Transcriber’s Note
Italic text displayed as: _italic_
[Illustration: BOMBA BROUGHT THE PADDLE DOWN WITH ALL HIS FORCE.
“_Bomba the Jungle Boy._” _Page 71_
]
BOMBA
THE JUNGLE BOY
OR
The Old Naturalist’s Secret
BY
ROY ROCKWOOD
AUTHOR OF “BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY AT THE MOVING
MOUNTAIN,” “LOST ON THE MOON,” “THE CITY
BEYOND THE CLOUDS,” ETC.
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
BOOKS FOR BOYS
_By_ ROY ROCKWOOD
THE BOMBA BOOKS
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY
BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY AT THE MOVING MOUNTAIN
BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY AT THE GIANT CATARACT
GREAT MARVEL SERIES
THROUGH THE AIR TO THE NORTH POLE
UNDER THE OCEAN TO THE SOUTH POLE
FIVE THOUSAND MILES UNDERGROUND
THROUGH SPACE TO MARS
LOST ON THE MOON
ON A TORN-AWAY WORLD
THE CITY BEYOND THE CLOUDS
SPEEDWELL BOYS SERIES
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS ON MOTOR CYCLES
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR RACING AUTO
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR POWER LAUNCH
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS IN A SUBMARINE
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR ICE RACER
DAVE DASHAWAY SERIES
DAVE DASHAWAY, THE YOUNG AVIATOR
DAVE DASHAWAY AND HIS HYDROPLANE
DAVE DASHAWAY AND HIS GIANT AIRSHIP
DAVE DASHAWAY AROUND THE WORLD
DAVE DASHAWAY, AIR CHAMPION
CUPPLES & LEON CO., Publishers, New York
Copyright, 1926, by
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I A NARROW ESCAPE 1
II THE MEN WITH THE IRON STICK 9
III A STEALTHY FOE 17
IV HOW BOMBA SAVED THE CAMP 27
V BEATEN OFF 36
VI IN THE PUMA’S DEN 50
VII A SIEGE OF TERROR 59
VIII THE JAWS OF DEATH 68
IX FROM OUT THE FLAMES 77
X THE SHOUT OF WARNING 87
XI THE VAMPIRES ATTACK 97
XII KIKI, WOOWOO AND DOTO 105
XIII PLAYING FOR HIS LIFE 114
XIV THE CLOUD OF VULTURES 120
XV THE WRATH OF THE STORM 128
XVI GRIPPED 134
XVII IN THE FOLDS OF A BOA CONSTRICTOR 141
XVIII AT THE WATER HOLE 148
XIX A BATTLE ROYAL 153
XX AN UNEXPECTED RECEPTION 161
XXI BY A HAIR’S BREADTH 166
XXII THE TURN OF THE WHEEL 171
XXIII WORDS OF DOOM 180
XXIV AGAINST FEARFUL ODDS 189
XXV IN THE NICK OF TIME 198
BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY
CHAPTER I
A NARROW ESCAPE
Bomba came to a sudden halt in the densest part of the gigantic
jungle.
A moment before he had been making his way with surprising suppleness
and ease through the tangled brushwood, avoiding with equal dexterity
the vines that trailed from the branches of the trees and the roots
that reached out to trip him up. Now he stood as though turned to
stone.
Far overhead the sun beat down fiercely from a brazen sky, though its
rays were caught and held by the heavy foliage, so that beneath the
branches of the trees semi-darkness prevailed. But if the brightness
of the sun was thus excluded, its heat made itself felt, and masses
of steaming vapor rose from the lush vegetation drenched by recent
rains.
From a distance came the screams of parrots and the howling of
monkeys, but otherwise the jungle was silent.
It had not been silent a moment before. From a point toward which
Bomba was facing had come a sound that was new to the jungle and
almost new to Bomba—a sound he had heard but twice. And each of those
times was indelibly graven on his memory.
Once had been when Casson had brought down the savage jaguar with
the iron stick or “rifle,” as Casson had called it. The beast had
been crouching on the limb of a tree beneath which Bomba had sat
down to rest. He had not seen the creature, whose huge body had been
flattened close against the bough.
He had had no intimation of danger until he had seen the startled
look in the eyes of Casson and heard his shout of warning. Then he
had leaped to his feet. At the same instant the jaguar sprang. But
Casson drew the iron stick to his shoulder, and a flame leaped from
the end of it, accompanied by a sharp report.
The beast whirled about in mid-air and fell to the ground, one of its
outstretched claws grazing Bomba’s leg as the latter sprang aside.
The jaguar writhed and twisted about for a moment and then lay still.
When Bomba was sure the creature was dead, he had approached and
examined it curiously. He had seen the natives kill game with arrows,
and he half expected to see some missile protruding from the body.
But there was no sign of this—only a tiny hole through the center of
its forehead, from which blood was oozing.
He had questioned Casson curiously, but the latter was in one of his
silent moods that day and gave no explanation. But the convulsive way
in which he had strained Bomba to his breast told how deeply he had
been stirred by the narrow escape.
The other time and the last that Bomba had witnessed the work of
the iron stick had been when a giant anaconda had reared its horrid
head in front of Bomba and darted forward to enclose him in its
folds. Again Casson had fired, but this time instead of a loud crack
there had been a thunderous roar, and the stick had exploded into a
thousand fragments. Casson had fallen over on his back. The great
snake, frightened by the noise and struck by some of the flying bits
of iron, had hastily retreated. Bomba, who had escaped with some
scratches, had managed to get the unconscious Casson back to the hut
in which they dwelt, and there the old man had lain for many days,
nursed by Bomba and treated with some of the simple remedies he had
learned from the natives.
Casson had finally recovered, but had never again been the same. His
head had been injured by the explosion, and his memory, which had
been failing for some time, now almost wholly disappeared. At times
he had flashes of recollection of his old life, but these were few
and transient. Most of the time he was wrapped in moody silence, and
Bomba felt more alone than ever.
But this had happened years ago, and the sound of the iron stick had
almost passed from Bomba’s memory. Now he heard it again, and his
pulses leaped.
It came from a distance perhaps half a mile away. Who had fired
the stick? He knew that none of the natives had any weapon of the
kind. Could it be some man like Casson, a man with a white skin like
Casson’s and his own?
A white skin! Something tugged at Bomba’s heart. He could not have
told what it was. It might have been memory, intuition, instinct. But
whatever it was, it took instant and entire possession of him.
He must find out who had fired the iron stick!
The primal law of the jungle is to mind one’s own business. Intrusion
on the affairs of another is never welcomed and usually resented.
Bomba had learned to obey that law.
Ordinarily he would have given a wide berth to the locality from
which the sound had come, swerved aside, and plunged deeper into the
jungle. Where the iron stick sounded there was probably danger. It
was associated in his mind with deadly beasts and reptiles. There
was trouble enough in the jungle without looking for it.
Why, then, did he depart from all his usual caution and begin making
his way toward the spot from which the sound had come?
He did not know. A confused tumult of thoughts and longings swept
through his brain. He was conscious of a desperate urge that impelled
him in that direction; and that urge came from the profoundest depths
of his soul.
A white man must have fired that iron stick. The stick itself had
some appeal to his curiosity. He would like to see it again—that
mysterious thing that killed like magic from a distance.
But that desire was not compelling. Had he thought a native had
fired it, he would not have risked intruding on what might be a
hostile hunting party, possibly some of the dreaded head-hunters that
occasionally invaded this region.
No, it was the craving to see a man with a white skin like his own,
like Casson’s, that drew him on, drew him with a power he could no
more resist than a chip could stem the current of Niagara.
To be sure, the white man might prove hostile. The deadly fire stick
might be turned on himself. But he did not believe this. Casson had
always been kind to him. All white men would be. Were they not his
own kind? Was he not their brother? A wild surge of yearning swept
over him.
All the longings he had felt so often, that came to him with
increasing intensity day and night, that he had never been able to
analyze and understand came to a head at the report of the iron
stick. He could not resist them. He did not want to resist them.
He must see the man with the white skin!
Bomba was a striking figure as he worked his way through the jungle
over sprawling roots and through a network of vines, gradually
drawing closer to the spot from which the sound had come.
He was nothing more than a boy, fourteen years at most, of a little
above the ordinary height at that age, compact and muscular. He had
brown eyes and brown wavy hair and the whitest of teeth. His skin was
darkly tanned by exposure to the sun.
On his feet were rude home-made sandals, and around his body was
wrapped a bit of native cloth and a small puma-skin—the skin of
Geluk, the puma, who had tried to eat the friendly parrots, Kiki and
Woowoo. Bomba had caught him in the attempt and killed him with an
arrow.
The skin heightened the resemblance of Bomba to a young panther as,
light and supple, the muscles of arms and legs rippling under the
bronzed skin, he threaded his way deftly through the underbrush.
Bomba lived with an old naturalist, Cody Casson, in the depths of
the Amazonian jungle, so remote from civilization that it was rarely
if ever visited by white men. Of his past he knew nothing, and so
far Casson had told him next to nothing. He had given the boy some
rudiments of education, especially in his own line of botany and
natural history, but even this teaching had ceased years before when
the old naturalist’s mind had been weakened by the exploding rifle.
Bomba knew nothing of the world at large, nothing of the white race
to which he belonged, little even of the life of the natives of the
region. For the pair did not mingle much with the latter and were
themselves shunned by the superstitious natives, who had got the idea
from the old naturalist’s queer actions that he was a Man of Evil.
Two eyes of which he was not aware were watching Bomba as he
approached a narrow part of the rude native trail he was following,
wicked eyes, malignant eyes glowing with lurid fires.
The eyes were set in the swaying head of a cooanaradi, the most
terrible serpent on earth.
It lay in its lair just beside the path that Bomba was following, its
body, fourteen feet in length, thrown into coils, above which the
slender head swayed back and forth. Evilly beautiful, it glowed with
all the colors of the rainbow.
Had it been a rattlesnake or any other poisonous denizen of the
jungle, it would have glided away into the bushes, glad enough to
avoid an encounter with human enemies unless attacked. Even the boa
or the anaconda is apathetic and, except when moved by hunger, seldom
takes the initiative.
But what makes the cooanaradi so dreaded, apart from its deadly
poison, is its ferocity. It does not avoid attack; it seeks to make
it. Nor is it satisfied when its enemy flees; it follows in pursuit.
But there was no need yet for that. All unsuspecting, its prey was
coming toward it. Soon he would be in reach of the lightning stroke.
The evil eyes gloated in anticipation.
Then, when Bomba was barely ten feet away, he saw it!
There was no time to string his arrow. There was no time to draw his
machete. Even while he looked, the snake launched its spring.
Like a flash Bomba turned and ran for his life!