WAR CANOES
Ray Carter a captive!
This terrible news stunned the two boys for an instant, then spurred
them to furious action. Their canoe drove forward. Soon the Mahatma's
boat was left far behind.
Now they felt that not a moment must be lost. To think of Dan's lovely
sister in the grip of those savage and brutal men, made them wild with
the resolve to fight for her freedom.
It was bad enough to know that Dick's father was held for ransom, but
Ray was in ten times as much danger. She was so sweet and pretty in
her gay, jaunty way, that the mere thought of her coming to harm
aroused them to madness.
They urged the boatmen to greater speed.
"Faster! Faster!" shouted Dan. "I've got to get my sister out of
there!"
Gone was all his jolly manner. His round face was no longer ruddy but
looked pale and strained, and his eyes showed the light of desperate
resolve.
"Faster! Faster!" commanded Dick Oakwood, and his jaw set in a hard,
fighting line as he stared straight ahead down the tropical river.
Raal echoed the cry for speed and more speed and the paddlers drove
deeper into the sluggish water, while foam curled before the canoes.
Mutaba caught the excitement and his men were stirred to fighting rage.
Their war chant rang out as they bent to the paddles and the alarming
sounds startled the parrots and monkeys in the overhanging trees.
"This will never do," said Dick. "We don't know how far the sounds may
carry."
"That's right. We don't want to warn those cut-throats that we are on
our way," Dan urged.
As if his thoughts had been read, a voice of command travelled over the
surface of the water and penetrated the uproar with its calm accent.
"Quiet, my children! Make speed, but no more noise."
"The Mahatma," gasped Dan.
"Did you hear him?" Dick questioned. "Did you hear English words?"
"Of course. At least I seemed to hear them."
"But the black Kungoras obeyed. And so did the Taharans. And the
Gorols, too! Yet none of those people understood English."
"That's a fact. How do you account for that?"
"The Mahatma sent an order that each man understood in his own
language. It was not in words, however. He just sent his thoughts to
us all. We _imagined_ we heard the words, but what happened was that
we got the idea by some sixth sense."
"That's magic! The real thing!" Dan exclaimed.
"Not magic. It's what I told you about; a kind of mental radio."
"Well, if the Mahatma can send his thoughts like that, he must be a
wise old bird, after all!" Dan exclaimed. "Say, I was wrong to kid him
so much and call him Old Whiskers."
"That's what I think."
"I hope he isn't sore at me."
"Not likely. He probably does not consider it worth while to be
insulted by a fresh youngster like you."
"Jiminy, I hope you're right, Dick. We certainly need the Mahatma's
help if we are going to get Ray out of there."
"We do that. It will take all his scheming and all our fighting speed
to set her free."
Dan's face was very grave. He was so excited and nervous about his
sister that he almost broke down.
"Do you think I'd better go back to his boat and apologize?" he asked
humbly. "Say, I'd feel like a dog if anything happened to Ray."
"You can apologize later," counselled Dick. "What we have to do now is
paddle for dear life and as soon as we reach the camp to put up the
best fight there is in us."
Both Dick and Dan seized a paddle and added their efforts to those of
the boatmen.
It was hot work.
The humid air of the jungle weighed upon them like a blanket of steam.
Their bodies were dripping and it was hard to breathe.
Most of the time they were in the shade of the huge trees, but once in
a while the canoe darted into a patch of sunshine and then the rays of
the afternoon sun beat down upon them fiercely.
The Taharans minded the humidity and so did the Gorols, while Dick and
Dan were terribly fagged, but the black men did not seem to notice it.
Their ebony-like bodies were wet with perspiration, but they seemed
cheerful and eager. Only the command of the Mahatma kept them from
breaking into song.
The boys looked into the jungle on both sides and saw that it was
densely tangled with hanging vines. Here and there a clump of bamboo
made a barrier that only a hatchet could cut through; elsewhere the
forest was overgrown with small trees forcing their way to the
sunlight, and among them could be seen the stealthy shapes of wild
beasts.
"Hope we don't run into leopards or lions," said Dan. "It's going to
be tough to fight the tribesmen, and we don't want to be clawed by wild
animals before the scrap begins."
"That's a chance we have to take."
"You said it! Hey!----Look at that! Duck for your life!"
From a near-by branch, a long sinuous object like a giant creeper,
suddenly swung toward them. It showed a murderous head, with wide open
jaws and a tongue that darted angrily.
"Great snakes!" shouted Dan, striking at it with his paddle.
But the canoe had darted past the danger before the scaly monster could
attack and Dan breathed more easily.
"Look there in the shadows," said Dick. "Elephants, as I'm alive!"
"And whoppers!" cried Dan. "Say, I never saw them that big before.
Not even in a circus!"
"They are dangerous to fool with," Dick remarked. "I would hate to be
in front of that old bull if he started to charge."
The biggest elephant in the herd seemed the size of a freight car as he
calmly reached into the tree tops and pulled down the tender foliage.
His trunk stretched high above his head as he felt for the tender
shoots.
"A regular boarding house reach!" laughed Dan, forgetting his suspense
for a moment. "Say that bozo would never have to say, 'Please pass the
butter.' He could grab it from the other end of the table."
One of the Taharans gave a cry of astonishment at seeing the huge
creature so near by, and at the noise the elephant faced about, waving
his enormous ears and looking at the intruders with an expression of
anger in his little, intelligent eyes.
"I feel safer out here!" Dan observed. "What use would a bow and arrow
be against that tough hide?"
"You're right. Even my old fashioned Arab gun would hardly send a
bullet through it."
"How do you suppose the Stone-Age men ever hunted mastodons?" asked
Dan. "Those woolly mastodons with long curving tusks were lots bigger
than the elephant."
"I guess it was the mastodon that did the hunting in those days," Dick
answered. "The cave-men were not the hunters but the hunted, if you
ask me."
"And that goes for the sabre-toothed tiger, too."
"I bet it was a toss-up whether the human race would conquer the
animals or be eaten by them in the Stone-Age," said Dick. "Maybe
that's why the people of today get scared and have panics so easily.
It may be a hang-over from the fear that haunted our ancestors."
"I can't say I'm exactly scared----" Dan Carter began, but before he
could finish his sentence a shout from a boatman startled him and he
answered with a yell of terror.
The canoe was passing close to a shallow spot and suddenly a pair of
jaws snapped open right alongside. They were so wide that it looked as
though they could crash through the canoe with one bite, and the
vicious rows of teeth could easily slice through a man's body.
Dan thought he was facing a horrible death in that instant and in fact
he had never had a narrower escape. As he yelled, he threw himself
flat, but the black guide, Mutaba showed no sign of fear.
Mutaba had hunted crocodiles before and knew what to do. His black arm
shot out like lightning with a heavy stick in his fist. It was
sharpened at both ends and as Mutaba thrust it upright between the
monster's rows of teeth and the jaws snapped to close, the upper and
lower jaw were stuck on the points of the stake.
Mutaba grinned as he jerked away his hand and the canoe darted past,
just in the nick of time, for the enraged monster thrashed about with
his tail, churning the muddy water to foam.
The man-eater was trapped.
The harder he struggled, the more firmly he impaled his open jaws upon
the sharp stick, and all his thrashing about was futile, for the
following boats sped by close to the opposite bank.
"Those black fellows are smart!" gasped Dan. "Jehosephat, I thought I
was a goner, sure!"
"The natives are pretty well pleased!" said Dick. "Listen to them
laugh and jeer at the unlucky beast."
"Don't waste any pity on crocodiles! This one was ready to make a
lunch out of me."
"I am not sorry for him. And it's no wonder the natives hate those
man-eaters that lurk in the shallows to snap off an arm."
"I've read that they are particularly fond of black children," said
Dan, "so there's one croc' at least that won't eat any babies."
"Hush! Listen!" said Dick.
Close to his ear came the even voice of the Mahatma as before:
"Quiet, my children. We are near the journey's end."
Dick and Dan stared at each other. It was uncanny. They were sure
this time that they had not actually _heard_ the Mahatma's voice, but
that their minds had received the message in some occult way.
Shadows were slanting from the west. The river was wider now and the
surface was sluggish with hardly a ripple.
From the depths of the forest echoed the weird call of a bird with a
human note that sounded like lunatic laughter. Otherwise all was still
and the shadows of the jungle seemed to grow blacker and more
mysterious at every moment.
"It's spooky," whispered Dan. "Like passing a haunted house at
midnight."
"Cheer up," said Dick. "It's going to be worse when we have to cut a
path through it."
"Just the same, I'd go through worse than this to save your father and
my sister."
"I don't suppose my Dad worries as much as we do. Being a scientist,
he is seeing so many new plants, animals and birds, that he has no time
to get scared. But Ray, poor girl, she must be terrified. If only we
can get to her before it is too late!"
"The Mahatma said we would save her."
"But you didn't believe a word he said. You were always kidding him."
"I believe in him now," said Dan. "Boy, _how_ I believe in him!"
"I would like him better if he would let us have some of his warriors,"
said Dick. "He's doing us a good turn by lending the canoes and
showing us how to reach the Muta-Gunga camp but what worries me is that
the Taharans and Gorols are not used to this country and won't know
much about fighting in the jungle."
"That's so, they will be at a disadvantage in a battle with these
jungle savages who know every inch of the ground," said Dan
thoughtfully. "They're brave enough but it would help if they had a
few of the natives of the section to show them the way around."
"Never mind, we will take a chance," said Dick. "We're going to win
out! And come through with flying colors!"