The Tom Swift Megapack

by Victor Appleton

  “But how can we, and carry all this stuff?” asked Ned.

  “We needn’t carry it!” cried Professor Bumper. “We’ll leave it here, where it will be safe enough, and tramp on to the nearest Indian village. There we’ll hire bearers to take our stuff on until we can get mules. I’m not going to turn back!”

  “Good!” cried Mr. Damon. “Bless my rubber boots! but that’s what I say—keep on!”

  “Oh, no! we’ll never turn back,” agreed Tom.

  “But how can we manage it?” asked Ned.

  “We’ve just got to! And when you have to do a thing, it’s a whole lot easier to do than if you just feel as though you ought to. So, lively is the word!” cried Tom, in answer.

  “We’ll pack up what we can carry and leave the rest,” added the scientist.

  Being an experienced traveler Professor Bumper had arranged his baggage so that it could be carried by porters if necessary. Everything could be put into small packages, including the tents and food supply.

  “There are four of us,” remarked Tom, “and if we can not pack enough along with us to enable us to get to the nearest village, we had better go back to civilization. I’m not afraid to try.”

  “Nor I!” cried Mr. Damon.

  The baggage, stores and supplies that were to be left behind were made as snug as possible, and so piled up that wild beasts could do the least harm. Then a pack was made up for each one to carry.

  They would take weapons, of course, Tom Swift’s electric rifle being the one he choose for himself. They expected to be able to shoot game on their way, and this would provide them food in addition to the concentrated supply they carried. Small tents, in sections, were carried, there being two, one for Tom and Ned and one for Mr. Damon and the professor.

  As far as could be learned from a casual inspection, Jacinto and his deserting Indians had taken back with them only a small quantity of food. They were traveling light and down stream, and could reach the town much more quickly than they had come away from it.

  “That Beecher certainly was slick,” commented Professor Bumper when they were ready to start. “He must have known about what time I would arrive, and he had Jacinto waiting for us. I thought it was too good to be true, to get an experienced guide like him so easily. But it was all planned, and I was so engrossed in thinking of the ancient treasures I hope to find that I never thought of a possible trick. Well, let’s start!” and he led the way into the jungle, carrying his heavy pack as lightly as did Tom.

  Professor Bumper had a general idea in which direction lay a number of native villages, and it was determined to head for them, blazing a path through the wilderness, so that the Indians could follow it back to the goods left behind.

  It was with rather heavy hearts that the party set off, but Tom’s spirits could not long stay clouded, and the scientist was so good-natured about the affair and seemed so eager to do the utmost to render Beecher’s trick void, that the others fell into a lighter mood, and went on more cheerfully, though the way was rough and the packs heavy.

  They stopped at noon under a bower they made of palms, and, spreading the nets over them, got a little rest after a lunch. Then, when the sun was less hot, they started off again.

  “Forward is the word!” cried Ned cheerfully. “Forward!”

  They had not gone more than an hour on the second stage of their tramp when Tom, who was in the lead, following the direction laid out by the compass, suddenly stopped, and reached around for his electric rifle, which he was carrying at his back.

  “What is it?” asked Ned in a whisper.

  “I don’t know, but it’s some big animal there in the bushes,” was Tom’s low-voiced answer. “I’m ready for it.”

  The rustling increased, and a form could be seen indistinctly. Tom aimed the deadly gun and stood ready to pull the trigger.

  Ned, who had a side view into the underbrush, gave a sudden cry.

  “Don’t shoot, Tom!” he yelled. “It’s a man!”

  CHAPTER XIV

  A NEW GUIDE

  In spite of Ned Newton’s cry, Tom’s finger pressed the switch-trigger of the electric rifle, for previous experience had taught him that it was sometimes the best thing to awe the natives in out-of-the-way corners of the earth. But the young inventor quickly elevated the muzzle, and the deadly missile went hissing through the air over the head of a native Indian who, at that moment, stepped from the bush.

  The man, startled and alarmed, shrank back and was about to run into the jungle whence he had emerged. Small wonder if he had, considering the reception he so unwittingly met with. But Tom, aware of the necessity for making inquiries of one who knew that part of the jungle, quickly called to him.

  “Hold on!” he shouted. “Wait a minute. I didn’t mean that. I thought at first you were a tapir or a tiger. No harm intended. I say, Professor,” Tom called back to the savant, “you’d better speak to him in his lingo, I can’t manage it. He may be useful in guiding us to that Indian village Jacinto told us of.”

  This Professor Bumper did, being able to make himself understood in the queer part-Spanish dialect used by the native Hondurians, though he could not, of course, speak it as fluently as had Jacinto.

  Professor Bumper had made only a few remarks to the man who had so unexpectedly appeared out of the jungle when the scientist gave an exclamation of surprise at some of the answers made.

  “Bless my moving picture!” cried Mr. Damon.

  “What’s the matter now? Is anything wrong? Does he refuse to help us?”

  “No, it isn’t that,” was the answer. “In fact he came here to help us. Tom, this is the brother of the Indian who fell overboard and who was eaten by the alligators. He says you were very kind to try to save his brother with your rifle, and for that reason he has come back to help us.”

  “Come back?” queried Tom.

  “Yes, he went off with the rest of the Indians when Jacinto deserted us, but he could not stand being a traitor, after you had tried to save his brother’s life. These Indians are queer people. They don’t show much emotion, but they have deep feelings. This one says he will devote himself to your service from now on. I believe we can count on him. He is deeply grateful to you, Tom.”

  “I’m glad of that for all our sakes. But what does he say about Jacinto?”

  The professor asked some more questions, receiving answers, and then translated them.

  “This Indian, whose name is Tolpec, says Jacinto is a fraud,” exclaimed Professor Bumper. “He made all the Indians leave us in the night, though many of them were willing to stay and fill the contract they had made. But Jacinto would not let them, making them desert. Tolpec went away with the others, but because of what Tom had done he planned to come back at the first chance and be our guide. Accordingly he jumped ashore from one of the canoes, and made his way to our camp. He got there, found it deserted and followed us, coming up just now.”

  “Well I’m glad I didn’t frighten him off with my gun,” remarked Tom grimly. “So he agrees with us that Jacinto is a scoundrel, does he? I guess he might as well classify Professor Beecher in the same way.”

  “I am not quite so sure of that,” said Professor Bumper slowly. “I can not believe Beecher would play such a trick as this, though some over-zealous friend of his might.”

  “Oh, of course Beecher did it!” cried Tom. “He heard we were coming here, figured out that we’d start ahead of him, and he wanted to side-track us. Well, he did it all right,” and Tom’s voice was bitter.

  “He has only side-tracked us for a while,” announced Professor Bumper in cheerful tones.

  “What do you mean?” asked Mr. Damon.

  “I mean that this Indian comes just in the nick of time. He is well acquainted with this part of the jungle, having lived here all his life, and he offers to guide us to a place where we can get mules to transport ourselves and our baggage to Copan.”

  “Fine!” cried Ned. “When can we start?”

  Once
more the professor and the native conversed in the strange tongue, and then Professor Bumper announced:

  “He says it will be better for us to go back where we left our things and camp there. He will stay with us tonight and in the morning go on to the nearest Indian town and come back with porters and helpers.”

  “I think that is good advice to follow,” put in Tom, “for we do need our goods; and if we reached the settlement ourselves, we would have to send back for our things, with the uncertainty of getting them all.”

  So it was agreed that they would make a forced march back through the jungle to where they had been deserted by Jacinto. There they would make camp for the night, and until such time as Tolpec could return with a force of porters.

  It was not easy, that backward tramp through the jungle, especially as night had fallen. But the new Indian guide could see like a cat, and led the party along paths they never could have found by themselves. The use of their pocket electric lights was a great help, and possibly served to ward off the attacks of jungle beasts, for as they tramped along they could hear stealthy sounds in the underbush on either side of the path, as though tigers were stalking them. For there was in the woods an animal of the leopard family, called tiger or “tigre” by the natives, that was exceedingly fierce and dangerous. But watchfulness prevented any accident, and eventually the party reached the place where they had left their goods. Nothing had been disturbed, and finally a fire was made, the tents set up and a light meal, with hot tea served.

  “We’ll get ahead of Beecher yet,” said Tom.

  “You seem as anxious as Professor Bumper,” observed Mr. Damon.

  “I guess I am,” admitted Tom. “I want to see that idol of gold in the possession of our party.”

  The night passed without incident, and then, telling his new friends that he would return as soon as possible with help, Tolpec, taking a small supply of food with him, set out through the jungle again.

  As the green vines and creepers closed after him, and the explorers were left alone with their possessions piled around them, Ned remarked:

  “After all, I wonder if it was wise to let him go?”

  “Why not?” asked Tom.

  “Well, maybe he only wanted to get us back here, and then he’ll desert, too. Maybe that’s what he’s done now, making us lose two or three days by inducing us to return, waiting for what will never happen—his return with other natives.”

  A silence followed Ned’s intimation.

  CHAPTER XV

  IN THE COILS

  “Ned, do you really think Tolpec is going to desert us?” asked Tom.

  “Well, I don’t know,” was the slowly given reply. “It’s a possibility, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is,” broke in Professor Bumper. “But what if it is? We might as well trust him, and if he proves true, as I believe he will, we’ll be so much better off. If he proves a traitor we’ll only have lost a few days, for if he doesn’t come back we can go on again in the way we started.”

  “But that’s just it!” complained Tom. “We don’t want to lose any time with that Beecher chap on our trail.”

  “I am not so very much concerned about him,” remarked Professor Bumper, dryly.

  “Why not?” snapped out Mr. Damon.

  “Well, because I think he’ll have just about as hard work locating the hidden city, and finding the idol of gold, as we’ll have. In other words it will be an even thing, unless he gets too far ahead of us, or keeps us back, and I don’t believe he can do that now.

  “So I thought it best to take a chance with this Indian. He would hardly have taken the trouble to come all the way back, and run the risks he did, just to delay us a few days. However, we’ll soon know. Meanwhile, we’ll take it easy and wait for the return of Tolpec and his friends.”

  Though none of them liked to admit it, Ned’s words had caused his three friends some anxiety, and though they busied themselves about the camp there was an air of waiting impatiently for something to occur. And waiting is about the hardest work there is.

  But there was nothing for it but to wait, and it might be at least a week, Professor Bumper said, before the Indian could return with a party of porters and mules to move their baggage.

  “Yes, Tolpec has not only to locate the settlement,” Tom admitted, “but he must persuade the natives to come back with him. He may have trouble in that, especially if it is known that he has left Jacinto, who, I imagine, is a power among the tribes here.”

  But there were only two things left to do—wait and hope. The travelers did both. Four days passed and there was no sign of Tolpec. Eagerly, and not a little anxiously, they watched the jungle path along which he had disappeared.

  “Oh, come on!” exclaimed Tom one morning, when the day seemed a bit cooler than its predecessor. “Let’s go for a hunt, or something! I’m tired of sitting around camp.”

  “Bless my watch hands! So am I!” cried Mr. Damon. “Let’s all go for a trip. It will do us good.”

  “And perhaps I can get some specimens of interest,” added Professor Bumper, who, in addition to being an archaeologist, was something of a naturalist.

  Accordingly, having made everything snug in camp, the party, Tom and Ned equipped with electric rifles, and the professor with a butterfly net and specimen boxes, set forth. Mr. Damon said he would carry a stout club as his weapon.

  The jungle, as usual, was teeming with life, but as Ned and Tom did not wish to kill wantonly they refrained from shooting until later in the day. For once it was dead, game did not keep well in that hot climate, and needed to be cooked almost immediately.

  “We’ll try some shots on our back trip,” said the young inventor.

  Professor Bumper found plenty of his own particular kind of “game” which he caught in the net, transferring the specimens to the boxes he carried. There were beautiful butterflies, moths and strange bugs in the securing of which the scientist evinced great delight, though when one beetle nipped him firmly and painfully on his thumb his involuntary cry of pain was as real as that of any other person.

  “But I didn’t let him get away,” he said in triumph when he had dropped the clawing insect into the cyanide bottle where death came painlessly. “It is well worth a sore thumb.”

  They wandered on through the jungle, taking care not to get too far from their camp, for they did not want to lose their way, nor did they want to be absent too long in case Tolpec and his native friends should return.

  “Well, it’s about time we shot something, I think,” remarked Ned, when they had been out about two hours. “Let’s try for some of these wild turkeys. They ought to go well roasted even if it isn’t Thanksgiving.”

  “I’m with you,” agreed Tom. “Let’s see who has the best luck. But tone down the charge in your rifle and use a smaller projectile, or you’ll have nothing but a bunch of feathers to show for your shot. The guns are loaded for deer.”

  The change was made, and once more the two young men started off, a little ahead of Professor Bumper and Mr. Damon. Tom and Ned had not gone far, however, before they heard a strange cry from Mr. Damon.

  “Tom! Ned!” shouted the eccentric man, “Here’s a monster after me! Come quick!”

  “A tiger!” ejaculated Tom, as he began once more to change the charge in his rifle to a larger one, running back, meanwhile, in the direction of the sound of the voice.

  There were really no tigers in Honduras, the jaguar being called a tiger by the natives, while the cougar is called a lion. The presence of these animals, often dangerous to man, had been indicated around camp, and it was possible that one had been bold enough to attack Mr. Damon, not through hunger, but because of being cornered.

  “Come on, Ned!” cried Tom. “He’s in some sort of trouble!”

  But when, a moment later, the young inventor burst through a fringe of bushes and saw Mr. Damon standing in a little clearing, with upraised club, Tom could not repress a laugh.

  “Kill it, Tom! Kill it!�
� begged the eccentric man. “Bless my insurance policy, but it’s a terrible beast!”

  And so it was, at first glance. For it was a giant iguana, one of the most repulsive-looking of the lizards. Not unlike an alligator in shape, with spikes on its head and tail, with a warty, squatty ridge-encrusted body, a big pouch beneath its chin, and long-toed claws, it was enough to strike terror into the heart of almost any one. Even the smaller ones look dangerous, and this one, which was about five feet long, looked capable of attacking a man and injuring him. As a matter of fact the iguanas are harmless, their shape and coloring being designed to protect them.

  “Don’t be afraid, Mr. Damon,” called Tom, still laughing. “It won’t hurt you!”

  “I’m not so positive of that. It won’t let me pass.”

  “Just take your club and poke it out of the way,” the young inventor advised. “It’s only waiting to be shoved.”

  “Then you do it, Tom. Bless my looking glass, but I don’t want to go near it! If my wife could see me now she’d say it served me just right.”

  Mr. Damon was not a coward, but the giant iguana was not pleasant to look at. Tom, with the butt of his rifle, gave it a gentle shove, whereupon the creature scurried off through the brush as though glad to make its escape unscathed.

  “I thought it was a new kind of alligator,” said Mr. Damon with a sigh of relief.

  “Where is it?” asked Professor Bumper, coming up at this juncture. “A new species of alligator? Let me see it!”

  “It’s too horrible,” said Mr. Damon. “I never want to see one again. It was worse than a vampire bat!”

  Notwithstanding this, when he heard that it was one of the largest sized iguanas ever seen, the professor started through the jungle after it.

  “We can’t take it with us if we get it,” Tom called after his friend.

  “We might take the skin,” answered the professor. “I have a standing order for such things from one of the museums I represent. I’d like to get it. Then they are often eaten. We can have a change of diet, you see.”

  “We’d better follow him,” said Tom to Ned. “We’ll have to let the turkeys go for a while. He may get into trouble. Come on.”