WASTED EFFORT
When all attempts to persuade the chief to listen had resulted in a
final, and rather angry order for them to go, Bill and Jack gave up.
“It’s no use,” Bill said. “We are stumped. Let’s go to the dock and meet
Bob—he ought to be back with the boat pretty soon.”
They went to the ramshackle wharf made of old, rotting poles stuck into
the water, with old boards, from some wreckage, loosely laid on them for
a footpath. The dock was seldom used—only for the few occasions when
government launches came to the island to transact business with the
chief.
But after a long wait, when Bob failed to show up, Bill became uneasy
and finally hailed the cruiser by firing his pistol three times.
The boat was too far away for voices to carry, and also signs could not
be distinguished.
Bill and Jack impatient and worried, for they could not see the small
boat anywhere about, commandeered a canoe and paddled to the anchored
cruiser.
“The boys have not come back,” said Mr. Gray uneasily when they came
alongside. He told how he had given them permission to go to the river.
Andy, summoned, was crestfallen and alarmed. He related his suggestion
to the youths and Bob said that he had not been asked to be one of the
party.
“We will take the canoe and paddle over,” said Bill. “No time to waste.
It won’t be over-long till dark.” Without further word he and Jack
paddled toward the mainland. They worked swiftly, for both knew that
time was of supreme importance if any harm had come to their younger
comrades.
“You don’t think the Indians?—” began Jack.
Bill shook his head.
“Here they come, anyhow,” he stated, pointing with his paddle to the
fleet appearing at the river mouth. “We’ll ask.”
The canoes seemed to be bent on avoiding them, but Bill drew out a
soiled but fairly white handkerchief and waved it, then beckoned. A
canoe containing several younger women veered closer and the paddles
ceased to sweep the glassy water.
“You see boat—boys?” hailed Bill.
One of the women nodded and pointed back the way they had come from the
river.
“They’re back there,” Bill told Jack. “They must be all right. But we’d
better go on and make sure.”
They passed through the squadron of canoes and up the river. Long before
they reached the small, sandy beach, they discerned the rowboat, drawn
up on shore. The Indian women had left it untouched, after a curious
examination of its scanty contents.
“They’re nowhere around,” Bill exclaimed when they came closer: with
tight lips he ran the canoe into shallow water and vaulted into the
shallows.
“Tom—Nicky—Cliff!” he shouted, and waited.
The echoes were silent. Jack added his high pitched call, and they
shouted together; but the jungle held its secret. The boys, at that
time, were two miles beyond hearing, on a trail that ran almost parallel
to the course of the river.
“If they’re in the jungle, how will we locate them?” asked Jack. “I know
something about these places—once you get in, you wander and get further
away all the time.”
“We’ll fire our pistols,” cried Bill. “Push in, here, as far as we dare
go without getting lost ourselves!”
There they shouted and, at intervals, fired their pistols. But only the
silent glades and the sentinels towering high above heard the hails and
quivered a little to the strange sound of exploding powder.
“There’s nothing we can do by waiting here,” Bill said, finally. “My
idea is to go to the chief and offer him all we’ve got to put out
parties who know the trails, give them torches, and try to get some
trace of what has happened. The boys are lost. We would be lost in no
time, looking; but the Indians might not. We’ll try it. It’s the only
thing to do.”
Tired as they were, their paddles fairly flew as they made their way
back toward the cruiser.
“If the sun is setting in the open, it must be night back in the
jungle,” began Jack.
“Be still!” snapped Bill, refusing to think of harm and thus lose his
hold on his plans. They delayed at the boat only long enough to give the
details of their discovery to a perturbed Mr. Gray, a penitent engineer
and an excited colored pilot. Then they paddled for the shore.
Without ceremony they burst in at the chief’s big hut, where he was
partaking of his evening meal.
He listened to Bill’s excited story, related in Spanish.
Then he sat in his hammock, munching on a yam, without retort.
“Well,” said Bill finally, exasperated out of all patience, “we will pay
well to have men and boys take torches and scour the jungle.”
“What do you say?” demanded Jack, also in Spanish and dialect.
The chief put down his yam and stared without expression.
Finally he spoke, coldly.
“You say you much doctor-magic man!” he declared. “All right. You make
magic. You find!”