The Pathless Trail Part 5

"Good Lord!" groaned McKay. "Even here at the end of the world one can't get away from those beastly instruments."

A throaty chuckle from the doorway followed the words. Schwandorf emerged, carrying a big bottle.

"Yet there is one thing to be thankful for, gentlemen," he said. "In all this town there is not one man who attempts to play a trombone."

The others laughed. Thomaz appeared with bottles and thick cups. Corks were drawn, liquids gurgled, matches flared, cigars glowed. Without warning Schwandorf shot a question through the gloom:

"Have you seen Cabral--the superintendent?"

"Yes."

"Ask him about the wild man?"

"Yes."

"Get any information?"

"Nothing definite. He suggested that we see you."

"So."

A pause, while Schwandorf's cigar end glowed like a flaming eye.

"The Red Bones live well up the river," he began, abruptly. "Twenty-four days by canoe, five days through the bush on the east sh.o.r.e. That would bring you to their main settlement--if you were not wiped out before then. They're a big tribe, as tribes go. Ever been here before?"

"No. Not here," Knowlton told him. "I've been in Rio, and McKay here has knocked around in--"

A stealthy kick from McKay halted him an instant. Then, deftly shifting the sentence, he concluded, "--in a number of places."

"So." Another pause. "Then I should explain about tribes. Tribes here generally consist of from fifty to five hundred or more persons living in big houses called '_malocas_.' Unless the tribe is very big, one house holds them all. There may be any number of _malocas_, the inhabitants of which are all of the same racial stock; yet each _maloca_ is, as far as government is concerned, a tribe to itself, controlled by a chief. No _maloca_ owes any duty to any other _maloca_. There is no supreme ruler over all, nor even a federation among them. They live merely as neighbors--distant neighbors. At times they fight like neighbors. You understand."

"'When Greek meets Greek--'" quoted McKay.

"Just so. When I say, then, that the Red Bones are a big tribe, I mean that there are about five hundred--maybe more--individuals in their main settlement. They live in huts, not in one big tribe-house like the Mayorunas. They are not Mayorunas, in fact; they paint differently, are darker of skin, and more cruel.

"The Mayorunas, by the way, are not so debased as you might think.

Though cannibals, they do not kill for the sake of eating 'long pig,'

like the cannibals of the South Seas. Neither do they eat the whole body. Only the hands and feet of their dead enemies are devoured. These are carefully cooked and eaten as delicacies along with monkey meat, birds, fish, and other things prepared for a feast in honor of a victory. The eating of human flesh seems to be symbolism rather than savagery. Furthermore, they do not range the jungle hunting for victims.

They eat only those who come against them as enemies.

"So it is quite possible, you see, that strangers might go among them and escape death. It would depend largely on the ability of the strangers to convince the savages that they were friends. The difficulty is that the savages consider all strangers to be enemies until friendship is proved."

"A sizable difficulty," McKay remarked.

"Almost insurmountable. Yet it might be done. Mind, I speak now of the Mayorunas, not of the Red Bones. I tell you again that the Red Bone country is closed."

"And where is the Mayoruna region?"

"In the same general section. The Mayorunas are much more widely distributed. They are on both banks of the Javary and extend as far west as the Ucayali.

"Now if I sought to enter the Red Bone region--and again I say I would not--this would be my way of going at it. I would go first among the Mayorunas near the Red Bones and seek to convince them that I was their friend. I would make the Mayoruna chief as friendly to me as possible. I might even take a Mayoruna woman for a time--some of them are handsome, and such a step would make me almost a Mayoruna myself in their eyes.

Then I would persuade the chief to send messengers to the Red Bones with word of me and a request that I be allowed to visit their settlement.

The request, coming from the Mayoruna chief, probably would be granted.

I would then go in with a bodyguard of Mayorunas, do my business, and come out via the Mayoruna route."

A thoughtful silence ensued. Bottle necks clinked against the cups.

"Something in that idea," conceded Knowlton. "A good deal in it. Barring the woman part, of course."

"Ay," spoke McKay, his tone casual as ever. "When you came out what would you do with your woman, _mein Herr_?"

Schwandorf, tongue loosened a bit by his k.u.mmel, chuckled.

"Ho-ho! The woman? Leave her, of course, when she had served my purpose.

Why bother about a woman here and there?"

"I see." McKay's face, indistinct in the gloom, was unreadable, but his tone had a caustic edge.

Schwandorf laughed again. "You are fresh from the woman-worshiping United States and you disapprove. But this is the jungle, and all is different. '_Cada terra com seu uso_,' as these Brazilians say--each land with its own ways. Perhaps when you have met the Mayoruna women, looked on their handsome faces and shapely forms--they wear no clothing, by the way--you will change your ideas. More than one man along this border has risked his life to win one of those women. But that rests with you. And now if you will excuse me, gentlemen, I have an engagement with a man at the other end of town."

"Certainly. We are indebted to you for your interest."

"It is nothing. Remember that I strongly advise you not to go. But if you will go, I shall gladly do whatever lies in my power to aid you in preparing for the trip. Do not hesitate to call on me."

He pa.s.sed into the house, returning almost at once.

"By the way," he added, "one of you has the room next mine?"

"I have it," said Knowlton.

"Yes. Are you a good sleeper? I sometimes snore most atrociously, I am told. So perhaps--"

"Don't worry. I can sleep in the middle of a bombardment."

"You are fortunate. Good evening, gentlemen."

When he was gone they sat for a time smoking, sipping now and then at their highb.a.l.l.s. At length McKay said, "Humph!"

"Amen. Pretty square sort of chap, though, don't you think?"

"I'm not saying," was the Scot's cautious answer. "Seems to be trying to discourage us and egg us on at the same time. Something up his sleeve, perhaps."

"Can't tell. But his line of talk rings true so far. Checks up all right with what we've heard about the Mayorunas and so on. And that scheme of working in through the Mayoruna country sounds about as sensible as anything. Desperate chance and all that, but it might work. Say, why did you kick me when I was going to tell him you'd been in British Guiana?"

"Don't know exactly. Had a hunch. Seems to me I've seen that fellow before somewhere, but I can't place him. None of his business where I've been, anyhow. We're b.o.o.bs from the States hunting for a wild man. That's all he needs to know."

But it was not enough for Schwandorf to know. At that very moment he was on his way to the home of Superintendent Cabral, with whom he had no engagement whatever, to learn all he could concerning the business of these military-appearing strangers; also to impress on that official the fact that he had sought to dissuade them from starting on their mad quest.

And much later that night, when Knowlton was making good his boast that he was a sound sleeper, a black-bearded face rose silently above the iron part.i.tion between his room and that of the German. A hand gripping a small electric flashlight followed. A white ray searched the room, halting on the khaki shirt lying over a box. A tough withe with a barb at one end came over like a slender tentacle, hooked the shirt neatly, drew it stealthily up to the top. Shirt, stick, lamp, hand, face all dissolved into darkness.