The Inca Emerald Part 8

Pinto's answer was to sc.r.a.pe shavings from the midrib of a dry palm-leaf. When he had a little pile on the white sand in front of him, he opened the same kind of tinder-box that our ancestors used to carry less than a century and a half ago. Taking out from this an old file and a bit of black flint, with a quick glancing blow he sent half a dozen sparks against a dry strip of feltlike substance found only in the nests of certain kinds of ants. In a minute a deep glow showed from the end of this tinder, and, placing it under the pile of shavings, Pinto blew until the whole heap was in a light blaze. Hastily piling dry wood on top of this, he left to the others the task of keeping the fire going and, followed by Will, hurried through the jungle toward the towering fronds of a peach-palm, which showed above the other trees. Twisting together two or three lianas, the Indian made from them a light, strong belt. This he slipped around himself and the tree, and, gripping it in both hands, began to walk up the rough trunk, leaning against this girdle and pushing it up with each step, until, sixty feet from the ground, he came to where the fruit of the tree was cl.u.s.tered at its top.

It grew in a group of six, each one looking like a gigantic, rosy peach a foot in diameter. In a moment they all came whizzing to the ground, and the two staggered back to the fire with the party's supper on their backs. Stripping off the thick husk, Pinto exposed a soft kernel which, when roasted on the coals, tasted like a delicious mixture of cheese and chestnuts.

When at last all the members of the party were full-fed and dry, the wisdom of Pinto's counsel was evident. Every one was an optimist; and, after all, the best advice in life comes from optimists. Even Pinto and Hen felt that, now that they had lived through the third misfortune, they need expect no further ill luck from the river.

"Forward or back--which!" was the way Professor Ditson put the question.

"Forward!" voted Will.

"Forward!" grunted Joe.

Jud seemed less positive.

"I sure would hate to go back," he said, "after old Jim Donegan had grub-staked us, an' tell the old man that, while we're good pearlers, we're a total loss when it comes to emeralds. Yet," he went on judicially, "there's a hundred miles of unexplored forests between us and the perfesser's trail, if there is any such thing. We've lost our guns; we've no provisions; we're likely to run across bands of roving cannibals; lastly, it may take us months to cut our way through this jungle. Therefore I vote--forward!"

"That's the stuff, Jud!" exclaimed Will, much relieved.

"Oh, I don't believe in takin' any chances," returned the old man, who had never done anything else all his life. "My idea is to always look at the dangers--an' then go ahead."

"What about me?" objected Hen. "I ain't a-goin' to cut no hundred miles of trail through this here jungle for n.o.body."

The answer came, sudden and unexpected, from the forests.

"John cut wood! John cut wood! John cut wood!" called some one, clearly.

It was only a spotted goatsucker, a bird belonging to the same family as our northern whip-poor-will, but Hen was much amused.

"You hear what the bird say, you John Pinto. Get busy and cut wood," he laughed, slapping his friend mightily on the back.

"All right," said the Indian, smiling, "John _will_ cut wood. Master,"

he said to Professor Ditson, "if all will help, I can make a montaria in less than a week, better than the one we lost. Then we not have to cut our way through jungle."

"Pinto," said Professor Ditson, solemnly, for once dropping into slang, "the sense of this meeting is--that you go to it."

That night they followed the bank until they found a place where it curved upward into a high, dry bluff. There, on soft white sand above the mosquito-belt, they slept the sleep of exhaustion. It was after midnight when Will, who was sleeping between Professor Ditson and Jud, suddenly awoke with a start. Something had sniffed at his face.

Without moving, he opened his eyes and looked directly into a pair that flamed green through the darkness. In the half-light of the setting moon he saw, standing almost over him, a heavily built animal as big as a small lion. Yet the short, upcurved tail and the rosettes of black against the gold of his skin showed the visitor to be none other than that terror of the jungle, the great jaguar, which in pioneer days used to come as far north as Arkansas and is infinitely more to be feared than the panthers which our forefathers dreaded so. This one had none of the lithe grace of the cougars which Will had met during the quest of the Blue Pearl, but gave him the same impression of stern tremendous strength and girth that a lion possesses.

All of these details came to Will the next day. At that moment, as he saw the great round head of this king of the South American forest within a foot of his own, he was probably the worst scared boy on the South American continent. Will knew that a jaguar was able to drag a full-grown ox over a mile, and that this one could seize him by the throat, flirt his body over one shoulder, and disappear in the jungle almost before he could cry out. The great beast seemed, however, to be only mildly interested in him. Probably he had fed earlier in the evening.

Even as Will stared aghast into the gleaming eyes of the great cat, he saw, out of the corner of his eye, Jud's right hand stealing toward his left shoulder. The old trapper, as usual, was wide awake when any danger threatened. Before, however, he had time to reach his automatic, Professor Ditson, equally watchful from his side, suddenly clapped his hands together sharply, close to the jaguar's p.r.i.c.ked-up ears. The effect was instantaneous. With a growl of alarm, the great beast sprang backward and disappeared like a shadow into the forest.

The professor sat up.

"That's the way to handle jaguars," he remarked. "He'll not come back.

If you had shot him," he continued severely to Jud, who held his c.o.c.ked revolver in one hand, "he would have killed the boy and both of us before he died himself." And the professor lay down again to resume his interrupted slumbers.

It was this occurrence which started a discussion the next morning in regard to weapons, offensive and defensive.

"I 'low," said Hen Pine, making his heavy machete swing through the air as he whirled it around his head, "that I can stop anything I meet with this 'ere toothpick of mine."

"Hen," remarked Jud, impressively, "do you see that round thing hangin'

against the sky in the big tree about fifty yards away?"

"Ya.s.sah, ya.s.sah," responded Hen, "that's a monkey-pot full of Brazil-nuts."

"Well, boy," returned the old trapper, "just keep your eye on it."

As he spoke he raised his automatic to the level of his hip, shooting without sighting, with that strange sixth sense of position which some of the great revolver-shots of a past generation used to acquire. There was a flash, a sharp spat, and the case of nuts about twice the size of a man's fist came whizzing to the ground. Hen stared at the old trapper with his mouth open.

"You is sure the hittenest shooter ever I see," he said at last.

Joe said nothing, but, drawing from his belt the keen little hatchet which he always carried, poised himself with his left foot forward, and, whirling the little weapon over his head, sent it hurtling through the air toward the same Brazil-nut tree. The little ax buzzed like a bee and, describing a high curve, buried itself clear to the head in the soft bark. Picking up a couple of heavy round stones, Will put himself into a pitching position and sent one whizzing in a low straight peg which hardly rose at all and which struck the tree close to Joe's hatchet with a smack which would have meant a broken bone for any man or beast that it struck; for, as Joe had found out when the two were pursued by Scar Dawson's gang, Will was a natural-born stone-thrower, with deadly speed and accuracy.

It was Professor Ditson, however, who gave what was perhaps the most spectacular exhibition of all. Standing before them, lean and gaunt, he suddenly reached to his belt and drew out a keen, bone-handled, double-edged sheath-knife. Poising this flat on the palm of his hand, he threw it, with a quick jerk, with much the same motion of a cricket-bowler. The keen weapon hissed through the air like an arrow, and was found sunk nearly to the hilt in the bark between the mark of Will's stone and the head of Joe's hatchet.

"When I was a very young man," the professor explained, embarra.s.sed, "I attained a certain amount of proficiency with the bowie-knife."

"I'll say you did!" exclaimed Jud, as he worked the knife out of the tough bark. "Any cannibal that comes within fifty yards of this party is liable to be chopped an' stabbed an' broken an' shot--to say nothin' of Hen's machete at close quarters."

Pinto had watched these various performances in silence.

"This evening," he said at last, "I show you a gun that kills without any noise."

Borrowing Joe's hatchet, he disappeared into the woods, to come back half an hour later with a nine-foot stick of some hard, hollow, light wood about an inch in diameter, straight as an arrow, and with a center of soft pith. Laying this down on a hard stump, Pinto, with the utmost care, split the whole length into halves. Then, fumbling in his belt he pulled from it one of the sharp teeth of the paca, that curious reddish rodent which is half-way in size and appearance between a hog and a hare and which is equally at home on land and in water, and whose two-inch cutting-teeth are among the favorite ready-made tools of all South American Indians. With one of these Pinto carefully hollowed out each section of the stick, smoothing and polishing the concave surface until it was like gla.s.s. Then, fitting the two halves together, he wound them spirally with a long strip of tape which he made from the tough, supple wood of a climbing palm, waxed with the black wax of the stingless bees.

When it was finished he had a light, hollow tube about nine feet long.

At one end, which he tapered slightly, he fixed, upright, the tiny tooth of a mouse, which he pressed down until only a fleck of shining ivory showed as a sight above the black surface of the tube. At the other end he fitted in a cup-shaped mouthpiece, chiseled out of a bit of light, seasoned wood.

By noon it was finished, and Jud and the boys saw for the first time the deadly blow-gun of the Mundurucu Indians. For arrows, Pinto cut tiny strips from the flinty leaf-stalks of palm-leaves. These he sc.r.a.ped until the end of each was as sharp as a needle. Then he feathered them with little oval ma.s.ses of silk from the seed-vessels of silk-cotton trees, whose silk is much fluffier and only about half the weight of ordinary cotton. In a short time he had made a couple of dozen of these arrows, each one of which fitted exactly to the bore of the blow-gun, and also fashioned for himself a quiver of plaited gra.s.ses, which he wore suspended from his shoulder with a strip of the palm tape.

Late in the afternoon he made another trip into the forest, returning with a ma.s.s of bark sc.r.a.ped from a tree called by the Indians _mavacure_, but which the white settlers in South America have named the poison tree. This bark he wet in the river, and then pounded it between two stones into a ma.s.s of yellowish fibers, which he placed in a funnel made of a plantain-leaf. Under this he set one of the aluminum cups which each of the party carried fastened to his belt. This done, he poured in cold water and let the ma.s.s drip until the cup was full of a yellow liquid, which he heated over a slow fire. When it thickened he poured in some of the milky juice of another near-by tree, which turned the mixture black. When it had boiled down to a thick gummy ma.s.s, Pinto wrapped it up carefully in a palm-leaf, after first dipping every one of his arrows into the black compound.

So ended the making of the famous urari arrow-poison, which few white men indeed have ever seen brewed. When it was safely put away, Pinto carefully fitted one of the tiny arrows into the mouthpiece and raised the blow-gun to his mouth, holding it with both hands touching each other just beyond the mouthpiece, instead of extending his left arm, as a white man would hold a gun. Even as he raised the long tube, there came a crashing through the near-by trees, and the party looked up to see a strange sight. Rushing along the branches came a pale greenish-gray lizard, marked on the sides with black bars and fully six feet in length. Along its back ran a crest of erect spines. Even as its long compressed tail whisked through the foilage, a reddish animal, which resembled a lanky racc.o.o.n, sprang after it like a squirrel, following hard on its trail.

"It's an' ol' coati chasin' a big iguana," muttered Hen, as the pair went by. "They're both mighty fine eatin'."

At first, the pursued and the pursuer seemed equally matched in speed.

Little by little, the rapid bounds of the mammal overtook the swift glides of the reptile, and in a tree-top some fifty yards away the iguana turned at bay. In spite of its size and the threatening, horrible appearance of its uplifted spines, the coati made short work of it, worrying it like a dog, and finally breaking its spine. Even as its long bulk hung lifeless from the powerful jaws of the animal, Pinto drew a deep breath and, sighting his long tube steadily toward the distant animal, drove his breath through the mouthpiece with all his force.

There followed a startling pop, and a white speck flashed through the air toward the coati. A second later, the latter, still holding the dead iguana, gave a spring as if struck by something, and started off again through the tree-tops, the great body of the dead lizard trailing behind. Suddenly the coati began to go slower and slower and then stopped short. Its head drooped. First one paw and then another relaxed, until, with a thud, the coati and iguana struck the ground together both stone-dead. The boys rushed over and found Pinto's tiny, deadly arrow embedded deep in the coati's side. Less than a minute had pa.s.sed since it had been struck, but the deadly urari had done its work. Fortunately, this poison does not impair the food value of game, and later on, over a bed of coals, Hen made good his words about their eating qualities. The coati tasted like roast 'possum, while the flesh of the giant lizard was as white and tender as chicken.

"I feel as if I was eatin' a dragon," grumbled Jud, coming back for a third helping.

Followed a week of hard work for all. Under Pinto's directions, taking turns with Jud's ax, they cut down a yellow stonewood tree, which was almost as hard and heavy as its name. Out of the trunk they shaped a log some nineteen feet in length and three feet through, which, with infinite pains and with lianas for ropes, they dragged on rollers to the water's edge. Then, with enormous labor, working by shifts with Joe's hatchet, Jud's ax, and Hen's machete, they managed to hollow out the great log. At the end of the fourth day, Jud struck.

"I'll work as hard as any man," he said, "but I got to have meat. If I work much longer on palm-nuts I'm liable to go plumb nutty myself."

As the rest of the party felt the same craving, Pinto and Jud were told off to hunt for the rest of that day. It was Jud who first came across game, a scant half-mile from camp, meeting there an animal which is one of the strangest still left on earth and which, along with the duck-bill of Australia and the great armadillo, really belongs to a past age, before man came to earth, but by some strange accident has survived to this day.

In front of him, digging in a dry bank with enormous curved claws, was an animal over six feet in length and about two feet in height. It had great hairy legs, and a tremendous bushy tail, like a vast plume, curled over its back. Its head ended in a long, tapering, toothless snout, from which was thrust constantly a wormlike, flickering tongue, while a broad oblique stripe, half gray and half black, showed on either side.