WHAT THE FISHERMEN CAUGHT.
Seated with his back to the thicket, Jimmie heard a rustle and turned
about expecting to see one of his chums.
Instead, he saw the ugly, vicious face of an Ecuadorian savage. While he
looked, the fellow was joined by another, equally repulsive and equally
naked. During that first moment of amazement Jimmie dropped his fish
pole and it went bobbing down the river.
“Carl!” he said, in a low whisper.
The boy shouted back from lower down the stream.
“Got a fish?”
“Come up and see!” cried Jimmie.
Carl came panting through the undergrowth, and Jimmie pointed with a
hand which was not quite steady at the two figures in the underbrush
just back of him.
“Look what I’ve found!” he whispered.
“Did you call me up to give me my share?” asked Carl. “If you did, I
don’t want it! You’re welcome to everything you find in that line!”
“Gee!” Jimmie exclaimed. “I wish we were back by the machines!”
“I wish so, too!” Carl put in. “I wonder why they stand there looking at
us in that way.”
“Maybe they’re out after supper, too!” remarked Jimmie.
“Do they eat folks?” asked Carl.
“The savages who come over from the Amazon valley eat folks,” Jimmie
answered, “and those fellows look as if they came from that
neighborhood.”
“Let’s start on up toward camp and see if they will interfere!”
suggested Carl.
“Have you got a gun with you?” asked Jimmie.
“Of course not!” was the reply. “I didn’t come out to shoot fish!”
“And I left mine at the camp, too!” Jimmie complained. “I’ll never do it
again!”
“Well, let’s make a start and see what comes of it!” suggested Carl.
As the boys moved away the savages, men of medium height but apparently
very strong and supple, lifted naked arms in gestures which commanded
them to remain where they were.
“I wonder if they’ve got guns?” questioned Jimmie.
“They’ve got little short spears!” answered Carl. “I saw one in that
fellow’s hand.”
“And I suppose they’re poisoned, too!” Jimmie asserted.
The two savages now advanced from the thicket and stood threateningly
before the two boys. Except for breech-clouts, which seemed to be woven
of some sort of fiber, the men were naked. In color they were almost as
dark as the negro of Africa. Their features seemed to be a cross between
the tribes of Asia and Africa. They were armed with short spears which
they flourished with many hostile gestures.
“Good-evening!” Jimmie said.
The savages conversed together in a dialect which seemed to the boys to
resemble a confidential conversation between two hogs, and then pointed
down the river.
“Here’s where we get abducted!” Carl exclaimed.
“You needn’t get funny about it!” Jimmie expostulated. “This is no
joke!”
“Anyhow,” Carl went on, “the ginks don’t know anything about good
manners. They never answered your salutation!”
The savages were still uttering what appeared to be wordless commands,
and, as they continued to point down the river, very reluctantly the
boys started in that direction.
“I wonder if the brutes have captured the camp, too?” queried Jimmie.
“Oh, I suppose so!” Carl answered. “These fellows travel in droves, like
wild hogs, and I guess we lit right in the middle of a large tribe.”
In spite of the impatience expressed by the gestures of their captors,
the boys proceeded very slowly. As they walked they listened for some
indication of trouble at the camp. They knew that Glenn and Ben were
well armed, and that they would not submit to capture without first
putting up a spirited defence.
“We haven’t heard any shooting yet,” Jimmie said in a moment.
“I don’t believe there’s any use of our being lugged off in this style!”
Carl advised. “We ought to be able to break away from these brutes and
get back to camp. The boys there are all right up to this time, for we
haven’t heard any fighting, and the four of us ought to be able to
induce these two savages to beat it!”
“If we can only get back to the flying machines,” Jimmie suggested, “we
can get away, all right. I believe these fellows would drop dead if they
saw the _Louise_ or the _Bertha_ slanting up into the air!”
“Well, then, let’s make a break!” Carl advised.
“All right!” Jimmie replied. “When we get to the next jungle where the
bushes are so thick they can’t throw a spear very far, you duck one way
and I’ll duck the other, and we’ll both make for the camp.”
The boys knew very well that they were in a perilous situation. The
savages were more familiar with travel through underbrush than
themselves. Besides, they would undoubtedly be able to make better time
than boys reared on city streets. In addition to all this, the spears
they carried might carry death on every tip.
However, to remain seemed fully as dangerous as to attempt to escape. So
when they came to a particularly dense bit of jungle the boys darted
away. As they did so Jimmie felt a spear whiz within an inch of his
head, and Carl felt the push of one as it entered his sleeve. Dodging
swiftly this way and that, uttering cries designed to bring their chums
to their assistance, the boys forced their way through the undergrowth
some distance in advance of their pursuers.
Every moment they expected to feel the sting of a spear, or to be seized
from behind by a brown, muscular hand. After all it was their voices and
not their ability as runners which brought about their rescue.
Hearing the cries of their chums, Ben and Glenn sprang for their guns
and, walking swiftly toward the river, began firing, both for the
purpose of directing the boys toward the camp and with the added purpose
of frightening away any hostile element, either human or animal, walking
on four legs or on two. Panting, and scarcely believing in their own
good fortune, Jimmie and Carl presently came to where their chums stood
not far from the machines. Both boys dropped down in the long grass the
instant they felt themselves under the protection of the automatics in
the hands of their friends.
To say that Glenn and Ben were surprised at the sudden appearance of
their chums only feebly expresses the situation. The savages had not
followed the boys into the open plaza where the grass grew, and so there
was no physical explanation of the incident.
“What’s doing?” demanded Glenn.
“You must be running for exercise!” Ben put in.
“For the love of Mike!” exclaimed Jimmie, panting and holding his hands
to his sides. “Get back to the machines and throw the truck on board!
These woods are full of head-hunters!”
“What did you see?” asked Ben.
“Savages!” answered Jimmie.
“They got us, too!” Carl put in.
“They did?” demanded Glenn. “Then how did you get away?”
“Ran away!” answered Jimmie scornfully. “You don’t suppose we flew, do
you? I guess we’ve been going some!”
“Where are the savages now?” demanded Glenn.
“I don’t know!” Jimmie answered. “I don’t want to know where they are. I
want to know where they ain’t!”
“Come on!” Carl urged. “Let’s get back to the machines!”
Glenn and Ben did not seem to take the incident as seriously as did
their chums. In fact, they were rather inclined to make facetious
remarks about little boys being frightened at black men in the woods.
Ben was even in favor of advancing into the thicket on a tour of
investigation, but Jimmie argued him out of the idea.
“They’re savages, all right!” the latter insisted. “They’re naked, and
they’re armed with spears. Look to me like head-hunters from the Amazon
valley! If you go into the thicket you’re likely to get a couple of
spears into your frame!”
“Then I won’t go!” Ben grinned.
“Come on,” urged Carl, “it’s getting dark, so we’d better be getting
back to camp! Perhaps the niggers have beaten us to it already!”
“I guess the two you saw are about the only ones in the vicinity,”
answered Glenn.
“You’d feel pretty cheap, wouldn’t you, if you’d get back to camp and
find that the savages had taken possession?” demanded Jimmie.
Thus urged, Glenn and Ben finally abandoned the idea of advancing into
the forest. Instead, they turned their faces toward the camp, and all
four boys advanced with ever-increasing speed as they neared the spot
where the aeroplanes and the tents had been left.
About the first thing they saw as they came within sight of the broad
planes of the flying machines was a naked savage inspecting the motors.
He stood like a statue before the machine for an instant and then glided
away. They saw him turn about as he came to a cluster of underbrush,
beckon silently to some one, apparently on the other side of the camp,
and then disappear.
“And that means,” Glenn whispered, “that the woods are full of ’em!”
“Oh, no,” jeered Jimmie, “the two we saw are the only ones there are in
the woods! I guess you’ll think there is something in the story we told
about being captured and abducted!”
The short tropical twilight had now entirely passed away. It seemed to
the boys as if a curtain had been drawn between themselves and the tents
and flying machines which had been so plainly in view a moment before.
There was only the glimmer of the small camp-fire to direct them to
their camp.
“Who’s got a searchlight?” asked Glenn.
“I have!” replied Ben. “I never leave the camp without one!”
“Then use it!” advised Glenn, “and we will make for the machines.”
“Don’t you do it!” advised Jimmie. “They’ll throw spears at us!”
“Well, we’ve got to have a light in order to get the machines away!”
declared Carl. “Perhaps the niggers will run when they see the
illumination. The light of a searchlight at a distance, you know,
doesn’t look like anything human or divine!”
It was finally decided to advance as cautiously and silently as possible
to the camp and spring at once to the machines.
“We’ll never be clear of these savages until we get up in the air!”
declared Ben.
“But that will leave our tents and our provisions, and about everything
we have except the machines, behind!” wailed Carl.
“It won’t leave all the provisions behind!” declared Jimmie. “I’ll
snatch beans and bread if I get killed doing it!”
During their progress to the camp the boys neither saw nor heard
anything whatever of the savages. They found the fire burning brightly
and the provisions which had been set out for supper just as they had
been left. The machines had not been molested. In fact, the statue-like
savage they had observed examining the flying machine now seemed to have
come out of a dream and retreated to his world of shadows again.
“Perhaps it won’t be necessary to leave here to-night,” Glenn suggested.
“I don’t think it’s safe to remain,” Ben contended.
“You boys may stay if you want to!” Jimmie exclaimed. “But Carl and I
have had enough of this neck of the woods. We’ll take the _Louise_ and
fly over to Quito, and you can find us there when you get ready to move
on. You boys certainly take the cake for not knowing what’s good for
you!” he added with a grin.
“Oh, well, perhaps we’d all better go!” Glenn advised. “I don’t see
anything nourishing in this part of the country, anyway. If you boys had
only brought home a couple of fish it might have been different. I’m of
the opinion that a square meal at Quito wouldn’t come amiss just now.”
“It’s so blooming dark I don’t know whether we can find the town or
not,” suggested Carl.
“Oh, we can find it all right!” insisted Ben.
“If the savages let us!” exclaimed Jimmie excitedly.