CAPTURING A BLACK SHADOW
The black shadow which Pant had seen making its way up the river under
cover of night, was a pit-pan, electrically driven. In his conclusions
regarding this he had not been mistaken.
The thing which Pant had launched against the black shadow was a log
boom. It was in this very boom that he hoped later to carry his 50,000
feet of mahogany down the river to the sea. Now he had set it to an
unusual task. A log boom consists of a hundred or more logs, ten inches
in diameter and twelve to twenty feet long, joined at the ends by steel
chains until the whole affair is several hundred feet in length.
So dark was the night that the crew of the pit-pan did not see the
approaching string of logs until it was right upon them.
Of the five men on board, two, by the sudden compact, were thrown into
the river. It was with the utmost difficulty that the remaining three
were able to prevent their unwieldy craft from capsizing. In the end it
swung about until it lay full length against the log boom which, tugged
at by the current, was rapidly swinging toward the Mexican shore, where
waited ten officers of the law.
After giving way to wild burst of anger, the men began tumbling chests of
goods into the river.
Before this task was half completed, they were interrupted by the
occupants of a dugout, who, swinging alongside, commanded them in the
name of the law to desist.
Pant was now sure that he had not been mistaken in the mission of the
black shadow.
“If they were on some lawful business why should they pitch their goods
into the river?” he asked himself.
“Yes, we have them now. We are giving Daego some of the trouble he so
richly deserves. This night’s work will do much for Quintanaroo. But what
won’t Daego do to us!” he said, wrinkling his brow as he pushed his dory
from its place of hiding. “He knows well enough whose log boom that is.
There is not another on the river save his own.”
For some time as he drove his dory across the stream toward the spot
where his boom was fastened, the boy reflected upon the cost of doing the
right thing, the thing that in the end would result in the most good to
the greatest number. Surely one does not engage in the battle for right
without placing himself in a place of great peril.
“Ah, well!” he exclaimed, strong-hearted at last, “as someone has said,
one may trust God for the outcome. The only question we need to ask,
moment by moment, is: ‘This thing I do, is it right?’”
Arrived at the end of the boom, he cut it away and allowed it to drift
toward the mouth of the creek where his Caribs awaited it.
At the camp he found great excitement. The same words were on every lip:
“The killer has been taken! Pant is a great hunter. He has killed the
man-eater with a machete! Surely there was never such a boy before!”
As for Pant, he divided his time between good-naturedly disclaiming any
bravery or skill on his part, and mourning for his burro.
An hour passed. The Caribs settled down for the night. Then Pant and his
Carib captain sat beneath their mosquito bar netting, with a candle
between them, talking low and earnestly.
“The killer is dead,” said Pant.
“He is.”
“Open warfare has been declared.”
“It has.”
“Will there be a fight?”
“There will.”
“When?”
The Carib shrugged his shoulders. “Who can tell?”
“From now on,” said Pant slowly, “our men will be divided into two
companies; those who work and those who watch, ready to fight.”
“That will be wise,” said the Carib.
At that they blew out the candle and went to sleep.
Next evening the Spanish girl’s dugout was again bumping the shore at the
mouth of the creek trail. Her father was with her this time. Pant showed
them down the trail to a palm-thatched cabin. There, seated around a
table of roughly hewn mahogany slabs, they talked of the previous night’s
doings.
The deputy, a short, solid looking man, with small, twinkling eyes,
assured Pant that he was profoundly grateful for the part he had played
in the affair.
“They were Daego’s men,” he went on. “When we had fished the two who went
overboard out of the water, we identified them, every one.
“That is not all,” he smiled. “Someone was careless. On a case of
ammunition we found the shipping tag assigning it to Daego. So, the case
is quite complete.”
“Has Daego been arrested?” asked Pant.
“No. Truth is, no one seems to know where he is gone.”
“But he will be arrested?”
“Probably not,” the deputy spoke slowly.
“What! Not arrested!”
“He is a British subject. The relations between Mexico and Honduras have
not always been the best. It would be a hazard. To arrest and try him
would be a danger.”
For a moment Pant felt like repenting the action he had thought of as
being done for the good of all. To risk one’s happiness, perhaps one’s
very life, and then to have nothing come of it, that was bitterness
indeed.
The deputy, having read the look on Pant’s face, was speaking again: “Do
not worry; your work was not in vain. He shall be punished. And for one
so greedy as he, his punishment will be severe indeed. His concessions
shall be taken from him. Within thirty days he must remove his wagons,
his tractors, his chicle kettles, everything that belongs to him. His
mahogany, which is at the river’s bank, will be held in bond by the
Government.”
Pant’s chair, which had been tilted back, came down with a thump.
Concessions revoked! He had not thought of that. Those concessions were
so vast in extent that his mind could scarcely take them in. Someone had
told him that Daego had made a quarter of a million dollars the previous
year on chicle.
“And that is the price he pays for his paltry gains from illicit traffic.
Surely one pays heavily for the steps that make him a law-breaker.”
“My friend,” said the deputy, “you are alone here with this boy, Johnny
Thompson, and your Caribs?”
“Yes, sir. Johnny’s been away for some time. But, trust me, he’ll be
back! He always comes back.”
“Have you much money?”
“Very little.” Pant wondered what the deputy was driving at now. “But we
represent a man who is rich,” he added as an afterthought.
“Ah!” the man breathed. “And he is interested, perhaps, in industrial
development?”
“He wishes to develop his mahogany interests here. We came here to prove
it can be done.”
“You are right. It can be done,” the other said decidedly. “Much more can
be done than that. His tract, though very fine,—the very best,—is small.
Across the river, far up as you can go, we are rich in forests, mahogany
that has scarcely been touched; sapodillas that will yield a million, two
million pounds of chicle a year. With chicle at fifty cents a pound at
the dock, that should yield a profit.
“Our province needs developing. Our people need the work and the pay that
it brings. We have not the capital. We have the forests.
“In a word,”—the man leaned forward, his eyes sparkling eagerly, “in a
word, if you two boys can find us a man with money who is as honest as
you, and who has at heart the good of all people, as you have, it will be
possible for him to secure in Quintanaroo concessions which in time will
bring him as much gold as Cortez hoped to win when he invaded Mexico. The
question is: have you the man?”
For a moment Pant sat there silent, like one in a trance. So sudden was
this proposal, so vast the possibilities, that his mind refused to grasp
it.
“I—I think we can find the man,” he stammered at last. “You—you will give
us time?”
“If only Johnny were here!” he said to himself.
“How much time?”
“Sixty days.”
“Ninety, if you need it. Quintanaroo can wait long; any land can afford
to wait a long time for an honest man.
“And now,” he said, rising, “I think we must go.”
He shook hands solemnly with the boy. His daughter gave Pant a friendly
smile. Then they were away over the trail to their boat.
Two hours later Pant might have been found still sitting before his rough
slab table, and still he appeared to be in a trance.
He was fighting, fighting an impulse to run away, to dash down the river
in his motor boat and away to the Belize radio to flash the tremendous
news to a man who had financed their little enterprise up Rio Hondo.
Then, into his mind there came a picture in an old book of fables; a
picture of a dog standing on a bridge over a river. In his mouth was a
piece of meat. In the river was a reflection of the meat much larger than
the meat itself.
“The dog dropped the meat to snap at its reflection, and lost all,” Pant
mused. “I hope these concessions are not mere reflections of possible
wealth; but I know that our fifty thousand feet of red mahogany logs are
not. To-morrow we must get out another five thousand feet.”
Even at that, while he made his way to his bunk, his heart all but failed
him. He dreaded the fight he was sure would come, the fight to a finish
with Daego’s men.
“If only Johnny were here!” he again repeated. “Where can he be? That
black man over in Daego’s camp said Daego had driven him into the jungle.
Surely no jungle can hold Johnny Thompson!”
Of this last he could not be sure. A Central American jungle is an
awesome and terrible place.
“If he were here,” he went on, “I could tell him the good news of Daego’s
undoing and of those wonderful concessions that are all but within our
grasp.
“And if only he could lead in the fight that’s sure to come! Daego will
fight. It will be a battle to the bitter end. Some have gone down the
river, but there are plenty still.
“Oh, well!” he sighed at last. “Johnny may not be here, but his ghost is.
He’ll throw terror into the hearts of those blacks yet.”
That night the ghost of the air did strange things; very strange indeed.