CHAPTER VII PERIL IN THE DARK
As for Pant, he was worried enough by Johnny's prolonged absence. It hadbeen dark for fully three hours. Having returned from his gathering oftree hay and his brush with the jaguar, he had gone down to the creeklanding to wait for Johnny.
Two anxious hours passed and still he did not come. For a half hour hepaced the creek trail in deep and troubled thought. Over and over, as asquirrel turns his cage, questions revolved in his mind. What was keepingJohnny? Should he go for him? Had he been attacked, perhaps slain? Whocould tell, if he went to Daego's camp, what would happen? Johnny hadleft him in charge of the camp. If something should happen to him, shouldhe fail to return, the Caribs would pile into their boats and go driftingdown the river.
"No!" he exclaimed, "Johnny left me here to carry on in his absence, andcarry on it is. If he does not appear by morning I'll send a messenger toDaego's camp to find out what he has to say about it."
He did send a messenger in the morning. The millionaire half-castereceived him with the greatest courtesy. Johnny, he said, had indeed haddinner with him and they had enjoyed quite a long chat when the meal wasover. The boy had left his camp in quite a hurry on account of thegathering darkness. He had not seen him since that time.
Daego assumed an attitude of greatest surprise upon being told thatJohnny had not returned to his own camp and expressed the hope that hemight soon learn of his safety. The Rio Hondo was a treacherous river,treacherous indeed.
All of which was more or less true, and at the same time a mostdiabolical lie.
"He's a crook and a scoundrel!" Pant raged to himself when the messengerhad made his report. "He's done something to Johnny, locked him up, orsent him up some river, a prisoner. Depend on that. But he'll not get hisway on our side of the river!"
After laying out the day's work for his men, Pant sat down on a red logand indulged in some long, long thoughts.
"The way to keep a man from making trouble for you," he told himself, "isto make as much trouble for him as you can. A fight like this is justlike a game of chess. If you can keep a man busy getting his knights,bishops and castles out of danger he isn't like to make much trouble foryour king."
For a long time he sat blinking at the little patches of sunshine thatfiltered down though the tropical foliage.
"That was a capital ghost story Hardgrave told me when I was down atBelize," he told himself at last with a little chuckle. "Happened on oneof the islands, but I'll bet it would work right up here. He promised tosend me up the things I need for trying it if any sort of craft comes upthis way. Don't suppose there's much chance, though.
"What's that I hear?" he exclaimed, starting up suddenly.
Hurrying down the river trail, he was just in time to see four pit-pansmoving slowly up the river. The pit-pans, great dugouts sixty feet long,were loaded with Spaniards.
"Daego's men," he murmured. "Re-inforcements. He doesn't need them forwork. I wonder?"
Cold dread gripped his heart. Daego was assembling his men. This additionwould give him a force double the number of their Caribs. Could it bethat, in the absence of their leader, he meant to lead an attack at once?There would be a fight, a battle to the finish between Johnny's forcesand Daego's. Caribs against Spaniards, but Pant hadn't expected it forsome time yet.
"Wish I had the stuff Hardgrave promised to send," he murmured. "Mightthin that force out a bit."
The stuff Hardgrave had promised was on its way and much nearer toJohnny's wild lumber camp than Pant guessed. Hardgrave was on his way,too; in fact, he was bringing the supplies up the river at that moment.It was a strange assortment of articles that he carried in a box beneaththe seat in his little motor boat; a dozen or so of large blue toyballoons, a bottle of phosphorus, a number of yards of cheesecloth, someputty, three tubes of glue, two metal retorts and two packages ofchemicals.
"Goin' up the Hondo," he had said to a friend before he set out. "Couplaboys up there a tryin' to do a little stunt of bringing out some of thered lure. Jest boys, they are; no match for that crafty Daego. ReckonI'll jest run up there and give 'em a little help for, after all, they'refrom the United States and so am I, though I been down here quite aspell, and all us folks from up there has to sort of hang together.It--it's sort of in the blood."
So, Pant was soon to receive re-inforcements. The re-inforcementsconsisted of but one man, but there are times when one is as good as ahost.
* * * * * * * *
Morning brought bitter disappointment to Johnny. He had hoped that thepalm tree he had seen down the creek was a cocoanut tree. The milk evenof a green cocoanut is sweet and refreshing. Since ripe nuts fall theyear round, there was reason to hope too that some of these might befound on the ground. But early morning light revealed a cohune nut tree.True, there were great clusters of nuts hanging from this tree, but theseJohnny had been told were composed mostly of a hard shell. The meat, suchas there was of it, was dry and indigestible.
"Oh, well," he sighed, "got to eat."
At that he worked his way downstream to the tree. After spending a halfhour cracking three nuts, and finding their meat meager and tough, heturned to other quarters for food.
A tropical wilderness abounds in fruit. The strangest, most unheard oftrees in the world were at Johnny's very elbow. The fruit of many ofthese was good to eat. Some might be eaten raw; others were deliciouswhen cooked. But some, too, were deadly poison. Which might be eaten?Which not? This he could not tell. To his right was a tree laden with agreen cucumber-like fruit, and over to his left one that hung heavy withlong yellow muskmellons, or so they seemed to be.
"If I only knew!" he groaned. "If I only did!"
He recalled hours wasted that might have been put to good use roaming thejungle with one of his Caribs, learning the use and value of theseplants.
"If I get back in safety I'll never waste another hour!" he resolved.--"I'll learn, and learn and learn until there is not an important thing inthis wilderness that I do not have some accurate knowledge of."
In the meantime, however, his stomach was crying loudly for food. Food?Without doubt there was plenty at hand, but he dared not eat it.
There were fishes in the stream. He could see them calmly fanning thewater in a pool beside the rocks. Fish were always good. His mouthwatered at thought of the fry he would have on the hot rocks. But he hadno hooks. He tried a snare of tie-tie vine, but the fish were too quickfor him.
At last, despairing of his undertaking, he dropped on hands and knees tocreep away into the bush. He had not gone far before his heart wasgladdened by what he saw just before him. It was a hot, humid morning. Apeccary, a little wild pig, with her half grown brood, having withoutdoubt spent the cooler hours of night hunting grubs and roots, laystretched out on a bed of dead ferns, fast asleep. One of the youngporkers, lying with his two hind feet close together, was not twelve feetfrom where Johnny lay.
"A quick grab at those feet, a sudden get-away, and I have my breakfast,"he thought as he moved cautiously forward. "That fellow doesn't weighover ten pounds dressed, but that's enough food for two days and by thattime I'll be back to camp." Oh, vain hope!
Right hand out, right foot forward; left hand, left foot. So he movedahead. Now half the distance was covered and still the little wild pigsslept. Now he was within arm's length of his prey. Then, rising to hisknees, he shot out a hand. There came a wild, piercing squeal, then allwas commotion.
Quicker than he could think, the old peccary was after him.
"Insignificant little brute," he thought. "I could brain you with asingle blow of a club."
He had no club, had not thought of that.
A convenient tree offered protection. Clinging to his squealing prey, heleaped to the first branch.
"Go away in a moment," he told himself as with his clasp-knife hesilenced the squeals of the young porker.
To his immense surprise, as he looked down he saw that
the ground wasliterally alive with angry, grunting peccary pigs.
"Where'd they all come from?" he asked an hour later, as for thetwentieth time he adjusted his sore muscles to their cramped position.
This question no one could answer. The angry horde had apparentlydeclared the tree to be in a state of siege. And, though they were small,they were terrible to look at. There were gnarled old fathers of thatherd whose ugly yellow tusks, curled twice round, stood out at the endlike spears.
"Rip a fellow to pieces before he'd gone ten steps," groaned the boy.
As his position in this small mahogany tree with its smooth limbs becameall but unbearable, he cast about for relief. Next to this tree was alarger one and beyond that a great, broad-spreading palm.
"If only I can reach the palm," he told himself, "I will at least have acomfortable place to rest and maybe grab a few moments of sleep."
Tying the dead peccary to his back, he climbed out as far as he daredupon his limb, then executed a sort of flying leap for the next tree. Itwas a daring venture, but a successful one. Five minutes later, with thecarefully dressed peccary meat hanging nearby, he sank into a cushioneddepth of the palm tree and was soon fast asleep.
Some time later, much later, he awoke. At first, as he attempted to gazeabout him, he could not believe his senses.
"It can't be true," he insisted. "There has been an eclipse. I have goneblind. It can't be night!"
But it was. Overcome by exhaustion and the humid heat of the tropics, hehad slept the day through and a short way into the night. So had passedthe day that was to have seen his raft built and launched, to have seenhim on his way back to camp.
"And here I am!" he exclaimed in disgust.
"Well, at any rate," he sighed, "I now have some supper and may make myway back to the rock and cook it."
"But can I?" he started. "What of that wild horde with their ugly yellowtusks? Are they still waiting down there?"
For a moment he hesitated. Then, with a sudden resolve born of necessity,he began to descend.