THE FACTS
Those Indians picked by the white trader, Mr. Buckley, to take Tom and
Cliff across the mountain ways toward the capital, were by no means
pleasant companions. Even in looks they were disconcerting.
Their faces were cruel and hard; their bodies were stalwart and
powerful; they spoke very little, and then in their own peculiar
up-river and mountain dialects. Toosa warned Bill quietly that they were
noted for their avarice.
“Give no money,” Toosa warned. “Hide. Not show. They—” He made a meaning
gesture, drawing his hand across his throat.
“Not very pleasant companions, buddy,” Bill told Tom, as they got into
the canoe which would take them further up the river. “But Toosa says if
we don’t show fear or weakness we will be all right—only, keep what
money you have in your belt close to your skin and never let on that you
have any!”
Tom’s last act before leaving Toosa, completely won the old man’s heart.
He called the great-grandson, Porfirio, to his forward seat in the
canoe, and gave him, for his very own, the magnet with which the boy so
often played. Toosa’s eyes lighted up when he saw the boy’s dazed,
almost awed look; Toosa smiled—a real smile.
Suddenly coming close to the leader of the mountain Indians, three in
number, he made some very firm declarations—to the effect that the white
men were in his keeping and that he would watch over them and know if
anything happened to them—and on the least sign of such danger he would
release all the spirits of the mountain—evil ones!—to punish the
offending Indians. They seemed to be strongly impressed.
“I guess we’ll be safe enough now,” Bill said. “That magnet is going to
be a life-saver, Tom.”
“It’s a cheap price to pay for insurance,” Tom grinned, and they were
sent out into the current by the lusty paddles of the four river natives
who owned the canoe and who would take them on the first lap of their
roundabout trip to the coast.
Their last sight of Toosa was one Tom would never forget; he had an arm
around the shoulders of the child; behind his dwarfed figure clustered
the Indian men, women and children. He lifted his long arm high in air,
and made a sort of sign with his fingers.
“Great Gravy!” whispered Tom, to Bill. “Did you see that? How in the
world did he come to make that sign?”
“What sign? With his fingers? Why, I suppose it’s a benediction or
something.”
“He spread all his fingers wide; then he closed them tight, then spread
them wide again,” gasped Tom.
“Well, what of it?” demanded Bill.
“That,” said Tom, in some awe, “that is the sign of our Mystery Boys’
order, as you very well know—the sign of ‘Goodbye, good luck and God be
with you,’ that we use at parting!”
“By golly!” said Bill, and stayed silent a long time. What a coincidence
that the almost savage man who lived in the woods had made such a final
message without knowing, perhaps, that he did so—unless the boys had
stumbled upon some ancient sign of some old cult.
After several days on the river the canoe was beached and the trio of
mountaineers bade a gruff farewell to their river brethren, and, with
heavy packs, of which Tom and Bill had their full share, the five
started on foot for one of the most difficult and trying tramps Tom had
ever experienced.
Before nightfall a small village was reached, and there the party was to
stay over night.
“From what I understand, it’s proper in these parts to give our firearms
to our host as a mark of good faith, for over night,” Bill told Tom.
“It must be safe enough, if it’s a custom,” Tom said, glancing at the
ring of rough, coarse, dark faces studying them curiously.
“He’s supposed to hand them right back, Toosa said,” Bill answered, and
accordingly he gave his rifle and one pistol to the Indian in whose hut
they were quartered, while Tom handed over the other, given him by Bill.
But the host did not hand them back.
No harm came to them during the night, however, although Bill was uneasy
without his weapons.
Day after day, from then on, they went forward by increasingly difficult
stages, first following the river, winding upward among the lower
mountains, past dangerous rapids, over steep knolls, through rough
canyons and up almost precipitous inclines, where ropes had to be used
to hold any one who slipped from plunging to destruction.
Hard as was the way, and tiresome as was the furious pace set by the
hardened mountain Indians, Bill and Tom kept up well, for Tom was of an
athletic frame and always kept his body in perfect trim by lots of
exercise, sports and fresh air, while Bill was of the lean, rangy type
and never seemed to tire.
The attitude of their companions was a continual worry to Bill, however.
Tom felt it also. Often he caught one or another of the three
fierce-looking men watching him covertly in the camps, with speculative
eyes roaming over his weapon, his clothing, his pack.
The Indians said little, but in their manner there seemed to be some
expectancy, as if they either felt or knew that something was going to
happen.
As the way grew more steep and difficult, the men seemed to be watching
even more carefully, and Tom asked Bill what it meant. Bill, who
understood their degraded Spanish words, used occasionally, but who
pretended not to, replied that they were making some plan but he could
not guess what it was.
They had reached a deep ravine, away high among the crags, and could
look from it across a wide chasm, when a sudden storm caused them to
make a hasty camp under a sheltering overhang of rock.
The men drew off and huddled together while Tom and Bill stuck close
together under the rubber poncho which Bill carried. Presently one of
the men approached.
“We wet,” he said. “You give coat, eh?”
Bill hesitated, but Tom, with a sudden inspiration, threw aside the
covering with a generous wave of his hand. The man seemed surprised but
took the garment away and the trio of Indians used it.
“Now,” said Bill, “they’ll demand everything we’ve got.”
“Maybe,” said Tom, “but we can stave them off at least until we get out
of this ticklish place. If we get them mad, away up here, they could
push us off the side, before we could wake up from sleep. We ought to
keep them quiet till we get to a better place.”
“I think they want to rob us and desert us?” Bill hazarded.
“So do I,” Tom agreed. “But as long as we keep our pistols and your
rifle, it will be all safe; we can take turns watching at night.”
They did, and Tom, on watch that night, noticed a creeping figure,
coming close to their soggy mosquito protection, but made no sign. He
told Bill, when the later awoke, and they redoubled their watchfulness.
The next day they went on and came into a high, and rough, but fairly
level plateau where they camped. Bill managed to shoot a wild pig and it
was roasted for dinner. With some biscuit made of flour, salt and water,
and with cocoa, they made a regular feast.
“The men are planning something,” Tom whispered, after the meal. “See
how they look at one another!”
“Well, let’s just be ready!”
Soon enough they had to be. The leader came over to them and in a very
polite way, for him, made a suggestion.
“We afraid,” he said. “Bad mountain cat close by.” They had heard the
cry of a jaguar or panther, or some other huge cat. “You have guns, you
save. We not got. We be died!”
“One of us sits up and watches all night,” declared Bill, meaningly.
“Don’t be afraid. We not let you be hurt!”
The man walked away doubtfully, and that night neither Tom nor Bill took
much rest; however, nothing more happened.
The next morning they were surprised to discover that the Indians seemed
very much more pleasant, and the leader brought the whites a special and
tasteful piece of the roast pig which he had saved for them. “That’s the
way to treat them,” Bill said. “Let them know we are on guard!”
They went on, and were wading along in a small torrent of water, the
only way through a deep abyss, when suddenly Tom clutched Bill’s arm.
“Bill,” he gasped, “I feel queer and sick!”
“So do I?” replied Bill. “But I tried not to let you know.”
“Do you know what?” gasped Tom, as a great, sweeping spasm of pain
flooded over him and he saw, as through a haze, Bill’s face whitening,
even as Bill staggered.
“Yes,” gulped Bill, “we’ve been——”
Indian poisons are subtle, but they work swiftly.
“Especially a toadstool called ‘Fruit of the earth’!”