The Pathless Trail Part 27

"Yes. They are quite handsome in their way, and strong enough to help you about if your legs remain weak. In that case you will probably be allowed to put your arms around them for support. I almost wish I could get fever, too."

Tim's voice remained a growl, but his face did not look so doleful as before.

"Grrrumph! I always seem to draw big females, and I don't like 'em.

Gimme somethin' cute like them li'l' frog dolls in Paree--sort o'

pee-teet and chick. Still, a feller's got to do the best he can. Mebbe I'll live till you guys git back."

With which he availed himself of the prerogative of a sick man and grinned openly at the two comely young women who stood near at hand, awaiting any demand for services. They were not at all backward in reciprocating, and, despite the tribal paint and their l.a.b.i.al ornaments, the smiles softening their faces made them not half bad to look upon.

"'O death, where is thy sting?'" laughed Knowlton. "Be careful not to strain your heart while we're away, Tim."

"Don't worry. It's a tough old heart--been kicked round so much it's growed a sh.e.l.l like a turtle. Besides, I seen wild women before I ever come to the jungle."

Notwithstanding his apparent resignation, however, Tim erupted once more when his comrades shouldered their packs, picked up their guns, and spoke their thanks and good-by to Monitaya. He arose on shaky legs and desperately offered to prove his fitness by a barehanded six-round bout with his commanding officer. When McKay, with sympathetic eyes but gruff tones, peremptorily squelched him he insisted on at least going to the door to watch his comrades start the journey from which they might or might not return. Nor did he take advantage of his chance to hug the girls on the way.

With one arm slung over the shoulders of a wiry young warrior who grinned proudly at the honor of being selected to help a guest of the great chief, he followed the departing column out into the sunshine, where the entire tribe was a.s.sembled. And when the stalwart band had filed into the shadows of the trees and vanished he stood for a time unseeing and gulping at something in his throat.

Straight away along a vague path beginning at the rear of the _malocas_ marched the twenty-four, the two northerners bending under the weight of their packs, the pair of Brazilians sweeping the jungle with practiced eyes, the score of Mayorunas striding velvet footed, resplendent in brilliant new paint and headdresses, armed with the most powerful weapons of their tribe, and loftily conscious of the fact that they were chosen as Monitaya's best. Savage and civilized, each man was fit, alert, formidable. Nowhere in the loosely joined chain was a weak link.

Before the departure the Americans had been at some trouble to rid themselves of Yuara, who, with his men, had tarried at the Monitaya _malocas_ during Tim's sickness. While Knowlton was giving his ripped arm a final dressing he had calmly announced his intention of joining the expedition into the Red Bone country, and it had taken some skillful argument by Lourenco to dissuade him without arousing his anger. All four of the adventurers would gladly have taken him along had he not been hampered by his injury, but, under the ruthless rule barring all men not in possession of all their strength, he had to be left.

Now, as on the previous jungle marches, the way was led by two of the tribesmen, followed by the Brazilians and the Americans, after whom the main body of the escort strode in column. The leader and guide, one Tucu, was a veteran hunter, fighter, and bushranger, who had been more than once in the Red Bone region and withal possessed the cool judgment of mature years and long experience; a lean, silent man who, though not a subchief, might have made a good one if given the opportunity. With him Lourenco had already arranged that a direct course should be followed, and that whenever dense undergrowth blockaded the way the machete men should take the lead.

For some time no word was spoken. The path wound on, faintly marked, but easy enough to follow with Tucu picking it out. It was not one of the frequently used trails of the Monitaya people, but a mere _picada_, or hunter's track; yet even this had its pitfalls to guard the tribal house. Soon after leaving the clearing Tucu turned aside, pa.s.sed between trees off the trail, went directly under one tree whose steep-slanting roots stood up off the ground like great down-pointing fingers, and returned to the path. All followed without comment.

A considerable distance was covered before any further sign of the presence of ambushed death was shown by the savages. Then it came with tragic suddenness.

Tucu grunted suddenly, and in one instant shifted his gait from the easy swing of the march to the prowl of a hunting animal. Behind him the line grew tense. The click of rifle hammers and of safeties being thrown off breech bolts blended with the faint slither of arrows being swiftly drawn from quivers. Eyes searched the bush, spying no enemy.

Two more steps, and Tucu stopped, head thrust forward, eyes boring into something on the ground. The rest, taking care not to touch one another's weapons, crowded around and looked down at the huddled form of a man.

A matted ma.s.s of black hair, a neck burned copper brown by sun, tattered cotton shirt and trousers, big, bare dirty feet, a rusty repeating rifle of heavy caliber--these were what they saw first. The man lay straight, his face in the dirt, his hands a little ahead as if he had been crawling forward at the moment of death. Tucu turned him on his back, revealing a blanched yellow-brown face which was proof positive of his race.

"Peruvian," said Pedro.

"What got him?" demanded Knowlton. "No wound on him."

Lourenco questioned Tucu. The leader, who evidently knew just where to look, tore open the thin shirt at the left side and pointed to a tiny discoloration surrounding a red dot under the ribs. He muttered a few laconic words.

"A blowgun trap," Lourenco explained. "The gun is set a little way beyond here. This man, sneaking along the path, broke the little cord which shot the gun. The poisoned dart struck in his side. He must have pulled out the dart, but he could not go far before his legs became paralyzed, and he fell. Then, still trying to crawl, he died."

Pedro picked up the dead man's gun and worked the lever. The weapon was fully loaded and showed no sign of recent firing. Pedro coolly pumped it empty, gathered up the blunt .44 cartridges, and pocketed them for his own use.

Tucu watched the proceeding in satirical approval. Then, leaving the body where it lay, he went stooping along the path ahead, his keen eyes searching the undergrowth. In a few minutes he returned with the blood-stained dart which, as Lourenco had guessed, the stricken prowler had pulled from his flesh and dropped. This he pa.s.sed to a blowgun man.

The latter carefully opened his poison pouch, redipped the point of the dart, held it a moment to dry in a shaft of sunlight, and slipped it into his dart case among a score of unused missiles.

"No waste of ammunition here," was McKay's dry comment. "What happens to this corpse now?"

Through Lourenco's mouth Tucu answered.

"It will be left here until police warriors come from the _malocas_.

Certain men travel the paths daily to inspect the traps. When they find this man they will cut off his hands and feet with their wooden knives and throw the rest aside to be eaten by the animals. He has not been dead long or he would have been devoured by some wild thing before we came. The trail travelers will set the trap again and take the hands and feet to the _malocas_, where they will be washed, cooked, and eaten."

The faces of the Americans contracted slightly. A simultaneous thought made them flash startled glances at each other.

"Tim--" Knowlton said, and paused. Lourenco smiled.

"No, Senhor Tim will not be expected to eat man meat," he a.s.sured them.

"I thought of that before we left--one never knows when these traps will yield human flesh. So, without letting Monitaya know why I spoke, I told him you North Americans believed the flesh of an enemy to be poisonous, and that you would not eat it on that account. Monitaya will remember that."

"By George! you have a head on your shoulders, old scout! I was worried for a minute. If they offered Tim a broiled foot or a stewed hand he'd go for his gun."

Briefly Tucu spoke. The Mayorunas separated and went into the forest, seeking any sign of other enemies.

"Queer that this chap should come here alone--if he was alone," added Knowlton. "Suppose he's the fellow that's been swiping stray girls? Or a spy?"

"Neither, I think, senhor. The girls were captured by more than one man, and I doubt if this one had been here before. Probably he was one of those lone prowlers of the bush whose hand is against every man. He is a half-breed, as you see, and came, perhaps, to steal a girl for himself.

The jungle is well rid of him."

"Uh-huh. Guess you're right. Say, I'd like to see how that blowgun trap operates. Can't understand what blows the dart when n.o.body is here."

"I do not know, either, senhor. Perhaps Tucu will show us."

The savage guide, after a moment's hesitation, pointed along the trail and stalked away, the others at his heels. At a spot some fifteen yards farther on he turned into the bush at the right, walked a few paces away from the path, turned again sharply to the left, advanced once more, and halted. Before them, not easy to discern in the masking brush, even though they were looking for it, hung the long barrel of the blowgun, lashed to a couple of small trees and pointing toward the path.

Tucu stepped to the mouthpiece of the slender tube and pointed to a sapling, just behind and in line with it, which had been cut off about shoulder-high from the ground. From the tip of this thin trunk dangled a wide strip of bark. The savage, having indicated this, stood as if the action of the device were perfectly clear.

"Too deep for me," admitted McKay, after a puzzled study of the tube and the trunk. The others nodded agreement. Lourenco confessed to the Indian the blindness of all.

Thereupon Tucu bent the sapling far over and released it. As it sprang erect the bark strip slapped the end of the gun. Also, the watchers saw something hitherto unnoticed--a thin, flexible vine attached to the top of the thin stump. Lourenco's face showed understanding.

"See, comrades, this is it: The little tree is bent far down and held by the long vine. The vine pa.s.ses around a low branch, then up over other limbs, and out across the path, where it is fastened to a root near the ground. A man following the path breaks the vine. The little tree then flies up and the bark sheet strikes the wide mouthpiece of the gun. The air forced into that mouthpiece by the blow of the bark shoots the little dart. The dart does not fly as hard as if blown by a man, but it goes swiftly enough to pierce the skin of anything except a tapir. As soon as the poison is in the blood the work is done."

"It sure is done," Knowlton echoed, thinking of the short distance covered by the dead Peruvian after pa.s.sing this spot. "Mighty ingenious apparatus. These people are no fools, I'll say."

"You say rightly," Pedro muttered. Turning, they went out to the path, looking askance at the thin death tube as they pa.s.sed along it.

The scouting Mayorunas returned, having found nothing. Tucu resumed his place at the head of the line. Without a backward glance at the body sprawling in the trail at the rear, the column swung into its usual gait.

The Americans, silent before, were silent again. They had looked for the first time on the work of the Mayoruna traps; had observed the cold-blooded way in which the Indiana handled the still form on the ground; had visualized the forthcoming mutilation of that body and the resultant cannibal rites. More vividly than ever before they realized that these men and Monitaya himself were relentless creatures of the jungle, and that, despite the present existent friendliness, there yawned between them and their barbarous allies an impa.s.sable gulf.

For the moment the jungle itself seemed a poisonous green abyss of creeping, crawling, sneaking death. And though they had faced death too often in another land to fear it in any form, though they marched on with unwavering step, their eyes were somber as in their hearts echoed the last appeal of the man they had left behind them:

"Ye ain't goin' to desert a comrade amongst a lot o' man eaters--"