by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER III MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS
It was a down-hearted Johnny who bent over the fallen Carib champion andstrove as best he could to bring him back to consciousness. He had hopedmuch. His interview with this man was to pave the way to certain success.With this fearless chief as the leader of his men, with a faithful Caribband behind him, he was to have gone triumphantly back up Rio Hondo and,in spite of perils that lurk in the jungle, in spite of unscrupulousDaego's trickery and cunning, was to have brought back the richesttreasure that had ever floated upon the ebony waters of the Black River.And now it had come to this.
What would the man do, once he was brought back from the world of strangedreams where Johnny's unintended and unfortunate blow had sent him.Johnny's heart skipped a beat at the thought. He might be obliged to fleefor his life. He had heard wild stories of these primitive people ofHonduras; how, when slightly wounded in play with machetes, a man flewinto a rage and at a single blow severed the offender's head from hisbody. These were simple people, men of the tropics, quick in love andsudden in hate.
Since there was no answer to this, Johnny could but fan his victim andawait results.
He did not wait long. The man's eyes opened and he sat up unsteadily,staring wildly.
"Who--who did that?" he demanded. "Who--hi--hit me?"
"Unc-a," the men grunted, pointing at Johnny.
Johnny put on as brave and friendly a face as he could command. Thoughfriendly enough, it was far from brave. His heart was in his toes.
"You--" the chief looked incredulous, "you hit me like that?"
Johnny nodded. He dared not trust his voice.
"Why! You--you little hammer!" exclaimed the chief.
At that there was a roaring burst of laughter. From that day on Johnnywas known among the Caribs as "Little Hammer."
Tivoli joined heartily in the laugh and as it subsided, to Johnny's greatsurprise and joy, he exclaimed:
"You want men? I got men. All the men you want. How many men, you think?Sixty men? Half work, half watch and fight? What you think? All right?"
At this sudden turn of fortune's wheel, Johnny's head was too much in awhirl to permit of much clear thinking. He merely nodded. Then, seized bya sudden inspiration, he invited Tivoli to join him in his feast of roastpeccary--an invitation which was promptly accepted.
"Hardgrave," said Johnny, as the two sat in the hotel court after thefeast and Tivoli's departure, "do these creatures, these jaguars whichthe natives call 'tigers,' ever become man-eaters?"
"Once in a blue moon they do. I knew of one that did. That was on theisland of Riotan. And, by the way, it was only a month ago that anEnglishman, a chicle buyer, told me of actually seeing one stalking aman--up the Rio Hondo, too. By all that's good! Right up in your country!It must have been!"
Johnny leaned forward in unconcealed interest.
"This 'man-eater' as they call him," Hardgrave continued, "has a badreputation. You'll see little settlements, two or three palm thatchedcabins along the river, deserted because of him. That's what the chiclebuyer said."
"Dead? The people dead?" the words stuck in Johnny's throat.
"Probably not. The jaguar might have carried off a child, or even a man.Those cats can kill an ox. They're bad when they get old. And this tigeris old, fairly gray bearded, the chicle buyer said. Said it made hisblood run cold to see him stalking that native. Of course he was armed;all those Englishmen go armed. Only a pistol, but enough to scare thatspotted fury away.
"'Just as I shot,' that's what he told me, 'the creature turned its headand I saw its marking. I had heard of it before. There was a broad whitestripe above the left eye. Someone had creased him with a bullet yearsbefore. Pity it hadn't killed him. Didn't, though.'"
Hardgrave paused to look away at the moon that was just rising above thecocoanut palms in the churchyard across the way. Wind stirred thebranches noisily. Johnny started. The story of that "tiger" had affectedhis imagination strangely.
"So you'll know if you see him," Hardgrave concluded dryly. "A whitestrip above his left ear. Guess I'll turn in. You're leaving before dawn?Here's luck!" He pressed the boy's hand, and was gone.
It was a brave company that Johnny assembled at the postoffice dock nextday--sixty Caribs, all from Stann Creek. There had been no need thatthese men go home for luggage. All that they had was on their boats. Itwas little enough, too. The two most important items were the greatlong-bladed machetes that hung at their belts and the cooking platformson the decks of their sailing crafts.
To the mouth of the Rio Hondo they would sail. After that Johnny wouldgive them a tow up the river.
Pant was in great spirits. He had lived much in the jungles of India.There he had met the great yellow tiger and the treacherous blackleopard. He had heard of the "man-eater" up the river and was more thaneager to hunt out his lair and do him battle. Of course his days belongedto Johnny, but nights were his own, and night is when the big cats prowl.
As for Johnny, as they went gliding up the dark river he thought of manythings--of the red lure and of his hopes to win with this new and moretrustworthy crew. He thought again of the mysterious brown girl who hadappeared in the trail on that memorable night spent alone in camp.
"She may belong to the company of that rascal Daego," he told himself. "Idoubt it, though. Her face was too honest and frank for that. I wonderwho she may be, and if she will return."
He wondered if their camp had been destroyed by their enemies, andthought of Daego's black boats which Hardgrave had spoken of, and thetrouble Daego was in which made him want to move back across the river.He wondered if the trouble was in any way connected with the black boats.He even gave a passing thought to Rip, the burro, who under Pant's carehad learned to prick up his ears with an air of importance and hadactually taken on a little flesh.
"Didn't bring any feed for him," he thought. "Pant will have to hunt outone of those bread-nut trees and gather some grass from it. Be aninteresting experience, mowing grass from the top of the forest. Likecutting a giant's hair," he chuckled.
So they moved on up the river. Past the last banana plantation andcocoanut grove, through thin settlements of bushmen, between groves ofcohune-nut trees, and on and on, up and up until night fell and the starscame out.
Coming to the mouth of a small stream, they decided to camp for thenight. Boats were tied to overhanging mangrove branches, dry wood wasgathered and soon fires gleamed out brightly. Mingled with the crackle ofthe blaze was the merry talk and laughter of these ever cheerful people.
While supper was being prepared, Pant shoved a dug-out from the deck ofhis power boat and went paddling away up the small stream. He was goingon a little trip of exploration all his own. Not that he expected to findanything of real interest. It was too dark for that. He wanted to bealone for a time, and besides, there is a real thrill to be had frompoking the nose of your canoe straight away in the night up a stream youhave never seen.
As he moved slowly forward into the dark, the silent mystery of the nightwas now and then broken by the splash of an alligator as he took to thewater. Nothing was to be feared from these so long as his canoe remainedin upright position.
On and on he glided. The light of cooking fires faded. Laughter diedaway. Still he glided on. Then, of a sudden, he became conscious of a newsound--a throbbing that, beating faintly against his eardrums, seemed tocome from nowhere. At first he thought it was the beating of his ownheart and wondered at his increased power to hear in that silence. Soonenough he knew it was not that.
"But what is it?" he asked himself as he held his dripping paddle inmid-air to listen.
Getting no satisfactory answer, he drove his paddle into the water andsent his boat forward at renewed speed. This lasted for ten minutes.Perspiration ran down his cheeks as he paused to listen.
"Yes, yes, there it is, louder!" he murmured. "Much louder. It's up theriver. It's a gasoline motor--a motor-boat. No, it can't be."
/> Dropping his paddle straight down, he touched bottom at eighteen inches.In such a stream there were sunken logs. No motor-boat could ascend tothe spot where the motor was throbbing.
Swinging his boat about, he drove its prow against the shelving bank.Leaping ashore, he bent over, and putting his ear to the ground,listened.
"It can't be," he muttered, "and yet it is! It's a stationary gasolineengine going full swing up that creek. And what's more"--his thoughtswere working rapidly now--"this creek runs up into our property. Thatengine is on our land. What can they be doing there?"
Creeping back into his canoe he allowed it to drift downstream. He wantedto go up and investigate, but it was too late. What that engine could bedoing up there he could not so much as guess.
"But I'll find out," he told himself stoutly. "Leave it to me!"
