CHAPTER VI.
FRANK TO THE RESCUE.
Wagons for the transportation of the packing cases containing the_Golden Eagle_, and for the boys’ baggage had been secured by old Matulaearlier in the day and when the Chester party arrived at the wharf, latein the afternoon, he had made such an impression on the native workersby his imperious commands and promises of extra money from the SeñorChester for fast work, that they found everything in readiness for thejourney back to the plantation. The boys were delighted with theirponies, spirited little animals as quick as cats on their feet and ableto travel over the rough mountain roads like goats.
The wagon was drawn by a team of bullocks hitched to the pole by a heavyyoke of wood, with the rough marks of the axe still upon it.
“Well, we really are in a foreign country at last,” exclaimed Harry ashis eyes fell on the primitive-looking wagon and its queer motive power.
In spite of old Matula’s by turns imploring, threatening and wheedlingpersuasions it was almost dark when the expedition was ready to make astart for the plantation. There was a full moon, however, and themoonlight of the tropics in the dry season is a very different thing tothe pallid illumination of the northern Luna. As the Chester party,headed by the boys on their ponies, wound through the streets ofGreytown and began the long steady climb to La Merced, a radiance likeelectric light flooded the way and showed them every twig and leaf asclearly as if it had been day. Everywhere, too, the darker shadows werespangled with brilliant fireflies.
They reached the plantation about midnight and found that the servantshad made everything ready for their reception. The boys were delightedwith the picturesque reception the hands gave them. Every man, woman andchild had a torch and the sight of these flickering about in themoonlight long before they reached their destination resembled aconvention of huge lightning-bugs.
Inside the main sala there was a tempting meal in the native style laidout. There was huge grapefruit and custard apples, a fruit filled withreal custard, crisp bread-fruit roasted to a turn, fragrant frijoles,the national dish of the Latin-American from Mexico to Patagonia, andseveral kinds of meat and salted fish all cooked in the best style ofold Matula’s wife, who waited on them.
“Well, this beats Delmonico’s,” remarked Billy, who at Mr. Chester’shearty invitation had made one of the party. “I always had an idea thatyou people down here lived like savages,” he laughed, “but here you arewith a layout that you couldn’t beat anywhere from New York to thecoast.”
Billy’s simple-hearted admiration of everything he had encountered onthe estancia caused Mr. Chester much amusement. Billy proved hisappreciation of everything by sampling all the dishes in turn includinga dish of red peppers that caused his temporary retirement in agony.
“Jimminy crickets, I felt as if I had a three alarm fire in mydepartment of the interior,” was the way he explained his feelings afterhe had swallowed a gallon of water, more or less, to alleviate hissufferings.
After their exciting day the boys slept like tops, although their dreamswere a wild rehash of the novel experiences they had gone through. Frankdreamed that Rogero in an airship fashioned like a bonga was pursuingthem through space and that although they speeded up the _Golden Eagle_to her fastest flight, the evil-faced Nicaraguan gained on them rapidly.He had just run the prow of his queer air-craft into the _GoldenEagle’s_ stern and Frank felt himself falling, falling down into a hugesort of lake of boiling surf when he awoke to find it was broaddaylight, and the cheerful daily routine of the plantation going busilyon as if the events of the day before had been as unreal as his dream.Springing out of bed, Frank aroused Harry. The younger boy had justabout rubbed the sleep out of his eyes when their father came into theroom.
“Come on boys,” he said, “and I’ll show you how we take our morning bathdown here.”
The boys slipped on bath-robes and thrust their feet into slippers. Whenthey were ready Mr. Chester led them out to a small building withlatticed sides a short distance from the house. Inside was acement-lined pool about twenty feet in length by fifteen in width with adepth that varied from five feet at one end to seven at the other. Itwas full of sparkling water that ran into it from a mountain stream onone side, and was piped back into the bed of the brook, again after ithad flowed through Mr. Chester’s unique bathroom.
With a loud whoop Harry was just about to jump into the inviting lookingbathing-place when Mr. Chester stopped him.
“Look before you leap, Harry,” he cautioned, “every once in a while atarantula or a snake or a nice fat scorpion takes a fancy to a bath, andtumbles in here and they are not pleasant companions at close range.”
An investigation showed, however, that there were none of the unpleasantintruders Mr. Chester had mentioned in the bath that morning, at least,and the two boys swam about to their hearts’ content, and after dressingcame in for breakfast as delightful as their meal of the previous nightin its novelty and variety.
Breakfast despatched of course the first thing to do was to superintendthe unpacking of the _Golden Eagle_. The bullock cart had been takendown to a cleared spot not far removed from the barracks of thelaborers, and a squad of brown-skinned men were already at work whenFrank and Harry strolled down there setting up a sort of shelter,thatched with palm leaves under which the boys might work without beingin danger of sunstroke.
Everybody on the plantation found some excuse to pass by the shelterthat morning while the boys, and three or four envied laborers unpackedthe _Golden Eagle_, and began to put the sections in place. A feature ofthe ship of which the boys were very proud was the ease with which, by asystem of keyed joints, their beautiful sky-ranger could be taken apartor put together again very quickly. Under Frank and Harry’s coachingeven the Nicaraguan laborers, none of the brightest of humankind, gotalong very fast, and by the time the second breakfast, as it is called,was ready the frames for the planes were in place and the trough-likecockpit or passenger car ready in position to have the piano wirestrands of immense tensile strength that connected it to the steelstanchions of the planes screwed into place with delicate turnbucklesmade especially for the _Golden Eagle_.
After lunch the work went on apace. The balloon-silk coverings of theplanes were fitted with tiny brass ringed holes through which they werethreaded on to the frames by fine wire. This was a tedious business andFrank and Harry did it themselves, not caring to trust so delicate anoperation, and one which required so much patient care, to thegood-natured, easy-going Nicaraguans, who would have been as likely asnot to have scamped the job and left several holes unthreaded. As thewhole pressure of the weight of the car and its occupants, fuel andlubricants was to be borne by these planes it can readily be seen whythe boys placed so much importance on doing a good thorough job.
It took till sunset to complete this task and the boys were tired enoughnot to be sorry that their work was done when the big bell that calledthe laborers in from the banana groves began to clang.
In the work on the _Golden Eagle_ the boys had been very materiallyaided by Billy Barnes, who photographed the craft from every possibleand impossible point of view and insisted on Frank snapping a picture ofhim sitting at the steering wheel.
“It’s as near as I’ll ever get to steering her, I guess,” he explained,“I haven’t got the head for these things that you chaps have.”
It was Billy Barnes, too, who reported that evening in great excitementthat while he was walking along the porch he had seen a big spotted cat“loafing around.”
“That wasn’t a cat,” laughed Mr. Chester, “that was an ocelot and if youthink you can qualify as a Nimrod we will go out after supper and tryand get a shot at it. They are bad things to have around the place—notthat they are really dangerous, but they steal chickens and the men arescared of them and spend most of the day looking out for what Billycalls a ‘big cat,’ instead of doing their work.”
“I don’t know what or who Nimrod is,” replie
d the good-natured reporter,“but I sure would like to get a shot at that ossy—what do you call it?”
After supper the hunting party put on stout boots, coming well abovetheir knees, in case of lurking snakes, and armed with rifles startedout after the ocelot. Frank and Harry were both pretty good shots,having had a good deal of experience at their father’s camp in theAdirondacks in the days before he became a planter. Billy Barnes hadnever had a rifle in his hand before, but he didn’t say so. He opinedthat to shoot all you had to do was to look steadily at the object aimedat and then, pull the trigger.
“I think we’d better try for him over by Bread-Fruit Spring, sir,” saidthe young overseer as the party, as quietly as possible, sallied out.
“A good suggestion, Blakely,” replied Mr. Chester.
“Do they eat bread-fruit?” inquired Billy.
“No, but they drink water, Mr. Barnes,” replied Mr. Chester; “now, don’tlet’s have any talking or we shall have our night’s work for nothing.”
Following Mr. Chester’s directions the party spread out in a fan-shape,as they neared the spring, and it was agreed that they should graduallydraw in the ends of this “fan” as they neared the spot where theyexpected to find the ocelot. If any one got lost they were to shout orfire their rifle.
In pursuance of this plan the party carefully tiptoed along, stoppingevery now and again to listen carefully. Billy Barnes was far out to theleft of the rest of the party and as they got deeper into the mysteriousshadows of the tropical forest his heart began to beat a little fasterthan usual. The moon shone down through the immense tree-tops in a fewpatches, but outside of these circles of light-illuminated spots thejungle was as black as an unlighted cathedral.
Every time a creeper brushed against his face, Billy remembered all hehad ever read of huge snakes that hung in trees and crushed people todeath with their terrible constricting folds. Then, too, occasionally asleeping monkey, disturbed by a bad dream or some preying night animal,would start off through the branches with a screech that soundedhorribly human. Not for the world would Billy have let the boys or theirfather know that he was filled with a great longing for human company,but he devoutly wished he was back at the comfortable hacienda.
“A nice finish for the _Planet’s_ special correspondent,” he mused.“William Barnes, Crushed to Death by a Boa Constrictor”—b-r-r-r—“thatwould look well in a head, wouldn’t it?”
Suddenly, as Billy emerged from a dark shadow cast by a huge tree withimmense buttress-like roots, the space between any one of which wouldhave served as a barn for a horse and buggy, he saw in the patch ofwhite moonlight right ahead of him a sight that made his scalp tightenand his blood run chill.
Crouching over the body of a deer and tearing at it with low, snarlinggrowls, was a thing that looked something like Billy’s “big cat,” butwas much too large to have ever been mistaken for that peaceful domesticanimal. The creature was too engrossed with its meal to pay muchattention to the badly-scared boy, and if he had retained his presenceof mind he might even have tiptoed off unnoticed, but at that moment theluckless Billy was impelled to sneeze.
As his loud “Ah, c-h-o-o!” sounded the animal lifted its head angrily.In the moonlight Billy could see its white, gleaming teeth and crueleyes. It looked about, as if puzzled, for a few seconds, but suddenlyits green eyes lighted on the petrified Billy, who was too scared evento run.
Instantly it crouched down on its belly and began lashing the groundwith its tail. Its upper lip was pulled back in a snarling grin thatdisclosed its saber-like teeth and dripping fangs.
“It’s all off,” groaned poor Billy. He raised his rifle to his shoulderin a desperate sort of hope that it might scare the thing away.
“If I only hadn’t been ashamed to ask how the thing worked,” thoughtBilly.
As the thought flashed across his mind the animal with a loud, screamingsnarl sprang directly at the trembling reporter. More from instinct thananything else he pulled the trigger and a loud report followed. It was aheavy sporting rifle that Billy carried and the unexpected recoil,which, not knowing anything about firearms, he had not prepared for,threw him off his balance. This saved his life for the minute, for as hereeled the huge creature he had disturbed at its forest meal shot pasthim so close that he could feel its warm breath against his cheek.
Foiled of its prey for the moment the maddened animal switched roundwith the agility of its kind and crouched for a fresh spring.
“Gee, now I know how a mouse feels,” gasped poor Billy to himself, asthe huge creature prepared for what Billy felt was to be itsdeath-spring.
With an agility born of desperation the youth made a wild leap for ahanging tendril of one of the giant creepers that festooned a tree nearby. He caught it and began climbing with a skill he never knew before hepossessed. He was beginning to think that he could at least reach abranch of the tree where he would be out of his savage opponent’s reach,when something happened that threw him into a cold sweat.
He felt the creeper begin to sag. It was breaking under his weight. Invain he tried to brace himself against the tree trunk. His knees slippedand slid and he could get no foothold.
Suddenly, without any warning, the creeper snapped. With a wild shriekof real terror Billy was hurled to the ground. His last consciousthought was of his old home up in New York State and of who would tellhis mother of his fate.
Then like a man in a dream he saw a flash of fire so near at hand thatit almost scorched his face. He heard a loud report and a snarling growlof pain and felt something warm and heavy fall with a crushing weight ontop of him. Then everything went black.
When he came to he found himself in the center of an excited group.Everybody was shaking Frank’s hand and congratulating him, and the boy,looking very embarrassed, was trying to head off the tide ofcompliments.
“Oh, you’re all right, then,” exclaimed Harry as Billy opened his eyeson the group in the moonlight.
“W-w-what happened?” gasped Billy, “didn’t that critter get me?”
“No, thanks to Frank,” exclaimed Harry impulsively; “you owe him yourlife, Billy. He heard your first shot and hurried to your aid and justin time. The critter didn’t get as you call it—didn’t get you, but Frankgot the critter.”
“As pretty a shot as I ever saw,” remarked Mr. Chester.
“Oh, pshaw,” said Frank, “I couldn’t help hitting him, he looked as bigas an elephant; and besides, if I hadn’t got him he’d have got me.”
“What the dickens was the thing?” inquired Billy, “a lion or tiger?”
“No, but something quite as dangerous—a jaguar,” replied Mr. Chester,“and as big a specimen as I have ever seen.”
He stirred the magnificently spotted hide of the dead wild beast withhis foot as he spoke.
“Frank!” exclaimed Billy, with tears springing to his eyes and realemotion in his voice, “you saved my life to-night.” Frank put up aprotesting hand.
“No, I will say it,” impulsively burst out Billy. “I owe you my life andby jimminy crickets,” wringing Frank’s hand like a pump-handle, with ahearty grip, “I’ll never forget it. Maybe some day I can do something torepay you, and when that time comes count on Billy Barnes.”
How soon the boys were to be in dire need of that help, neither they norBilly Barnes dreamed as discussing Billy’s narrow escape and Frank’sbrave shot they made their way back to the house.