“LONG ARROW!” cried the Doctor. “How splendid! Show him in—show him in
at once.”
“I’m so glad,” he continued, turning to us as soon as the footman had
gone. “I’ve missed Long Arrow terribly. He’s an awfully good man to
have around—even if he doesn’t talk much. Let me see: it’s five months
now since he went off to Brazil. I’m so glad he’s back safe. He does
take such tremendous chances with that canoe of his—clever as he is.
It’s no joke, crossing a hundred miles of open sea in a twelve-foot
canoe. I wouldn’t care to try it.”
Another knock; and when the door swung open in answer to the Doctor’s
call, there stood our big friend on the threshold, a smile upon his
strong, bronzed face. Behind him appeared two porters carrying loads
done up in Indian palm-matting. These, when the first salutations were
over, Long Arrow ordered to lay their burdens down.
“Behold, oh Kindly One,” said he, “I bring you, as I promised, my
collection of plants which I had hidden in a cave in the Andes. These
treasures represent the labors of my life.”
The packages were opened; and inside were many smaller packages and
bundles. Carefully they were laid out in rows upon the table.
It appeared at first a large but disappointing display. There were
plants, flowers, fruits, leaves, roots, nuts, beans, honeys, gums,
bark, seeds, bees and a few kinds of insects.
The study of plants—or botany, as it is called—was a kind of natural
history which had never interested me very much. I had considered it,
compared with the study of animals, a dull science. But as Long Arrow
began taking up the various things in his collection and explaining
their qualities to us, I became more and more fascinated. And before
he had done I was completely absorbed by the wonders of the Vegetable
Kingdom which he had brought so far.
“These,” said he, taking up a little packet of big seeds, “are what I
have called laughing-beans.’”
“What are they for?” asked Bumpo.
“To cause mirth,” said the Indian.
Bumpo, while Long Arrow’s back was turned, took three of the beans and
swallowed them.
“Alas!” said the Indian when he discovered what Bumpo had done. “If he
wished to try the powers of these seeds he should have eaten no more
than a quarter of a one. Let us hope that he does not die of laughter.”
The beans’ effect upon Bumpo was most extraordinary. First he broke
into a broad smile; then he began to giggle; finally he burst into
such prolonged roars of hearty laughter that we had to carry him into
the next room and put him to bed. The Doctor said afterwards that he
probably would have died laughing if he had not had such a strong
constitution. All through the night he gurgled happily in his sleep.
And even when we woke him up the next morning he rolled out of bed
still chuckling.
Returning to the Reception Room, we were shown some red roots which
Long Arrow told us had the property, when made into a soup with sugar
and salt, of causing people to dance with extraordinary speed and
endurance. He asked us to try them; but we refused, thanking him. After
Bumpo’s exhibition we were a little afraid of any more experiments for
the present.
There was no end to the curious and useful things that Long Arrow
had collected: an oil from a vine which would make hair grow in one
night; an orange as big as a pumpkin which he had raised in his own
mountain-garden in Peru; a black honey (he had brought the bees that
made it too and the seeds of the flowers they fed on) which would put
you to sleep, just with a teaspoonful, and make you wake up fresh
in the morning; a nut that made the voice beautiful for singing;
a water-weed that stopped cuts from bleeding; a moss that cured
snake-bite; a lichen that prevented sea-sickness.
The Doctor of course was tremendously interested. Well into the early
hours of the morning he was busy going over the articles on the table
one by one, listing their names and writing their properties and
descriptions into a note-book as Long Arrow dictated.
“There are things here, Stubbins,” he said as he ended, “which in the
hands of skilled druggists will make a vast difference to the medicine
and chemistry of the world. I suspect that this sleeping-honey by
itself will take the place of half the bad drugs we have had to use so
far. Long Arrow has discovered a pharmacopæia of his own. Miranda was
right: he is a great naturalist. His name deserves to be placed beside
Linnæus. Some day I must get all these things to England—But when,” he
added sadly—“Yes, that’s the problem: when?”
_THE FOURTH CHAPTER_