by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER IV TREE HAY AND A JAGUAR
Aside from slight damage done by a band of wild pigs, who in their searchfor food had rooted their way into the cook shack, the camp up the RioHondo was just as the boys had left it.
"It's quite evident," said Pant with a grin, "that Daego, or whoever itwas that brought our work here to an end, thought there was time enoughto come over and take possession."
"Didn't expect us back, that's sure," said Johnny.
"But here we are."
"And here we go to work."
They went to work with a will. Two days' time saw a bigger and bettercamp erected, new roads cut into the jungle and everything in readinessfor operation.
It was early in the afternoon of this day that Johnny saw a small dugout,paddled by two Spaniards, moving up the creek.
Surprised at their appearing on these little frequented waters, he pausedat the entrance of the trail to see them pass.
They did not pass, but, pulling up to the landing, tied their boat andgot out.
Seeing this, Johnny stepped from the shadows.
"Pardon," said the taller of the two. "We are looking for JohnnyThompson."
"I am Johnny Thompson," said Johnny, not a little surprised that anystranger should be looking for him at this lonely spot.
"A message for you." The man bowed low as he held out a sealed envelope.
With fingers that trembled ever so slightly, Johnny tore this open andread:
_To Johnny Thompson._
_Sir:_
_It would give me the greatest of pleasure to have your most entertaining and entirely fascinating presence at a dinner to be served at my camp a few miles above your own, at six this evening. We have had the great good fortune to secure two wild turkeys and your assistance in eating them would be both a service and a pleasure to me._
_Your Most Humble Servant and, I trust, Friend,_
_El Vincia Daego._
For a moment Johnny stared at the note. He wanted to laugh, but did notquite dare. He was tempted to use some very strong language, butrefrained from that, too.
"So he came up here ahead of me and is now at his camp," he thought tohimself. "He invites me to a feed of wild turkey. I wonder why?"
A half hour later he was showing the note to Pant.
"You won't go, of course," said Pant.
"I shall go. Why not?"
"Why should you? He might get rough--or something."
"That's a good reason for going. Can't afford to show a white feather,can I? If I excuse myself, it's equivalent to saying: 'No, I won't come.I'm afraid.'"
"You're going into a strange country, Mexico, without a passport," Pantprotested.
"What's a passport in a wilderness? Why, if it wasn't for this gloomy oldriver they wouldn't know where the boundary runs. There are hundreds ofmiles of unsurveyed and unexplored boundary lines down here."
"You'd better take a bodyguard."
"I'll take a dugout and a paddle. What do you think this is? Canniballand?"
"Well," said Pant, a trifle grimly, "good luck, and may you come back!"
"I'll come back, right enough," said Johnny.
Had he known what was to come from this turkey dinner, would he havegone? He might, and then again he might have stayed on his own side ofRio Hondo. Who knows?
"Since you're going out to dinner," said Pant, as Johnny prepared to takethe trail to the river, "I think I'll go on a hunt for a bread-nut treethat grows grass for leaves. That old burro, Rip, is showing signs ofbeing hungry. I caught him trying to chew the picture from the side of anempty corn can this morning."
True to his word, just as dusk was falling, Pant found himself paddlingslowly down the river. Suddenly, as his keen eyes followed the outline ofthe forest that crowded the river bank, he caught sight of a tree thattowered above its fellows. From the tip of its branches hung great massesof green hay. Reaching down a yard, two yards, even three, it looked likelong green streamers hung out for a St. Patrick's Day celebration.
"Bread-nut tree," he said to himself.
On reaching the tree he found himself presented with a serious problem.The trunk of the tree was immense; the first limb twenty feet up. Atfirst sight he felt himself defeated. But on circling the tree hediscovered a stout vine which reached far above the first branch.
Soon, with his machete still swinging at his side, he was going up handover hand.
Scorning the first branch, where the grass clumps were small and ragged,he climbed to the second, then to the third, fully thirty feet above theground.
"I must be careful," he warned himself.
Many a man had been killed by a fall from these trees. To gather thegrass one must climb far out on a slender limb and hack off the end whichholds the heavy clump. Suddenly released from its load, the limb springsup and if the grass gatherer loses his hold he is unseated and down heplunges to injury or death.
"I will be cautious," Pant told himself. Had he but known it, no amountof caution could save him from facing the peril just before him.
Carefully he climbed over the stouter part of the limb, then out andstill out on a slender branch from whose tip there hung a clump of"grass" that seemed as large as a haycock.
"Three days' feed for old Rip from a single clump," he told himself as,gripping the branch firmly with one hand, he drew his machete from itssheath.
He had lifted the machete for the first hack when his action was arrestedby a slight scratching sound coming from somewhere above him. Imagine hissurprise and horror when, upon looking up, he caught the gleam of twoyellow eyes and at the same time heard the thumping lash of a great cat'stail. It was a jaguar about to spring!
Pant was so startled that he all but lost his hold upon the limb.Overpowered by something akin to fear, for the instant he was unable tomove. He was not so far bereft of his senses as to fail to note thatabove the creature's left eye was a broad white stripe.
"The--the killer!" he gasped.
* * * * * * * *
To do two things at once; to listen and talk intelligently, and to employone's mind with planning safe escape requires a steady nerve and activemind. Johnny Thompson was doing that very thing. He was talking in anintelligent and connected manner to Daego, the Spanish half-castemillionaire of British Honduras. They had been talking for some timeabout many things that had to do with industries on the Rio Hondo, andall the time their discussion had become more animated.
Johnny was seated before a small table. Daego sat opposite him. On thetable was a pile of bills. A gentle breeze, entering the hut through itslattice-like walls of cohune-nut stems, fluttered the corners of thebills. They were big bills--fifties and hundreds. There was in thatcarelessly flung pile over twenty thousand dollars. Although one may notfeel at liberty to refuse to attend a wild turkey dinner, he may refuseto accept other things, even at the hand of a millionaire. Johnny wasrefusing, refusing in the most vigorous language, and at the same timehis keen eyes were taking in the construction of the hut and his mindplotting swift and sudden exit.
He smiled involuntarily at thought of it. The smile, without a meaning asfar as the half-caste millionaire, Daego, was concerned, angered him.
"I offer you a fortune," Daego burst forth in a sudden rage, "and what doI get? A laugh. What sort of people are these ones from the UnitedStates? They call you dollar men. I offer you dollars, many, manydollars--your own American dollars--and all you offer me for answer is asmile!"
Johnny did not smile again. The situation was grave enough. He had beenfoolhardy to cross the river without his men. Daego was flanked by sixhusky Spaniards and at the side of each was a gleaming machete. Johnnywas backed only by a wall of cohune-nut tree stems. He hoped and prayedthat they might prove fairly well rotted when his moment came.
The camp in which Johnny had enjoyed his wild turkey dinner was a chiclecamp. Up until these l
ast few minutes Daego had proven a most perfecthost. The food he offered was the best the jungle could provide. He waspoliteness itself, with one and the same breath pressing food andcompliments upon his guest.
One peculiarity of the man's nature disgusted Johnny. He seemed at everyturn to wish to impress Johnny with respect and awe for his wealth andpower. Before dinner he had showed Johnny about.
"This," he had explained, "is one of my many chicle camps. I import intoHonduras every year more than two million pounds of chicle. The price, asyou know, is fifty cents a pound. The profit," he smiled out of onecorner of his mouth, "the profit is, well, very large--perhaps half.These men work very cheaply; like slaves they are, almost; always in debtto me. I employ them by the thousands. You have no idea how many. Forthat matter, neither have I. This Rio Hondo, this Black River, has mademe rich, rich and powerful. On the Rio Hondo I am, you might say, aking."
And now this "king" of the Black River, with a strong backing of hisarmed men, was attempting to bribe or brow-beat--he apparently did notcare which--a red-blooded, honest American boy.
"On this Black River," he repeated now, as they sat at the table, "onthis river I am king. It is I who have always developed its industriesand I it shall be in the future, and none other! I have offered youmoney--money not that you should speak an untruth, but that you shouldreturn to the people who control your tract and say to them: 'There is noprofit to be made in a quest for your red lure and your chicle.'
"And is it not so?" He showed all his white teeth in a half smile, halfsnarl. "I--will I not see that you make no profit, that no other personbeside myself make a profit? More than twenty thousand dollars I offeryou--for what? That you may tell the truth to a friend. What could beeasier than that? Now I ask you for the last time--do you take that moneyor must I resort to harsher methods?
"Think well!" He held up a finger of warning, "I am a millionaire.Thousands serve me. They are all in debt to me. They are my slaves. TheRio Hondo is mine. All I need do is to stretch out a hand and take." Heswung his arm in a dramatic gesture.
"But I," he went on, purring now like a cat, "I am not a man who lovesviolence. See! Here is proof. Here is money, twenty thousand Americandollars. And for what? For peace. What do you say now? Do you take it?"
"We Americans," said Johnny with a ghost of a smile about the corners ofhis mouth, "do not talk. We act."
With that he seized the small table before him, swung it above his headand sent it crashing through the frail side of the hut, then followed itthrough the hole it had made in the rotten walls of the cohune-nut stems.
