Rob Harlow's Adventures Part 54

Rob smiled, raised his eyebrows a little, and followed.

"Better let him convince himself," he thought; and as Shaddy forced back the low boughs and held them apart for his companion to follow, he went on talking.

"I knew you could do it by the way you handled your bow and arrow. Your eyes are as straight as mine is, and I watched you as you sent an arrow first one side and then another till you got the exact range, and then it was like kissing your hand: just a pull of the string, off goes the arrow, and down drops the lizard, and a fine one, too. Round that trunk, my lad! There you are, and there he lies, just down in that tuft of gra.s.s."

"Where?" said Rob banteringly. "Why, Shaddy, I thought your eye was better than spy-gla.s.ses."

Shaddy made a dash at the tuft of thick growth beneath the bough where the iguana had stood, searched about, and then rose and took off his cap to give his head a scratch.

"Well, I never!" he said in a tone full of disappointment; "I was as sure as sure that you hit that thing right through."

He looked round about, and then all at once made a rush at a spot whence came a faint rustling; and the next minute he returned dragging the iguana by the tail, with the half of the arrow through its shoulder.

"Now then," he cried, "was I right, or was I wrong? He made a big scramble to get away, and hid himself in that bush all but his tail. My word, Mr Rob, sir, what a shot you will make!"

"Nonsense, Shaddy!" said the lad, looking down with a mingling of compunction and pride at his prize.

"Ah, you may call it nonsense, Mr Rob. I calls it skill."

"Why, it was a mere accident."

"Hark at him!" cried Shaddy, looking round at the trees as if to call their attention to the lad's words. "Says it was an accident when I told him to aim straight at the thing's shoulder, and there's the arrow right through it from one side to the other, and the poor brute dead as dead."

"But I hardly aimed at it, Shaddy," protested Rob.

"Of course you didn't. A good shot just makes up his mind to hit a thing, and he hits it same as you did that lizard. Well, sir, that's one trouble off my mind; and I can say thankfully we shan't starve.

There'll be times when the river's so flooded that we can't fish, and then we might have come worst off; but you can shoot us birds and beasts. Then we can find eggs, and lay traps, and search for fruit.

Why, Mr Rob, sir, we're going to have our bread b.u.t.tered on both sides, and we can keep Mr Brazier going while he collects. It looked very black indeed time back, but the sun's shining in on us now. We shall be a bit like prisoners, but where are you going to find a more beautiful prison for people who want to study natural history? Hooray I look here, too--mushrooms."

"What, those great funguses?"

"To be sure: they're good eating. I know 'em, sir. Found 'em before, and learnt to eat 'em off the Indians. Here, wait a moment; let's take enough of 'em for supper, and then get back to the kitchen and have a turn at cooking. That's enough," he continued, picking up from the mouldering stump of a huge decaying tree a great cl.u.s.ter of fungi; "those others'll do for another time."

"I hope you will not be disappointed in my shooting next time," said Rob, taking the cl.u.s.ter of mushroom growth and thrusting an arrow through it like a skewer. "I have very little faith in it myself, Shaddy."

"More likely to do good, and I believe in you all the more, Mr Rob,"

said the man, seizing the lizard, tying its legs together with a band of twisted twigs, thrusting his bamboos through, and swinging the prize over his shoulder. "If you went puffing and blowing about and saying you was going to shoot this, and hit that, I should begin to wonder how ever we were to get our next dinner. Never you mind about feeling afraid for yourself. 'Modesty's the best policy,' as the old saying goes, or something like it. Now then, best foot foremost! Tread in my steps, and I think I can lead you straight for the head of the clearing, pretty close to home, sweet home. D'yer mind what I say?" he continued, with a queer smile. "Think. I ain't quite sure, my lad, but I'll try."

Shaddy took a fresh observation, and then gave a satisfied nod of the head.

"Forrard!" he said; and he made off as if full of confidence, while Rob followed behind, taking care of his mushrooms and watching the nodding head of the iguana low down at Shaddy's back in a curiously grim fashion, and thinking that it looked anything but attractive as an object for the cook's art.

They had been walking nearly an hour, very slowly--for it was difficult work to avoid the tangled growth which hemmed them in--when Shaddy, who had been chatting away pleasantly about the trees and their ill-luck in not finding more fruit out in the forest, warning his companion, too, every now and then about ant-hills and thorns, suddenly exclaimed, "Wonder what luck Mr Brazier's had?" and almost directly after as they entered an open place where orchids were growing, some of which had suggested the man's last speech, he cried, "Why, hullo! Look here, Mr Rob; look here," and as he pointed down at the dead leaves beneath their feet, Rob started back with a shudder of horror, and looked wildly round for the cause of that which he saw.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

A GAP IN THE RANKS.

That which Shaddy pointed out was startling enough to cause Rob a shudder; for, plainly seen upon a broad leaf, trampled-down amongst others that were dead and dry, were a few spots of blood.

But after the momentary feeling of dread caused by the discovery there came a reaction, and Rob exclaimed eagerly, "Some wild beasts have been fighting;" and then as his companion shook his head, the boy uttered a forced laugh, and, to carry off the excitement, said:

"I know what it is, Shaddy: two monkeys coming home from school have had a fight, and one made the other's nose bleed."

"Wish I could laugh and joke about it like you do, squire," said Shaddy sadly, as he peered about. "It's serious, my lad. Something very wrong, I'm afraid."

"Don't say that, Shaddy," cried Rob huskily. "I only tried to turn it off because I felt afraid and didn't want to show it. Do you really think there's something very serious?"

"I do, my lad."

"Not that Mr Brazier has been here?"

"That's just what I do think, my lad; and I feel as if it was my fault for sending him hunting and collecting by himself, instead of us waiting on him and watching him."

"Shaddy, don't say anything has happened to him!" cried Rob in horror.

"I don't say as there is," said Shaddy; "I don't say as there ain't, my lad: but you see that," he said, pointing down, "and you know that Mr Brazier's a fine brave English gentleman, but, like all the natural history people I ever see, so full of what he's doing that he forgets all about himself and runs into all kinds of danger."

"But what kind of danger could he have run into here?"

"Don't know, my lad--don't know. All I do know is that he has been here and got into trouble."

"But you don't know that he has been here," cried Rob pa.s.sionately.

"What's this, then?" said Shaddy, holding out a piece of string, which he had picked up unnoticed by his companion. "Mr Brazier had got one of his pockets stuffed full of bits o' spun yarn and band, like that as we used to tie up his plants with, and it looks to me as if he'd dropped this."

"But couldn't--Oh no, of course not--it's impossible," cried Rob; "no one else could have been here?"

"No, sir; no one else could have been here."

"Yes, they could," cried Rob excitedly: "enemies!"

Shaddy shook his head as he peered about, stooping and examining the trampled-down growth.

"Wish I could track like an Indian does, Mr Rob, sir. He has been here sure enough, but I can't make out which way he has gone. There's our footmarks pressing down the twigs and moss and stuff; and there's his, I fancy."

"And Indians?"

"Can't see none, sir; but that means nothing: they tread so softly with their bare feet that a dozen may have been here and gone, and we not know it."

"Then you do think he has been attacked by Indians, Shaddy?" cried Rob reproachfully.

"Well, sir, I do, and I don't. There's no sign."

"Then what could it have been,--a jaguar?"

"Maybe, Mr Rob."