POISONED ARROWS
"Did you hear that, Tom?" asked Ned, in a hoarse whisper.
"Surely," was the cautious answer. "Keep still, and I'll try for a
shot."
"Better be quick," advised Ned in a tense voice. "The chap who did
that yelling seems to be in trouble!"
And as Ned's voice trailed off into a whisper, again came the cry, this
time in frenzied pain.
"El tigre! El tigre!" Then there was a jumble of words.
"It's over this way!" and this time Ned shouted, seeing no need for low
voices since the other was so loud.
Tom looked to where Ned had parted the bushes alongside a jungle path.
Through the opening the young inventor saw, in a little glade, that
which caused him to take a firmer grip on his electric rifle, and also
a firmer grip on his nerves.
Directly in front of him and Ned, and not more than a hundred yards
away, was a great tawny and spotted jaguar--the "tigre" or tiger of
Central America. The beast, with lashing tail, stood over an Indian
upon whom it seemed to have sprung from some lair, beating the
unfortunate man to the ground. Nor had he fallen scatheless, for there
was blood on the green leaves about him, and it was not the blood of
the spotted beast.
"Oh, Tom, can you--can you----" and Ned faltered.
The young inventor understood the unspoken question.
"I think I can make a shot of it without hitting the man," he answered,
never turning his head. "It's a question, though, if the beast won't
claw him in the death struggle. It won't last long, however, if the
electric bullet goes to the right place, and I've got to take the
chance."
Cautiously Tom brought his weapon to bear. Quiet as Ned and he had
been after the discovery, the jaguar seemed to feel that something was
wrong. Intent on his prey, for a time he had stood over it, gloating.
Now the brute glanced uneasily from side to side, its tail nervously
twitching, and it seemed trying to gain, by a sniffing of the air, some
information as to the direction in which danger lay, for Tom and Ned
had stooped low, concealing themselves by a screen of leaves.
The Indian, after his first frenzied outburst of fear, now lay quiet,
as though fearing to move, moaning in pain.
Suddenly the jaguar, attracted either by some slight movement on the
part of Ned or Tom, or perhaps by having winded them, turned his head
quickly and gazed with cruel eyes straight at the spot where the two
young men stood behind the bushes.
"He's seen us," whispered Ned.
"Yes," assented Tom. "And it's a perfect shot. Hope I don't miss!"
It was not like Tom Swift to miss, nor did he on this occasion. There
was a slight report from the electric rifle--a report not unlike the
crackle of the wireless--and the powerful projectile sped true to its
mark.
Straight through the throat and chest under the uplifted jaw of the
jaguar it went--through heart and lungs. Then with a great coughing,
sighing snarl the beast reared up, gave a convulsive leap forward
toward its newly discovered enemies, and fell dead in a limp heap, just
beyond the native over which it had been crouching before it delivered
the death stroke, now never to fall.
"You did it, Tom! You did it!" cried Ned, springing up from where he
had been kneeling to give his chum a better chance to shoot. "You did
it, and saved the man's life!" And Ned would have rushed out toward the
still twitching body.
"Just a minute!" interposed Tom. "Those beasts sometimes have as many
lives as a cat. I'll give it one more for luck." Another electric
projectile through the head of the jaguar produced no further effect
than to move the body slightly, and this proved conclusively that there
was no life left. It was safe to approach, which Tom and Ned did.
Their first thought, after a glance at the jaguar, was for the Indian.
It needed but a brief examination to show that he was not badly hurt.
The jaguar had leaped on him from a low tree as he passed under it, as
the boys learned afterward, and had crushed the man to earth by the
weight of the spotted body more than by a stroke of the paw.
The American jaguar is not so formidable a beast as the native name of
tiger would cause one to suppose, though they are sufficiently
dangerous, and this one had rather badly clawed the Indian.
Fortunately the scratches were on the fleshy parts of the arms and
shoulders, where, though painful, they were not necessarily serious.
"But if you hadn't shot just when you did, Tom, it would have been all
up with him," commented Ned.
"Oh, well, I guess you'd have hit him if I hadn't," returned the young
inventor. "But let's see what we can do for this chap."
The man sat up wonderingly--hardly able to believe that he had been
saved from the dreaded "tigre." His wounds were bleeding rather
freely, and as Tom and Ned carried with them a first-aid kit they now
brought it into use. The wounds were bound up, the man was given water
to drink and then, as he was able to walk, Tom and Ned offered to help
him wherever he wanted to go.
"Blessed if I can tell whether he's one of our Indians or whether he
belongs to the Beecher crowd," remarked Tom.
"Senor Beecher," said the Indian, adding, in Spanish, that he lived in
the vicinity and had only lately been engaged by the young professor
who hoped to discover the idol of gold before Tom's scientific friend
could do so.
Tom and Ned knew a little Spanish, and with that, and simple but
expressive signs on the part of the Indian, they learned his story. He
had his palm-thatched hut not far from the Beecher camp, in a small
Indian village, and he, with others, had been hired on the arrival of
the Beecher party to help with the excavations. These, for some
reason, were delayed.
"Delayed because they daren't use the map they stole from us,"
commented Ned.
"Maybe," agreed Tom.
The Indian, whose name, it developed, was Tal, as nearly as Tom and Ned
could master it, had left camp to go to visit his wife and child in the
jungle hut, intending to return to the Beecher camp at night. But as
he passed through the forest the jaguar had dropped on him, bearing him
to earth.
"But you saved my life, Senor," he said to Tom, dropping on one knee
and trying to kiss Tom's hand, which our hero avoided. "And now my
life is yours," added the Indian.
"Well, you'd better get home with it and take care of it," said Tom.
"I'll have Professor Bumper come over and dress your scratches in a
better and more careful way. The bandages we put on are only
temporary."
"My wife she make a poultice of leaves--they cure me," said the Indian.
"I guess that will be the best way," observed Ned. "These natives can
doctor themselves for some things, better than we can."
"Well, we'll take him home," suggested Tom. "He might keel over from
loss of blood. Come on," he added to Tal, indicating his object.
It was not far to the native's hut from the place where the jaguar had
been killed, and there Tom and Ned underwent another demonstration of
affection as soon as those of Tal's immediate family and the other
natives understood what had happened.
"I hate this business!" complained Tom, after having been knelt to by
the Indian's wife and child, who called him the "preserver" and other
endearing titles of the same kind. "Come on, let's hike back."
But Indian hospitality, especially after a life has been saved, is not
so simple as all that.
"My life--my house--all that I own is yours," said Tal in deep
gratitude. "Take everything," and he waved his hand to indicate all
the possessions in his humble hut.
"Thanks," answered Tom, "but I guess you need all you have. That's a
fine specimen of blow gun though," he added, seeing one hanging on the
wall. "I wouldn't mind having one like that. If you get well enough
to make me one, Tal, and some arrows to go with it, I'd like it for a
curiosity to hang in my room at home."
"The Senor shall have a dozen," promised the Indian.
"Look, Ned," went on Tom, pointing to the native weapon. "I never saw
one just like this. They use small arrows or darts, tipped with wild
cotton, instead of feathers."
"These the arrows," explained Tal's wife, bringing a bundle from a
corner of the one-room hut. As she held them out her husband gave a
cry of fear.
"Poisoned arrows! Poisoned arrows!" he exclaimed. "One scratch and the
senors are dead men. Put them away!"
In fear the Indian wife prepared to obey, but as she did so Tom Swift
caught sight of the package and uttered a strange cry.
"Thundering hoptoads, Ned!" he exclaimed. "The poisoned arrows are
wrapped in the piece of oiled silk that was around the professor's
missing map!"