuts told of birds
or other creatures feeding among the leaves; the hoarse yelping of
toucans sounded from the foliage; occasionally, a macaw uttered its
raucous scream and unseen parrots screeched and squawked. Once too, a
troop of great, red, howling monkeys crashed off through the tree
tops, leaping from branch to branch and uttering hoarse barks of
protest at the intruder. But no creature appeared within pistol shot
and at last, thoroughly disgusted and realizing that he and his
comrade were wasting valuable time and should be on their way, he
turned about and started to retrace his steps towards the river.

The next moment he halted in his tracks, shaking with nameless terror.
His thin-lipped cruel mouth gaped, the ever present monocle dropped
unnoticed from his eye, the hand that grasped his weapon trembled, for
once again that awful, blood curdling scream had echoed through the
jungle.

For a moment he stood, as though frozen to the spot, and then,
thinking only to escape from the shadowy mysterious forest, to reach
his companion and the canoe, he dashed forward and raced panting
towards the river. Once again, and seeming close behind him, came that
maniacal wail and madly he tore downstream, leaping from rock to rock,
plunging to his knees through the shoal water, while from the depths
of the jungle wavered and rose and fell the tiger’s call with a note
of triumph and mockery in its unearthly cadence.

As the terrifying sound ceased and the fear-mad man came in sight of
the point, he gasped and halting stared about with unbelieving eyes.
The canoe was gone!

Instantly, his unreasoning terror of the screaming cry was forgotten,
for here was something real and tangible, a calamity so great it drove
all superstitious fears, all imaginary dangers from his overwrought
mind. He had left the boat securely fastened and he could not imagine
how it had gone adrift. But the fact had to be faced, the only chance
was to hurry down stream in the hopes that they might find the canoe
stranded on a bar or point, and cursing his companion for sleeping and
thus permitting the craft to drift away unnoticed, he shouted to the
other at the top of his lungs. But there was no response, no answering
cry, and swearing at the soundness of the fellow’s sleep, he raced up
the bank to arouse him by more forcible methods.

Then once again he stood staring in incredulous amazement. The
red-bearded man was not there! Beside the tree his pipe was lying on
the ground, the imprint of his bulky body still showed upon the soft
ferns and tender leaves, but the man himself had vanished.

Then the master criminal burst out with such a torrent of abuse,
oaths, curses and epithets as should have caused the very leaves to
shrivel, for now he realized what had happened. It came over him in a
flash, goading him into a frenzy of anger. His companion had deserted
him. His nap had been but an excuse, a ruse, and taking advantage of
his leader’s absence, he had made off with the boat and the slender
stock of food, leaving his comrade to perish there in the heart of the
wilderness.

Then, his stock of expletives and profanity exhausted, realizing the
utter uselessness of raving at the empty air and with his ungovernable
temper somewhat relieved, his reason returned and calmly, with
determined mind, he looked the matter squarely in the face.

His case seemed utterly hopeless, but was it? Was it not possible for
him to win out? Back there by the lake their predicament had seemed
equally without hope. They had thought that only by a miracle could
they escape and the miracle, in the form of an Indian and a canoe, had
happened. And with the thought of Indians new hope surged through him.
To attempt to make his way downstream over the rough and rocky shores
and without food or shelter was, he knew, impossible; but there was a
chance, a slender chance, that there might be an Indian camp in the
vicinity. He could do without food for a day or two he felt sure, and
perhaps, by summoning all his strength, all his indomitable will power
to the effort, he could manage to reach an Indian village. To be sure
he did not know if such existed, he had no idea in which direction to
go, but even if he perished from hunger and exhaustion in the forest,
it would be preferable to standing here beside the river and cursing
the villain who had deserted him and who was now, no doubt, miles down
the stream.

Possibly, he thought, he might find a trail or a path and feeling that
action of any sort was better than inaction, he started into the
forest, searching the ground for a trail. A moment later he uttered an
exclamation of satisfaction, for there, faintly visible among the
weeds and broad-leaved plants, was a narrow pathway leading inland.

Encouraged and not stopping to think that it might be a game trail
leading nowhere, he stepped forward along the almost indistinguishable
path. A score of paces ahead was a tangled thicket of high grass into
which the trail led and hurrying along, he pressed through the
herbage. The next instant a piercing cry of horror rang through the
jungle, startling the birds in the tree tops and silencing the
chattering monkeys.

Lying face down upon the grass, his head resting in a pool of blood,
was the body of the red-bearded man pinned to the forest floor by a
spear driven between his shoulder blades!

The horrified man gave a single glance at the lifeless, bleeding form
and then, utterly bereft of his senses, crazed with terror of the
unseen, mysterious assassin, he turned and dashed blindly, madly, from
the spot.

Unheeding, unreasoning, he raced among the trees, stumbling over
rocks, tripping on upjutting roots, ripping his clothes as he tore
through thorny vines and palms, barking his shins, crashing into trees
in his headlong flight, until utterly exhausted, he sank limply to the
earth.

How long he lay there he did not know. Possibly he lost consciousness,
possibly his half-crazed mind was incapable of judging time; but when
at last he raised himself and glanced about, the sun was low in the
west and new terrors filled him as he realized that he must remain in
the jungle throughout the night. But his first nameless, unreasoning,
mad fright had passed and while he was still weak and trembling, his
mind was clear and he knew that if he ever was to escape from this
dread forest he must have shelter and a fire. Near him a huge mora
tree spread twenty-feet, slablike, buttressed roots and between two of
these he would be somewhat protected. Gathering a quantity of dead
branches and twigs, he piled them near the tree and after a few futile
attempts had a roaring fire going. He was desperately hungry, but food
was out of the question, and seated between the mora roots in the
grateful warmth of the blaze, he steeled himself to withstand the
gnawing pangs of his famished stomach.

Presently there was a scratching sound above him, a bit of bark
dropped upon his head and glancing quickly up he saw a squirrel
clinging to the trunk of the tree and gazing wonderingly at the
intruder. Quickly raising his pistol and taking careful aim, the man
fired and at the echoing report, the little creature dropped lifeless
at his feet. Quickly he skinned and cleaned the animal and ere the
flesh was cold had spitted it on a pointed stick and was broiling it
over the fire. It was a pitifully small morsel for a hungry, tired
man, but it was far better than nothing and ravenously he devoured the
half-cooked, blackened flesh. And as he did so the thin lips smiled
and a look of satisfaction spread across his features. If he could
kill one squirrel he could kill more--or perhaps larger game. He had
learned a lesson of the bush; he had discovered that by sitting
motionless the wild things could be found more readily than by moving
about. He vowed that he would yet win out, that he would escape and
would reach civilization despite fate and his enemies.

With his hunger somewhat appeased he leaned back against the mora
roots and mentally determining that he would not again give way to
craven fear, he strove to dismiss the thoughts of the spear-pierced
body of his dead companion.

But he could not forget it, could not drive it from his mind, and
despite every effort he found himself dwelling on the subject,
wondering how and by whom the red-bearded giant had been killed. That
it was the work of Indians he knew--the spear thrust through the body
proved that--and he felt that the redskins who had done the deed had
also taken the boat. Perhaps, he thought, that was it, possibly the
Indians had followed them to recover their craft and surprising the
white man asleep had murdered him. But if so, why was he not lying
dead beneath the tree where he had been sleeping? How did his body
happen to be some distance away in the thicket? It was a puzzle, a
mystery. The fact that “red-beard” was dead did not trouble him, or at
least it would not have troubled him had he possessed the canoe.
Rather it would have been welcome, for it would have meant more food
for himself. He had seen and dealt out swift and sudden death too
often to feel the ordinary man’s horror of murder or a dead body, but
for some unaccountable reason this was different. There was something
strange, something mysterious about it and then there were the
nervous, groundless fears he had endured while they had been upon the
creek.

This brought to mind the awful screams he had heard and he shivered as
he thought of them, but there were no unusual sounds in the forest
now, all seemed peaceful and at last he dropped into a deep sleep.

With morning came hunger and bearing in mind the squirrel of the
previous evening, he peered about, searching for some other creature
to kill. At last, with a gleam of almost savage satisfaction, he saw a
plump, long-legged black and gray bird stepping daintily among the
trees and with another lucky shot secured it. He now felt sure that he
would not starve and having cleaned, picked and broiled the trumpet
bird, he rose, stretched himself, adjusted his monocle, which by some
miracle had escaped destruction in his mad flight, and glanced about.

Then, for the first time, he realized that he did not know in which
direction the river lay. With the discovery he cursed vociferously in
his native German and then burst into a mirthless laugh. After all, it
made little difference. He was gambling on chance, on the faint hope
of finding an Indian village, and, as far as he could tell, one
direction was as promising as another and so, scanning the earth in
the hope that he might find a trail, he walked from his temporary
resting place through the forest.

A few hours later he came upon a small brook or creek and, knowing
that if he followed this he must eventually come out somewhere, and
finding the bed of the stream an easier road than the jungle floor
with the cool water comforting to his blistered, aching feet, he
splashed along ankle deep in the stream.

He had wisely refrained from devouring all of the trumpet bird and
now, feeling hungry and seeing nothing to shoot, he seated himself on
a fallen tree and munched the bird’s drumsticks. Throughout the
afternoon he tramped on, forcing himself forward by sheer will power,
for he was exhausted by the tramp, his feet were swollen and sore, he
was half starved and his skin was scratched, bruised, barked and
bitten by insects. Then, when he felt that he could go no farther,
that perhaps after all the best thing to do would be to put a bullet
through his own head, he smelled smoke. There was no question of it,
he sniffed the air and knew that near at hand was a fire, that he was
close to a camp or hut, that there were fellow men not far away and,
leaving the stream and following the scent of pungent wood smoke, he
hurried onwards.

Stronger and stronger became the odor. Now he could see the faint
bluish haze among the trees and feeling that he was saved, that food
and help were near, he hurried forward. A moment later he saw the
fire, a smouldering pile of branches, and with a despairing cry he
flung himself down. The fire was his own! Close to it were the great
mora roots where he had spent the night; all about were scattered the
feathers of the trumpet bird. He had traveled in a circle, had come
back to his starting point and all that heartbreaking, terrible tramp
had been for nothing!

Utterly done up, thoroughly discouraged, feeling that he could do no
more, he lay there striving to summon sufficient courage to place his
pistol at his ear and pull the trigger. Then to his dulling senses,
came the sound of a stealthy footfall and roused to sudden interest,
he raised his head, glanced about and cocked his pistol as he did so.
And at the sight which met his eyes, he was galvanized into life and
action. Within ten feet of where he lay, crouched a hideous,
terrifying apparition, a figure red as blood from whose chest glared
two huge, painted eyes and a fang-filled mouth, a figure whose matted
tangled hair framed a face demoniacal in his expression of mingled
hate and fury and whose upraised hand grasped a heavy, hardwood club.

With a yell that rang through the forest, the white man whirled and
throwing up his pistol pulled the trigger. But at the same instant the
avenger leaped like his tiger namesake, the bullet whistled harmlessly
past his head, the club descended and his victim sank with a moan.
With the savage, terrible cry of the jaguar gloating over its kill,
the Indian stood above the huddled motionless form, fierce eyes
watching for the slightest movement, club upraised.

Then suddenly, he turned, listening intently, as to his keen ears came
unexpected sounds, the noise of a boat’s keel grating on rock and the
shouts of men.

For a brief instant the avenger hesitated, then with a bound he
vanished in the shadows and from the depths of the forest came his
mocking, triumphant cry--the bloodcurdling, awesome wail of the
jaguar, He had accomplished his purpose. His murdered tribesman was
avenged.




CHAPTER XII

THE END OF THE TRAIL


For some time after their precipitate departure from the spot where
the red-bearded man’s body had been found, those in the boat remained
silent.

The Indians, frightened and with all their primitive superstitions
aroused, plied their paddles and glanced fearfully first at one shore
and then at the other, but uttered no words. Colcord, half Indian as
he was, shared his copper-skinned companions’ terror to some extent
and kept the boat in midstream, swinging her wide of each point and
islet. The boys, still shuddering at the horrible sight they had seen,
were subdued and too much impressed to talk; Mr. Pauling, Mr.
Henderson and the explorer were deep in thought and even the
irrepressible Rawlins had no comment to make in the face of this awful
tragedy.

But as the point where lay the gruesome remains of what had once been
the red-bearded giant was left behind and the trees hid the circling
birds of ill omen from sight, the spirits of those in the boat revived
and their thoughts turned to the future and what might lie ahead of
them. There was now but one man to search for, the chase had narrowed
down, but this very fact added to their problems and reduced their
chances of success.

“As you remarked, Rawlins, I would like to know where the other man
is,” said Mr. Pauling, breaking the silence. “There’s a deep mystery
here.”

“I’ll say there is!” assented the diver, “but the whole thing’s been
one darned mystery after another, ever since the boys first heard
those signals back in New York.”

“Yes and they’ve usually solved themselves as they arose,” Mr.
Henderson reminded him. “But it looks as if this one would never be
solved. I’m afraid the answer died with that chap back there in the
bush.”

“And I’m afraid we’ll never set eyes on the chief of the rascally
gang,” declared Mr. Pauling. “I expect he’s come to a violent end
also.”

“What puzzles me,” said Mr. Thorne, “is why they left their plane and
how they became separated. Of course, there’s a chance that they
wrecked their machine in landing or that some accident happened to it
later or perhaps they tried to fly away and came a cropper, but even
then it seems natural that the men should have remained together.”

“Perhaps they were,” suggested Mr. Pauling. “Isn’t it possible that
they were attacked and one was killed while the other escaped?”

“No, I hardly think so,” replied Mr. Thorne. “The avenger never
attacks a victim openly--the very nature of his vengeance precludes
that. His only weapon is a short club or his bare hands and he’d have
no chance against a well-armed man and still less against two. No, he
invariably sneaks upon his victim while the latter sleeps or is off
his guard.”

“But are you sure that fellow was killed by a Kenaima?” asked Mr.
Henderson. “Isn’t it possible they had a quarrel with the Indians and
that he was struck down and his comrade taken prisoner or carried off
wounded?”

The explorer shook his head. “There are no hostile Indians in Guiana,”
he averred. “They are all peaceable and would never dream of
quarreling with white men, no matter how great the provocation.
Besides, there’s not the least doubt that he was the victim of
Kenaima--the wooden spear through his body proves that--and there was
no sign of a struggle. No, that man killed an Indian and thereby
sealed his own doom. It’s quite possible that his companion was
innocent and was not included in the Kenaima and hence was unharmed,
but if so, where can he be?”

“I’ll bet old Red-whiskers deserted his bunkie and skipped off,”
declared Rawlins. “Then he did up a Buck and got what was coming to
him. Let’s beat it for the plane--maybe the Grand Panjandrum’s still
over there waiting for his mate to come back.”

“By Jove! that’s a possible solution to the puzzle,” exclaimed Mr.
Pauling, “and even if he did not desert he may have gone off on a hunt
and while away killed an Indian. Yes, I think we’ll find the answer at
the plane--if we can find it.”

“It’s a plausible theory,” admitted Mr. Henderson. “But there’s a flaw
in it. How did the victim of the Kenaima cross this river? Mr. Thorne
says Maipurisi is to the east and as far as we know the fellows had no
boat.”

“Hmm, that’s true,” mused Mr. Pauling. “Looks as if we’re up against
another mystery.”

“Perhaps they carried a folding boat or found an Indian canoe,”
suggested Tom.

“Yes, that’s possible,” agreed his father, “but whatever the
explanation our best plan is to go to the plane at once. How far are
we from Maipurisi, Thorne?”

“A good long day’s paddle,” replied the explorer. “Taguma Creek flows
from the lake and empties into this river about three miles above
here. We might make the lake by to-morrow noon.”

“Well, whatever’s happened has happened within the past four days,”
declared Rawlins. “They were there and talking by radio then. How long
should you think that man had been dead?”

“Impossible to say,” replied Mr. Thorne. “Probably not over two days.
If he’d been there longer than that, there would have been nothing but
bones left.”

“Gosh! the last time they talked they were asking for help,” cried
Frank. “Perhaps the Kenaima was after them then.”

“You’re right!” ejaculated Mr. Pauling. “That must have been it. They
knew their danger and probably tried to escape. But why didn’t they
get off in their plane?”

“Search me!” said Rawlins. “Let’s get hold of old Monocle Eye and ask
him!”

Suddenly Colcord bent forward, shaded his eyes with his hand and gazed
ahead. “They’s a coorial yander!” he announced.

Instantly all turned and peered forward to where, barely visible among
some rocks, they could now see a dug-out canoe apparently deserted.

“Run over and let’s have a look at it,” Mr. Thorne commanded the
captain.

Swinging his big steering paddle and with a word to the Indians, the
Boviander turned the boat from its course and headed for the little
derelict.

As they drew near, they saw that it was drawn upon a ledge and was
secured to the rocks and so placed that it was completely hidden from
view except when approached from downstream.

“Odd!” ejaculated Mr. Thorne. “Some one left it here, but where can
they be? This little pile of rocks wouldn’t conceal a rabbit and it’s
fifty yards from shore. Funny place to leave a boat.”

The next moment they were alongside and as Rawlins leaned over and
peered into the craft, he uttered a surprised exclamation. “By glory,
it’s theirs!”

“Jove, you’re right!” affirmed Mr. Pauling.

There was no doubt of it. In the canoe was a Luger pistol, a cartridge
belt, a few cans of food, a short-handled ax and a roll of
kahki-colored cloth.

Rawlins leaped into the coorial and examined the various articles.

“Now what the dickens do you suppose they left their pistol for?” he
cried as he picked up the weapon. “And they were off for a trip
too--took grub along and a tent. Hello! Their plane’s done for! Look
here! This cloth’s the covering of one of her wings!”

“I’ll he hanged!” exploded Mr. Henderson. “Then they had deserted the
machine and were getting off in this canoe. They can’t be far away!”

Rawlins laughed. “I’ll say one of ’em’s a blamed long ways off!” he
cried. “But the other chap may be hanging about. Great Scott, he may
be watching us from shore now!”

At the diver’s words every one started and glanced at the
forest-covered banks as if half expecting to see the leader of the
“reds” peering at them from the foliage. Then Sam, who had been
holding to the rail of the canoe, leaned over and reaching into the
bottom of the craft picked up some object and examined it.

“Tha’s a cur’ous lookin’ feather, Chief,” he remarked, handing his
find to Mr. Pauling.

“Hmm, ’tis odd,” agreed the latter. “Guess they must have killed some
bird.”

Joseph, who was seated next to Sam, had turned and as he saw the soft,
curled black plume his eyes seemed about to pop from his head, his
mouth gaped and in a gasping whisper, he exclaimed, “Kenaima!”

“What’s that?” demanded Mr. Thorne, as with one accord every Indian
wheeled about and sat staring with frightened eyes at the innocent
black feather in Mr. Pauling’s hand. “How you sabby him Kenaima,
Joseph?”

“Me sabby too much!” stammered the terrified Indian. “No likeum, must
for makeum walk plenty quick this place!”

“What does he mean?” asked Tom who could see nothing in the little
feather to cause such excitement and terror in the Indians.

“He means that feather came from the Kenaima,” replied the explorer,
“and I’ll swear he’s right. The avenger always wears a girdle or
mantle of black Powi feathers--the Indians believe they are magic and
render the wearer invisible--and this feather is from a Powi and has
been used in a cape or girdle. You can see where the quill has been
split and stripped--the way the Indians always prepare them when
making feather ornaments.”

“Then the Kenaima’s been here!” exclaimed Frank, “Uugh, let’s get out
of here.”

“Not till we get at the bottom of all this,” declared Mr. Pauling
decisively. “If these fool Indians are frightened by their
superstitions, I’m not and they’ll have to get over it, Kenaima or no
Kenaima.”

The Indians were now jabbering excitedly in low tones and Mr. Thorne
was doing his utmost to quiet them and allay their terror.

“No makeum ’fraid!” he admonished them. “This fellow Kenaima long time
gone. You sabby him no makeum Kenaima for Buckman. Him killum white
fellow like so! Him makeum gone topside same way. This fellow Mr.
Pauling good frien’ Kenaima, him want killum bad white fellow all same
Kenaima. Him gotum plenty peai--plenty peai. Must for no makeup
’fraid. Must for do all same him tellum.”

Somewhat reassured and quite willing to believe--after having
witnessed and heard the radio messages--that Mr. Pauling and his
friends had “plenty peai,” and seeing no reason why a white man should
not be traveling into the bush on a little “Kenaima” of his own, the
Indians quieted down, although they looked askance at the innocent
feather and breathed a sigh of relief as Mr. Pauling tucked it into
his pocket.

“What do you make of it, Thorne?” he asked. “You’re the only one who
knows the bush and the Indians. How do you account for this boat with
the rascals’ property in it, being moored here in midstream and with a
feather--which these Indians claim is from the Kenaima--in it also?”

“I can’t account for it,” replied the explorer, “but I _can_
offer a theory. It is quite possible that the Kenaima trailed the men,
that he saw them land here and that he examined their boat after they
had left and dropped one of his feathers. Or again he may purposely
have placed the feather here as a token that he was on their
trail--not stopping to realize that it would mean nothing to them.”

“Hmm, but why should they land here and how did that red-bearded
rascal get miles below here to be killed?” queried the other.

“That baffles me,” admitted Mr. Thorne. “And the fact that the pistol
is here adds to the mystery. If they started out to hunt, or went
ashore for any purpose, it seems unreasonable to think they would not
carry their weapons.”

“Well, we know it’s no use going on to Maipurisi and trying to find
their plane,” declared Mr. Henderson. “It seems to me we’ve come to
the end of the trail and might as well go back. Wherever the other
villain is, it’s hopeless to try to locate him.”

“I’ll say it’s not!” contradicted Rawlins. “He’ll come back to his
boat and we can lie low and nab him when he does.”

“Provided he lives and hasn’t seen us, perhaps,” said Mr. Pauling.

“Well, I’ve a hunch he’s not dead and he can’t go on, without a boat
or grub,” argued the diver. “I vote we sneak in somewhere and hide and
wait. If he don’t come back by dark we won’t be any worse off than we
are now.”

“We might as well try that scheme,” agreed Mr. Thorne. “He may be off
in the bush hunting for his comrade and if he hasn’t seen us, he’ll
return in time as Mr. Rawlins says.”

“Very well,” assented Mr. Pauling. “I’ll try anything once and it’s
one last chance.”

Accordingly, the explorer explained to Colcord what was wanted and the
Boviander, after a few words with the Indians and peering about the
shores of the river, swung the boat clear and, rounding the tiny rocky
islet, headed for a dark and shadowy creek that emptied into the river
several hundred yards upstream.

They had proceeded but a short distance when one of the Indians turned
and said something to Colcord in the Akawoia tongue. Instantly, the
Boviander sniffed the air and muttered a reply.

“What’s up, Colcord?” demanded Mr. Thorne.

“They’s a fire here ’bout,” replied the captain. “Don’ you smell him?”

“Yes, I believe I do!” exclaimed the explorer also sniffing.
“Cautiously, Colcord--if there’s a fire there must be men. We may be
close to our quarry. Go silently and we may surprise him.”

At the surprising news that there was a camp fire near, every one grew
tense with excitement and expectancy, for while there was a chance
that it might prove to be an Indian encampment, yet there was also a
chance--and a very promising one--that it might be the fire of the
fugitive they sought. Moreover, even were it an Indian’s fire the man
they were hunting might be there and silently they waited as with
noiseless strokes of their saddles the Indians urged the boat towards
the bank, following the scent of pungent smoke as unerringly as hounds
on the trail.

They had almost reached the rocky shores and, with weapons ready, the
men were preparing to leap ashore and dash into the forest towards the
thin wisp of blue haze that was now visible among the trees, when from
the jungle ahead, the sharp report of a pistol rang out. So totally
unexpected and startling was the sound that even the stolid Indians
uttered cries of alarm and surprise.

“By glory, he’s seen us!” exclaimed Rawlins. “Missed us though--come
on! Over the top, boys! We’ll--”

His words died on his lips as from the dark forest came a quavering,
blood-curdling scream; an unearthly awful sound.

“What in blazes is that?” cried Rawlins, as the boat grated on the
rocks and he sprang ashore.

“Jaguar!” snapped out Mr. Thorne. “He must have fired at the beast!
Come on!”

But before he could leap onto the rocks the Indians had seized their
paddles and with terrified cries of “Kenaima! Kenaima!” were
struggling madly to push the boat from shore.

“Stop that!” commanded Mr. Thorne. “No makeum fool!”

But his orders were unheeded, the Indians were panic stricken. The
next second Sam had leaped forward and with his huge black hands was
cuffing the cowering Indians right and left. Wrenching the paddles
from their grasps he heaved them onto the beach. Almost before the
others realized what had happened, the Bahaman sprang onto the rocks,
the boat’s painter in one hand and his paddle in the other.

“Ah guess he won’ humbug yo’ no more,” he announced grinning. “Yo’ go
’long, Chief. Ah’ll ten’ to these boys!”

“I’ll say you will!” cried Rawlins and realizing that Sam was
perfectly capable of “tending” to the Indians and the boat, he dashed
up the bank followed by the others.

As the diver reached the first trees, the jaguar’s cry again came from
the jungle, but faint and far away, and the next moment Rawlins
uttered a shout.

“Here he is!” he yelled as with drawn revolver he leaped towards a
smouldering fire. “But by glory, I guess the jaguar’s beat us to it!”

Huddled near the fire was a ragged, human form. As the diver and the
others bent over the body, they knew that their search was over, for
instantly all recognized it as that of the master criminal they
sought. Dangling from its string was a cracked monocle; a German
automatic pistol was lying by the outstretched hand, and blood was
oozing from a great gash across the back of the man’s head.

“It’s he!” exclaimed Mr. Henderson. “But Rawlins is right--that jaguar
finished him.”

Mr. Pauling had torn open the fellow’s tattered garments and was
listening at his chest. “He’s not dead!” he announced. “Just knocked
out. Hurry up, get the first aid kit and fix up his wound. He may live
to answer for his crimes yet.”

Mr. Thorne had been examining the ground about the unconscious man and
as Tom and Frank rushed back to the boat for the first aid kit, he
stooped and examined the bloody wound on the man’s head.

“You’re dead wrong about one thing,” he announced in grave tones. “No
jaguar made that gash--and there’s not a sign of a jaguar about.”

“I’ll say there was!” declared Rawlins. “By glory! Didn’t we hear him
yell?”

The explorer smiled. “That was no jaguar,” he replied positively. “I’m
not surprised the Indians were terrified. This man was struck down by
the Kenaima!”

“What!” ejaculated Mr. Pauling, looking up in amazement. “You mean to
say--”

“That we arrived in the nick of time to save this rascal from the fate
of his red-bearded friend,” declared the explorer. “The avenger crept
upon him and struck him down, but was undoubtedly frightened off by
hearing us approach--remember he cannot be seen by human beings until
his mission is accomplished--and he had no time to finish his job.”

“By glory, you’re right!” exclaimed the diver who had been examining
the earth while Mr. Thorne spoke. “There’s a trail of bare feet
leading away from here, but nary a track of a big cat.”

“Well my thanks to the Kenaima,” remarked Mr. Pauling. “I guess you
hit nearer the mark than you thought when you said he was ‘plenty good
fren’ of ours. But I’m mighty glad he didn’t finish this chap off.
Dead men tell no tales and I’ve hopes this rascal will live to tell a
lot.”

“Well, I’m sorry for that poor devil of a Kenaima lad,” declared
Rawlins. “According to Hoyle, as you might say, he’ll have to go on
bumping people off indefinitely as long as he didn’t run a stick
through the old High Muck a Muck here.”

Mr. Thorne chuckled. “I don’t think you need worry over him,” he
responded. “I expect he’ll consider that as long as he did a good job
with the other victim, he’s fulfilled the spirit if not the letter of
the law. But I’d like to know what these two rascals did to bring the
Kenaima after them.”

“I’ll say they did a plenty!” said Rawlins. “Leave it to them to do
dirty work--even if they’re in an uninhabited jungle.”

“Well they won’t do any more,” averred Mr. Pauling who, with the
others’ assistance, was dressing and bandaging the man’s wound. “If we
get him out of the bush alive, he’ll rue the day he ever went into the
jungle.”

At last all that could be done was accomplished and the still
unconscious man was lifted to an improvised stretcher and carried to
the boat. The Indians were still sullen and Colcord wore a scowl, his
spirits evidently ruffled, as he carried on a wordy argument with Sam
who stood guard, holding the rope with one big fist and a threatening
paddle with the other.

Placing the wounded man on his stretcher beneath the arched awning in
the stern of the boat, Mr. Pauling called the Bahaman aboard, the
explorer ordered the Boviander to push off, and the Indians, vastly
relieved at being able to get clear of the spot, seized their paddles
and swung the big coorial into the stream.

“I suppose it’s ‘home James,’ now,” remarked Rawlins. “We’ve got the
goods--even if they are damaged, and by glory, I’m dead sorry it’s all
over but the shouting.”

“So am I,” declared Tom. “Gosh, it’s hard to believe the excitement’s
over and the man we’ve been after so long is really captured.”

“Gee, yes, and isn’t it too bad we can’t radio to Colonel Maidley that
we’ve got him?” put in Frank. “I wish we had our sending set here.”

“Jehoshaphat!” ejaculated Tom, a sudden idea coming to him. “Perhaps
we’ll have some excitement yet--I’d forgotten about the loot. Perhaps
this fellow’ll tell us where ’tis.”

“Little chance of that,” declared his father. “He’d die with the
secret, just to baffle us. Hello, he’s coming to! I’m sorry to do it,
but we’ll have to put irons on him, Henderson. No knowing what he may
do when he finds himself here.”

“Yes, it seems inhuman to manacle an injured man,” agreed Mr.
Henderson as he rummaged in his kit bag and got out handcuffs. “But we
can’t afford to take chances. He’d drown himself in a moment rather
than go to trial. But we’ll be as merciful as we can. Just lock one
wrist and ankle.”

An instant later the steel rings snapped about one of the man’s wrists
and an ankle and Mr. Henderson snapped the others to the boat’s
timbers. A few minutes after he had been thus secured, the fellow
opened his eyes and looked about; but there was no sign of recognition
in his glance, and mumbling a few incoherent words he again closed his
eyes. Mr. Pauling poured a glass of water and put it to the fellow’s
lips and he gulped it down eagerly, but said nothing.

“Off his bean a bit yet,” commented Rawlins, “and I’m not surprised.
That was an almighty wallop he got.”

“Possibly he may never regain his senses,” said Mr. Pauling. “It will
be a mercy for him if he doesn’t.” Then, glancing about, he exclaimed,
“Here, where are we going? Have them swing this boat around, Thorne.”

“Aren’t you starting back?” inquired the explorer in surprise.

“Not yet,” declared Mr. Pauling. “I want to see that plane. We’ve got
to have all the evidence we can get and I’ve an idea some may be
there.”

“Hurrah!” cried Tom. “Then it’s not all over yet.”

Meanwhile the boat had been swung and once more was being paddled
upstream, but Colcord and the Indians kept it as far as possible from
the western bank and hugged the eastern shores. Two hours later they
reached the mouth of a wide, dark creek and leaving the big river,
paddled rapidly along the black and silent waterway into the very
heart of the jungle. Once, as they passed a small island, the
Boviander drew Mr. Thome’s attention to a pile of charred and
blackened sticks a few yards from the beach and remarked that some one
had camped there recently.

“Hmm, I expect that’s where these precious scoundrels stopped on the
way out from Maipurisi,” said the explorer. “That looks as if we were
right in our conjectures as to the location of the plane. By the way,
Colcord, did the Indians recognize that canoe we found? Do they know
what tribe it belonged to.”

“They say it Akuria, Chief,” replied the Boviander. “Akurias have
plenty big camp topside Maipurisi.”

“Then that settles it,” declared Mr. Thorne. “They landed in Maipurisi
and got their coorial from the Akuria village. Speed her up, Colcord,
the sooner we get there the sooner you’ll be back to Wismar.”

But there was no chance of making the lake by nightfall and camp was
made beside the creek. Strangely enough the Indians appeared to have
completely overcome their fears of the Kenaima and worked as willingly
and were as light-hearted as ever.

The wounded man was conscious, but appeared utterly oblivious to his
surroundings and uttered no word. He ate the food which Sam fed to
him, but he was evidently partly paralyzed and moved himself with an
effort, not making any attempt to even lift his hands or arms.

“I’m rather glad of that,” said Mr. Pauling in a low tone. “He doesn’t
realize he’s manacled and he doesn’t know yet that he’s a prisoner. It
makes me feel a brute to keep him locked that way and if he continues
as he is, I shall free him. No danger of his making a break as long as
he cannot move a finger.”

“Well, I don’t know,” remarked Rawlins who had been watching the man
closely. “He’s a slippery duck as you know and I’ve a hunch he knows a
heap more than you think and isn’t as helpless as he’d have you
believe. I’ve caught him looking at your back in a darned nasty way.
He may be nutty, but by glory, a nutty murderer’s as dangerous as a
sane one. I’d keep the bracelets on him if I were you.”

“I think Rawlins is right,” agreed Mr. Henderson. “Even if he is
helpless and not himself, you can’t tell at what moment he may recover
and we’d better be on the safe side.”

“Perhaps you’re both right,” acknowledged Mr. Pauling. “After all, I
don’t suppose he’s worthy of much consideration.”

Throughout the night, some one was constantly on watch beside the
wounded man, but he made no move, seemed to sleep well and in the
morning was in exactly the same condition as before.

Before noon the canoe emerged from the creek onto a small lake and Mr.
Thorne announced that they had reached their journey’s end.

“The plane may be anywhere along shore,” he said. “We’ll have to skirt
around and hunt for it. But the, lake’s small and we should have
little trouble.”

With all eyes searching each indentation and cove in the forest-clad
shores, the coorial was paddled around the southern borders of the
lake and before they had covered half its circumference, Tom gave a
shout of triumph. “There ’tis!” he cried. “In that little bay.”

“Right you are!” affirmed the explorer. “Pretty bad wreck though.”

A minute later the boat was run ashore beside the dismantled plane and
all scrambled out to examine it.

“Hurrah!” yelled Frank who had caught sight of the “reds,” camp and
the radio instruments. “Now we can send a message to Colonel Maidley.”

“Righto!” agreed Mr. Pauling. “Get it off. No need of cipher now.”

Quickly adjusting the instruments, the boys called the government
station at Georgetown and ticked off the message telling of their
success and the fact that they had captured the long-sought ringleader
of the gang. Then, telling Sam to load the instruments into the boat,
they joined the others who were examining and searching the plane.
There was little to be found, however. The hull was filled with water,
but the nine Indians with the Boviander’s help dragged the plane high
and dry and, the water having drained off, Mr. Pauling and his friends
removed everything within. Then they searched for possible secret
lockers or compartments and were busy at this when Sam approached.

Touching Mr. Pauling on the sleeve, he drew him to one side. “Tha’ man
he mek to watch yo’,” he announced in low tones. “Ah was puttin’ tha’
ins’ments abo’d an’ Ah looks up an’ see he liftin’ he haid an’ tryin’
fo’ see what yo’ doin’. An, Chief, he move he han’s O. K. Ah sees he
clutch he fis’s an’ Ah knows he was cursin’ under he breath. Ah’s
pos’tive he’s jus’ playin’ possum, Chief.”

“Hmm,” mused Mr. Pauling. “Well, you stay there and keep a strict
guard over him, Sam. Thank you for telling me.”

“Didn’t I say so?” exclaimed the diver when Mr. Pauling repeated Sam’s
information. “He’ll bear watching all right.”

“Well, I think we may, as well leave,” declared Mr. Henderson.
“There’s nothing more of interest here--only water-soaked provisions,
extra clothes and--by Jove! what’s this?”

As he spoke he had tossed a sodden coat onto the shore and as he did
so a dark leather wallet or bill book had dropped from a pocket.
Stooping quickly, he picked it up and opened it while the others
gathered close about. Within were bank notes of large denominations, a
few letters absolutely illegible from the water and a larger folded
sheet of tough parchmentlike paper. Carefully, Mr. Henderson unfolded
it and glanced at it.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “It’s a chart.”

“I’ll say it is!” cried Rawlins. “And of the West Indies! By the great
horn spoon, now we’ve got ’em dead to rights!”

“Gosh, perhaps it’s a map of where they hid their loot!” cried Tom
excitedly.

“And we can go and get it!” put in Frank.

“I’ll say ’tis and we can!” yelled Rawlins. “It’s all over but the
shouting! Come on, let’s beat it for Georgetown with this duck and
then hike after their loot! This bush work may be all right, but me
for the ocean. I’m itching to get under water again. By glory,
treasure hunting’s my middle name!”

Mr. Pauling laughed. “I had an idea that hunches were,” he chuckled.
“But come on. Nothing more to keep us here and it’s mainly your
hunches, Rawlins, that have carried us through.”

“Not a bit of it,” declared the diver. “You’ll have to thank the radio
detectives for that. I’d never have had any hunches if it hadn’t been
for them.”

A few minutes later the lonely jungle lake had been left behind. The
boat sped down the creek towards the great river, while the Indians’
rousing, homeward bound chantey startled the screeching parrots from
the tree tops. A monkey crept curiously from his hiding place and
gazed quizzically at the deserted seaplane. Beside a jungle stream an
Indian washed the painted eyes and grinning fang-filled mouth from his
chest and smiled contentedly and with grim satisfaction as he thought
of how well his tribesman had been avenged. The long search which had
carried Mr. Pauling and his friends so far and into such strange
places was over. Their mission had been accomplished. The radio
detectives had done their part, the arch criminal was a prisoner; they
had come to the end of the trail and now only the plunging, swirling,
thrilling rush down the great river and through the churning rapids
lay between them and civilization.

THE END




SPLENDID STORIES FOR BOYS

OVER TWO SEAS, by RALPH HENRY BARBOUR and H. P. HOLT

A splendid story of two boys’ adventures in the South Seas.

RENFREW OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED, by LAURIE YORKE ERSKINE

Seldom does a book catch so vividly the brave spirit and dramatic
deeds of men in the wilderness.

SPOTTED DEER, by ELMER RUSSELL GREGOR

Another of this author’s well-known stories of what an Indian’s life
was really like.

THE DEEP SEA HUNTERS, by A. HYATT VERRILL

A popular writer for boys and authority on the sea, tells a story of
exciting whale hunting.

SCOTT BURTON AND THE TIMBER THIEVES, by EDWARD G. CHENEY

Again this writer combines a lively yarn with a great deal of forestry
information.

NED DEALS, FRESHMAN, by EARL REED SILVERS

The author of the Dick Arnold stories gives the boys a true-to-life
tale of freshman year.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

New York--London




By A. HYATT VERRILL

  THE RADIO DETECTIVES
  THE RADIO DETECTIVES UNDER THE SEA
  THE RADIO DETECTIVES SOUTHWARD BOUND
  THE RADIO DETECTIVES IN THE JUNGLE
  THE DEEP SEA HUNTERS
  THE BOOK OF THE MOTOR BOAT
  ISLES OF SPICE AND PALM