by Grey, Zane
Ken racked his brains.
"Pepe, get your lasso--rope him--rope him! Hurry! he's slipping!" yelled George.
Pepe snatched up his lariat, and, without waiting to coil it, cast the loop. He caught one of the flippers and hauled tight on it just as the crocodile slipped out of sight off the muddy ledge. The others ran to the boat, and, grasping hold of the lasso with Pepe, squared away and began to pull. Plain it was that the crocodile was not coming up so easily. They could not budge him.
"Hang on, boys!" Ken shouted. "It's a tug-of-war."
The lasso was suddenly jerked out with a kind of twang. Crash! went Pepe and Hal into the bottom of the boat. Ken went sprawling into the mud, and George, who had the last hold, went to his knees, but valiantly clung to the slipping rope. Bounding up, Ken grasped it from him and wound it round the sharp nose of the bowsprit.
"Get in--hustle!" he called, falling aboard. "You're always saying it's coming to us. Here's where!"
George had hardly got into the boat when the crocodile pulled it off shore, and away it went, sailing down-stream.
" Whoop! All aboard for Panuco!" yelled Hal.
"Now, Pepe, you don't need to row any more--we've a water-horse," Ken added.
But Pepe did not enter into the spirit of the occasion. He kept calling on the saints and crying, " Mucho malo." George and Ken and Hal, however, were hilarious. They had not yet had experience enough to know crocodiles.
Faster and faster they went. The water began to surge away from the bow and leave a gurgling wake behind the stern. Soon the boat reached the middle of the river where the water was deepest, and the lasso went almost straight down.
Ken felt the stern of the boat gradually lifted, and then, in alarm, he saw the front end sinking in the water. The crocodile was hauling the bow under.
"Pepe--your machete--cut the lasso!" he ordered, sharply. George had to repeat the order.
Wildly Pepe searched under the seat and along the gunwales. He could not find the machete.
"Cut the rope!" Ken thundered. "Use a knife, the ax--anything--only cut it--and cut it quick!"
Pepe could, find nothing. Knife in hand, Ken leaped over his head, sprawled headlong over the trunk, and slashed the taut lasso just as the water began to roar into the boat. The bow bobbed up as a cork that had been under. But the boat had shipped six inches of water.
"Row ashore, Pepe. Steady, there. Trim the boat, George."
They beached at a hard clay-bank and rested a little before unloading to turn out the water.
" Grande!" observed Pepe.
" Yes; he was big," assented George.
"I wonder what's going to happen to us next," added Hal.
Ken Ward looked at these companions of his and he laughed outright. "Well, if you all don't take the cake for nerve!"
Chapter XX - TREED BY WILD PIGS.
PEPE'S long years of mono work, rowing for tarpon fishermen, now stood the boys' in good stead. All the hot hours of the day he bent steadily to the oars. Occasionally they came to rifts, but these were not difficult to pass, being mere swift, shallow channels over sandy bottom. The rocks and the rapids were things of the past.
George lay in a kind of stupor, and Hal lolled in his seat. Ken, however, kept alert, and as the afternoon wore on began to be annoyed at the scarcity of camp-sites.
The muddy margins of the river, the steep banks, and the tick-infested forests offered few places where it was possible to rest, to say nothing of sleep. Every turn in the widening river gave Ken hope, which resulted in disappointment. He found consolation, however, in the fact that every turn and every hour put him so much farther on the way.
About five o'clock Ken had unexpected good luck in shape of a small sand-bar cut off from the mainland, and therefore free of cattle-tracks. It was clean and dry, with a pile of driftwood at one end.
"Tumble out, boys," called Ken, as Pepe beached the boat. "We'll pitch camp here."
Neither Hal nor George showed any alacrity. Ken watched his brother; he feared to see some of the symptoms of George's sickness. Both lads, however, seemed cheerful, though too tired to be of much use in the pitching of camp.
Ken could not recover his former goo spirits. There was a sense of foreboding in his mind that all was not well, that he must hurry, hurry. And although George appeared to be holding his own, Hal healthy enough, and Pepe's brooding quiet at least no worse, Ken could not rid himself of gloom. If he had answered the question that knocked at his mind he would have admitted a certainty of disaster. So he kept active, and when there were no more tasks for that day he worked on his note-book, and then watched the flight of wild fowl.
The farther down the river the boys traveled the more numerous were the herons and cranes and ducks. But they saw no more of the beautiful pato real, as Pepe called them, or the little russet-colored ducks, or the dismal-voiced bitterns. On the other hand, wild geese were common, and there were flocks and flocks of teal and canvasbacks.
Pepe, as usual, cooked duck. And he had to eat it. George had lost his appetite altogether. Hal had lost his taste for meat, at least. And Ken made a frugal meal of rice.
"Boys," he said, "the less you eat from now on the better for you."
It took resolution to drink the cocoa, for Ken could not shut out remembrance of the green water and the shore-line of dead and decaying cattle. Still, he was parched with thirst; he had to drink. That night he slept ten hours without turning over. Next morning he had to shake Pepe to rouse him.
Ken took turns at the oars with Pepe. It was not only that he fancied Pepe was weakening and in need of an occasional rest, but the fact that he wanted to be occupied, and especially to keep in good condition. They made thirty miles by four o'clock, and most of it against a breeze. Not in the whole distance did they pass half a dozen places fit for a camp. Toward evening the river narrowed again, resembling somewhat the Santa Rosa of earlier acquaintance. The magnificent dark forests crowded high on the banks, always screened and curtained by gray moss, as if to keep their secrets.
The sun was just tipping with gold the mossy crests of a grove of giant ceibas, when the boys rounded a bend to come upon the first ledge of rocks for two days. A low, grassy promontory invited the eyes searching for camping-ground. This spot appeared ideal; it certainly was beautiful. The ledge jutted into the river almost to the opposite shore, forcing the water to rush through a rocky trough into a great foam-spotted pool below.
They could not pitch the tent, since the stony ground would not admit stakes, so they laid the canvas flat. Pepe went up the bank with his machete in search of fire., wood. To Ken's utmost delight he found a little spring of sweet water trickling from the ledge, and by digging a hole was enabled to get a drink, the first one in more than a week.
A little later, as he _was * spreading the blankets, George called his attention to shouts up in the woods.
" Pepe's treed something," Ken said. "Take your gun * and hunt him up."
Ken went on making a bed and busying himself about camp, with little heed to George's departure. Presently, however, he was startled by unmistakable sounds of alarm. George and Pepe were yelling in unison, and, from the sound, appeared to be quite a distance away.
" What the deuce !" Ken ejaculated, snatching up his rifle. He snapped a clip in the magazine and dropped several loaded clips and a box of extra shells into his coat pocket. After his adventure with the jaguar he decided never again to find himself short of ammunition. Running up the sloping bank, he entered the forest, shouting for his companions. Answering cries came from in front and a little to the left. He could not make out what was said. .
Save for drooping moss the forest was comparatively open, and at a hundred paces from the river-bank were glades covered with thickets and long grass and short palm-trees. The ground sloped upward quite perceptibly.
"Hey, boys, where are you?" called Ken.
Pepe's shrill yells mingled with George's shouts. At first their meaning was unintelligible, but af
ter calling twice Ken understood.
" Javelin ! Go back! Javelin ! We're treed!
Wild pigs! Santa Maria! Run for your life!" This was certainly enlightening and rather embarrassing. Ken remembered the other time the boys had made him run, and he grew hot with anger.
" I'll be blessed if I'll run!" he said, in the pride of conceit and wounded vanity. Whereupon he began to climb the slope, stopping every few steps to listen and look. Ken wondered what had made Pepe go so far for fire-wood; still, there was nothing but green wood all about. Walking round a clump of seared and yellow palms that rustled in the breeze, Ken suddenly espied George's white shirt He was in a scrubby sapling not fifteen feet from the ground. Then Ken espied Pepe, perched in the forks of a ceiba, high above the thickets and low shrubbery. Ken was scarcely more than a dozen rods from them down the gradual slope. Both saw him at once.
"Run, you Indian! Run!" bawled George, waving his hands George implored Ken to fly to save his precious life.
"What for? you fools! I don't see anything to run from," Ken shouted back. His temper had soured a little during the last few days.
"You'd better run, or you'll have to climb," replied George. "Wild pigs--a thousand of 'em!"
"Where?"
"Right under us. There! Oh, if they see you! Listen to this." He broke off a branch, trimmed it of leaves, and flung it down. Ken heard a low, trampling roar of many hard little feet, brushings in the thicket, and cracking of twigs. As close as he was, however, he could not see a moving object. The dead grass and brush were several feet high, up to his waist in spots, and, though he changed position several times, no javelin did he see.
"You want to look out. Say, man, these are wild pigs--boars, I tell you! They'll kill you!" bellowed George.
"Are you going to stay up there all night?" Ken asked, sarcastically.
" We'll stay till they go away."
"All right, I'll scare them away," Ken replied, and, suiting action to word, he worked the automatic as fast as it would shoot, aiming into the thicket under George.
Of all the foolish things a nettled hunter ever did that was the worst. A roar answered the echoes of the rifle, and the roar rose from every side of the trees the victims were in. Nervously Ken clamped a fresh clip of shells into the rifle. Clouds of dust arose, and strange little squeals and grunts seemed to come from every quarter. Then the grass and bushes were suddenly torn apart by swift gray forms with glittering eyes. They were everywhere.
"Run! Run!" shrieked George, high above the tumult.
For a thrilling instant Ken stood his ground and fired at the bobbing gray backs. But every break made in the ranks by the powerful shells filled in a flash. Before that vicious charge he wavered, then ran as if pursued by demons.
The way was downhill. Ken tripped, fell, rolled over and over, then, still clutching the rifle, rose with a bound and fled. The javelin had gained. They were at his heels. He ran like a deer. Then, seeing a low branch, he leaped for it, grasped it with one hand, and, crooking an elbow round it, swung with the old giant swing.
Before Ken knew how it had happened he was astride a dangerously swaying branch directly over a troop of brownish-gray, sharp-snouted, fiendish-eyed little peccaries.
Some were young and sleek, others were old and rough; some had little yellow teeth or tusks, and all pointed their sharp noses upward, as if expecting him to fall into their very mouths. Feeling safe, once more Ken loaded the rifle and began to kill the biggest, most vicious javelin. When he had killed twelve in twelve shots, he saw that shooting a few would be of no avail. There were hun, dreds, it seemed, and he had scarcely fifty shells left. Moreover, the rifle-barrel grew so hot that it burnt his hands. Hearing George's yell, he replied, somewhat to his disgust:
" I'm all right, George--only treed. How 're you?"
"Pigs all gone--they chased you--Pepe thinks we can risk running."
"Don't take any chances," Ken yelled, in answer.
"Hi! Hi! What's wrong with you gazabos?" came Hal's yell from down the slope. " Go back to the boat," shouted Ken. "What for?"
"We're all treed by javelin--wild pigs."
"I've got to see that," was Hal's reply.
Ken called a sharp, angry order for Hal to keep away. But Hal did not obey. Ken heard him coming, and presently saw him enter one of the little glades. He had Ken's shotgun, and was peering cautiously about.
"Ken, where are you?"
"Here! Didn't I tell you to keep away? The pigs heard you--some of them are edging out there. Look out! Run, kid, run!"
A troop of javelin flashed into the glade. Hal saw them and raised the shotgun.
Boom! He shot both barrels.
The shot tore through the brush all around Ken, but fortunately beneath him. Neither the noise nor the lead stopped the pugnacious little peccaries.
Hal dropped Ken's hammerless and fled.
"Run faster!" yelled George, who evidently enjoyed Hat's plight. "They'll get you! Run hard!"
The lad was running close to the record when he disappeared.
In trying to find a more comfortable posture, so he could apply himself to an interesting study of his captors, Ken made the startling discovery that the branch which upheld him was splitting from the tree-trunk His heart began to pound in his breast; then it went up into his throat. Every move he made --for he had started to edge toward the tree--widened the little white split.
" Boys, my branch is breaking!" he called, piercingly.
" Can't you get another?" returned George.
"No; I daren't move! Hurry, boys! If you don't scare these brutes off I'm a goner!"
Ken's eyes were riveted upon the gap where the branch was slowly separating from the tree-trunk. He glanced about to see if he could not leap to another branch. There was nothing near that would hold him. In desperation he resolved to drop the rifle, cautiously get to his feet upon the branch, and with one spring try to reach the tree. When about to act upon this last chance he heard Pepe's shrill yell and a crashing in the brush. Then followed the 'unmistakable roar and crackling of fire. Pepe had fired the brush--no, he was making his way toward Ken, armed with a huge torch.
"Pepe, you'll fire the jungle!" cried Ken, forgetting what was at stake and that Pepe could not understand much English. But Ken had been in one forest-fire and remembered it with horror.
The javelin stirred uneasily, and ran around under Ken, tumbling over one another.
When Pepe burst through the brush, holding before him long-stemmed palm leaves flaring in hissing flames, the whole pack of pigs bowled away into the forest at breakneck speed.
Ken leaped down, and the branch came with him. George came running up, his face white, his eyes big. Behind him rose a roar that Ken thought might be another drove of pigs till he saw smoke and flame.
"Boys, the jungle's on fire. Run for the river!"
In their hurry they miscalculated the location of camp and dashed out of the jungle over a steep bank, and they all had a tumble. It was necessary to wade to reach the rocky ledge.
Ken shook hands with Pepe.
" George, tell him that was a nervy thing to do. He saved my life, I do believe."
"You fellows did a lot of hollering," said Hal, from his perch in the boat.
"Say, young man, you've got to go back after my gun. Why didn't you do what I told you? Foolish, to run into danger that way !" declared Ken, severely.
" You don't suppose I was going to overlook a chance to see Ken Ward treed, do you?"
" Well, you saw him, and that was no joke. But I wish Pepe could have scared those pigs off without firing the jungle."
" Pepe says it '11 give the ticks a good roasting," said George.
" We'll have roast pig, anyway," added Ken.
He kept watching the jungle back of the camp as if he expected it to blow up like a powder-mine. But this Tamaulipas jungle was not Penetier Forest. A cloud of smoke rolled up; there was a frequent roaring of dry palms; but the green growths did not bum. I
t was not much of a forest-fire, and Ken concluded that it would soon burn out.
So he took advantage of the waning daylight to spread out his map and plot in the day's travel. This time Hal watched him with a quiet attention that was both flattering and stimulating; and at the conclusion of the task he said:
"Well, Ken, we're having sport, but we're doing something more -- something worth while."
Chapter XXI - THE LEAPING TARPON.
JUST before dark, when the boys were at supper, a swarm of black mosquitoes swooped down upon camp.
Pepe could not have shown more fear at angry snakes, and he began to pile green wood and leaves on the fire to make a heavy smoke These mosquitoes were very large, black-bodied, with white-barred wings. Their bite was as painful as the sting of a bee. After threshing about until tired out the boys went to bed. But it was only to get up again, for the mosquitoes could bite through two thicknesses of blanket.
For a wonder every one was quiet. Even George did not grumble. The only thing to do was to sit or stand in the smoke of the campfire. The boys wore their gloves and wrapped blankets round heads and shoulders. They crouched over the fire until tired of that position, then stood up till they could stand no longer. It was a wretched, sleepless night with the bloodthirsty mosquitoes humming about like a swarm of bees. They did not go away until dawn.
"That's what I get for losing the mosquito-netting," said Ken, wearily.
Breakfast was not a cheerful meal, despite the fact that the boys all tried to brace up.
George's condition showed Ken the necessity for renewed efforts to get out of the jungle. Pepe appeared heavy and slow, and, what was more alarming, he had lost his appetite. Hal was cross, but seemed to keep well. It was hard enough for Ken to persuade George and Pepe to take the bitter doses of quinine, and Hal positively refused.
