The Pathless Trail Part 11

McKay grunted suddenly, fell, lay still.

"G.o.d!" yelled Tim. "Cap's gone! Clean 'em, Looey!"

With the words he leaped aside and pulled his pistol, just as another rifle flare stabbed out from the other hut and a bullet whisked through the s.p.a.ce where he had stood. An instant later he was pouring a stream of lead at the spot whence the burning powder had leaped.

Knives flashing, teeth gleaming, the other paddlers charged across the ten-foot s.p.a.ce between the huts.

Jose, his left arm helpless, but his deadly right hand still gripping his knife, hurled himself on Julio, who had seized a machete from somewhere.

Knowlton slammed a bullet between the eyes of the foremost _boga_, who pitched headlong. He swung the muzzle to the other man's chest--yanked at the trigger--got no response. The gun was jammed.

With a triumphant snarl the blood-crazed Peruvian closed in, slashing for the throat. Knowlton slipped aside, evaded the thrust, swung the pistol down hard on his a.s.sailant's head. The man reeled, thrust again blindly, missed. Knowlton crashed his dumb gun down again. It struck fair on the temple. The man collapsed.

Tim was charging across the open at the crew house. Jose and Julio were locked in a death grapple. No other living man, except Knowlton, still stood upright. Stooping, he peered into the red-dyed face of McKay. Then he laid a hand on the captain's chest. Faint but regular, he felt the heart beating.

"Thank G.o.d!" he breathed. With a wary eye on the battling Peruvians he swiftly raised the captain and put him into Tim's hammock. As he turned back to the fight Tim emerged from the other hut, carrying a body, which he dropped and swiftly inspected. At the same moment the fight of Jose and Julio ended.

With a choked scream Julio dropped, writhed, doubled up. Then he lay still. Jose, his face ghastly, stared around him. His mouth stretched in a terrible smile.

"So this ends it," he croaked, his gaze dropping to Julio. "_Adios_, Julio! The machete is not--so good as the knife--unless one has--room to--swing it--"

He chuckled hoa.r.s.ely and sank down.

For an instant Knowlton hesitated, his glance going back and forth between McKay and Jose. Swiftly then he ran his finger tips over McKay's head. With a murmur of satisfaction he turned from his comrade and hurried to the motionless bowman, over whom Tim now bent.

"Bleedin' to death, Looey," informed Tim. "Ain't cut bad excep' that arm. That flyin' knife must have got an artery. Can we pull him through?

He's a good skate."

"I'll try. You look after Cap. He's only knocked out--bullet creased him--"

"Glory be! He's all right, huh? Sure I'll fix him up. Everybody else dead? I got that guy in the bunk house--drilled him three times."

"Look out for that fellow over there. Maybe I brained him, but I'm not sure."

Knowlton was already down on his knees beside Jose, working fast to loop a tourniquet and stop the flow from the pierced arm. With a handkerchief and his pistol barrel he shut off the pulsating stream.

"Yeah, he's done," judged Tim, rising from the man whom Knowlton had downed at last. "Skull's caved in. What 'd ye paste him with?"

"Gun. Cursed thing stuck."

"Uh-huh. Them automats are cranky. Say, lookit the mess Hozy made o'

that guy Hooley-o."

Knowlton glanced at Julio and whistled. Jose's oft-repeated threat to disembowel a refractory member of the crew had at last been literally fulfilled.

But the lieutenant had seen worse sights in the sh.e.l.l-torn trenches of France, and now he kept his mind on his work. Wedging the gun to hold the tourniquet tight, he lifted his patient from the red-smeared mud and bore him to the nearest hammock in the crew quarters. Striding back, he found Tim alternately bathing McKay's head and giving him brandy. In a moment the captain's eyes opened.

"Some bean ye got, Cap," congratulated Tim, vastly relieved at sight of McKay's gray stare. "Bullet bounced right off. Here, take another swaller. Attaboy! Hey, Looey, we better pack this crease o' Cap's, huh?

She keeps leakin'."

"Yep. Dip up the surgical kit. And give Jose a drink. I'll have to tie his artery, too. How do you feel, old chap?"

"Dizzy," McKay confessed. "What's happened?"

"Lost our crew," was the laconic answer. "All gone west but Jose, and he's bled white. We'll have to paddle our own canoe now."

For a time after his head was bandaged McKay lay quiet, staring out at the tiny battlefield and at his two mates working silently on the wounded arm of Jose. When they came back he spoke one word.

"Schwandorf."

"Yeah! He's the n.i.g.g.e.r in the woodpile, I bet my shirt. But why? What's his lay, d'ye s'pose?"

"Perhaps Jose knows," suggested Knowlton. "But he's in no shape to talk now. Let's see. Schwandorf said he was going to Iquitos?"

"Yes, but that doesn't mean anything."

"Probably not. Well, maybe Jose can explain."

There were some things, however, which Jose could not have told if he would, for he himself did not know them. One was that Schwandorf really had gone to Iquitos, where was a radio station. Another was that from that radio station to Puerto Bermudez, thence over the Andes to the coast, and northward to a New York address memorized from Knowlton's notebook, already had gone this message:

McKay expedition killed by Indians. Rand search most dangerous, but if empowered I attempt locate him for fifty thousand gold payable on safe delivery Rand at Manaos. Reply soon a possible.

KARL SCHWANDORF.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE DOUBLE-CROSS

Noon, sweltering hot. A blazing sun pouring vertical rays down on a blinding river. A long canoe wearily creeping up the glaring waters, minus a lookout, heedless of the ever-present danger of sunken tree trunks; propelled by three sun-blistered white men, one of whom wore a bandage around his head; steered perfunctorily by a pallid pirate whose left arm hung in a sling. Atop the right bank an unbroken, endless tangle of jungle growth. Ahead, on the left sh.o.r.e, a gap gouged out of the forest and a number of boats at the water's edge.

"Guess that's it," panted Knowlton, shielding his eyes and squinting at the clearing. "One more day's journey, the Brazilian chap said. We've been two and a half."

"One day's journey for six hardened rivermen, senor," corrected Jose.

"Not for three men doing six men's work and hampered by a cripple."

"Aw, ye're no crip, Hozy," dissented Tim. "Any guy that can steer a tub like this here one-handed after losin' a couple gallons o' juice is in good shape yet, I'll say. If ye had both legs shot off and yer arms broke and yer head stove in, now, ye might call yourself sort o'

helpless. Ease her over to the left a li'l' more, so's we'll hit the bank right at the corner o' that gap. Me, I don't want to take one stroke more 'n I have to. Every muscle in me is so sore it squeaks."

"Same here," admitted Knowlton. "I'm one solid ache."

Jose nodded. The clumsy craft veered a bit. The three put a little more punch into their lagging strokes, noting, as they neared the steep bank, that a couple of men had appeared at its top and were staring at them.

Gradually the long dugout worked in to the muddy sh.o.r.e, where the paddlers stabbed their blades into the clay and held it firm.

"Ahoy, up there! This the Nunes _seringal_?"