A STEALTHY FOE
An exclamation of surprise came from the white men as Bomba advanced
toward them with his upraised palms, extended as a sign of amity, and
they lowered their rifles.
“Just an Indian kid!” remarked the stockier of the two with a laugh.
“Indian nothing!” retorted the other, as his keen eyes swept the lad.
“Look at his hair, his eyes, his features. He’s as white as we are,
or my name isn’t Gillis. Look again, Dorn.”
“Guess you’re right, old man,” conceded Jake Dorn, after a close
scrutiny. “But what in the mischief is he doing here? I didn’t know
there were any other whites within a thousand miles of us.”
“Neither did I,” replied Ralph Gillis. “But we were evidently wrong.
Probably he belongs to some other camp of rubber hunters not far
away.”
“But look at his clothes, if you can call them clothes,” said Dorn,
with a puzzled air. “I never saw a white boy dressed like that.
Nothing but a clout and a puma skin.”
“We’ll soon solve the mystery,” said Gillis. “Come here, boy,” he
added kindly.
Bomba came shyly toward him.
“What is your name?” asked Gillis.
“Bomba,” was the reply.
“Bomba!” repeated Gillis, with a frown of perplexity. “That’s a queer
name for a white boy. For you are white, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” replied Bomba proudly, as he drew aside the puma skin and
exhibited his chest.
“And since you understand what I say to you, you must be either
American or English,” pursued Gillis. “What is your other name?”
“I haven’t any,” was the reply. “I am Bomba.”
The men exchanged puzzled glances.
“Who are your folks?” put in Dorn.
Bomba pondered for a moment.
“I don’t know what that word means,” he replied simply.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” exclaimed Gillis. “I mean your father, your
mother.”
“I guess I never had any,” replied Bomba. “I never saw them or heard
of them.”
“The poor kid!” murmured Dorn.
“But you must have somebody to live with or take care of you,” said
Gillis.
“Yes,” replied Bomba, “I live with Cody Casson.”
“Who is he and where is he?” asked Gillis.
“He is an old man,” answered Bomba. “He lives in a hut a long way
off,” and he pointed toward the south.
“Is he a relation of yours?” asked Dorn.
“I don’t know what that means,” was the answer.
Gillis threw up his hands in despair.
“Well, wouldn’t that get your goat?” he ejaculated.
“I haven’t got any goat,” replied Bomba, who thought the question was
addressed to him.
The men laughed heartily, and Bomba, though a little puzzled, laughed
with them. He was glad that he had said something that pleased them.
They were nice men. His heart warmed to them.
Gillis returned to the attack.
“When did you come into this jungle?” he asked.
“I have always been here,” answered Bomba.
“But don’t you remember ever living anywhere else?” persisted Gillis.
“Don’t you remember coming over the ocean?”
“What is the ocean?” asked Bomba.
“It is like a river, but a thousand times as big,” explained his
questioner.
Bomba shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I never saw any water I could not swim across.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of England or America?” put in Dorn.
“No,” was the reply. “There are no animals here that have those
names.”
A glance of pity passed between the two men.
“An untutored child of nature, if there ever was one!” exclaimed
Gillis. “How in heaven’s name do you explain it?”
“Search me!” replied Dorn. “Seems to me the only thing to do is to
hunt up this fellow Casson and get it out of him. The boy ought to be
taken out to civilization and have his chance.”
“He ought,” assented Gillis. “Though I don’t see how we can do
anything just now, for our road lies in the opposite direction and
we’re behind our schedule now. We’ve _got_ to get to the coast in
time to get that steamer. But later on we’ll take the matter up
ourselves or have some of the authorities look into it. But those
steaks are done now, and I’m as hungry as a wolf. This young visitor
of ours shall fill up too, if he cares to stop and eat with us.”
Bomba gladly accepted the invitation, not only because he was hungry
but because it gave him a chance to stay in the company of the white
men. He would have liked to stay with them forever. The thought of
parting filled him with dread.
They brought knives and forks from their kit and offered one of each
to Bomba. But he did not know their use, had never seen them, and
ate his meat by plucking it apart with his teeth and fingers, as was
his custom, the while he watched with wonder the deft way in which
the table utensils were used by his new acquaintances.
He felt that it must be a better way than his. The white men did it,
and he himself was white and ought to do it too. Before he was half
way through the meal, he shyly reached out for the knife and fork and
tried to imitate them. The effort was not very successful, but they
sensed his feeling, and be it said to their credit they did not laugh.
The meal was interspersed with questionings, in the course of which
the men learned much and gained marked respect for Bomba’s courage
and self-reliance. They were aghast at his story of the way he had
trapped the cooanaradi, and would not have believed it had not the
simple way that Bomba told it carried conviction. He did not boast,
merely narrated the incident as though it were not of any particular
importance and simply a part of the day’s work in the jungle.
“Why not take the boy along with us, if he’s willing?” suggested
Gillis, thoughtfully, to his companion. “It would bring him out to
civilization, and at the same time he’d be a mighty valuable addition
to our party. We’d be killing two birds with one stone.”
“Right enough,” agreed Dorn. “How would you like to go along with
us?” he asked, addressing himself to Bomba.
The boy’s heart leaped and delight shone in his eyes. Oh, how he
wanted to go! But the next moment the light faded and his heart sank.
“I could not leave Casson,” he said. “He would die if I left him
alone.”
“The boy’s true blue,” said Gillis, “and we mustn’t tempt him. But
soon or late we’ll see this Casson and perhaps get them both out
of the jungle. The whole thing is the queerest affair I ever came
across.”
He struck a match to light his pipe, and Bomba jumped at the sudden
spurt of flame.
“Never see one of those before?” asked Dorn, in surprise.
“No,” replied Bomba. “I make fire like this.”
He took a stick and a tiny wooden bowl from his belt, twirled the
stick dexterously, and in a few moments produced a spark.
“Well done!” cried Dorn admiringly.
Bomba was pleased at the note of approbation, but in his heart he
knew that the white men’s way was quicker and better. He looked
longingly at the matches, and Gillis, with a smile, handed him a box
of them, which Bomba grasped eagerly and thrust into the small pouch
at his belt. Now he could make fire as the white men did. He felt
that he was growing closer to them.
Gillis showed him his rifle. It was a far finer iron stick than
Casson’s had been, and Bomba examined it with the greatest curiosity.
He did not in the least understand the principle of it, but he knew
its power. The dead tapir was evidence of it, as well as his memory
of the way a similar stick had slain the jaguar.
“I’ll show you how it works,” volunteered Gillis, noting the boy’s
eager interest in the weapon.
Bomba nodded delightedly. This was what he had been wishing for ever
since he had reached the camp, but had been too shy to ask of his own
accord.
Ralph Gillis took a card and tacked it up against a tree about fifty
feet away, Bomba watching him intently.
Then Gillis took up his position and raised the rifle to his
shoulder. Bomba, with a lively recollection of what had happened when
Casson had fired at the anaconda, edged some distance away.
There was a sharp crack, and Bomba’s keen eyes noticed a slight
quivering of the card.
“Come along,” said Gillis, beckoning to the boy, and Bomba followed
him to the tree, where he saw a small hole in the card that had not
been there before. But he looked in vain for any sign of scorching.
“Why didn’t the fire burn it?” he asked.
Gillis looked at him perplexedly, and then laughed as he grasped his
meaning.
“Bless you,” he said, “it wasn’t the fire you saw coming from the
muzzle that struck the card. It was a cartridge just like this,” and
he drew one of the pellets from his belt.
Bomba examined it curiously.
“Why didn’t I see this when you fired the iron stick?” he asked.
“It went too fast for you to see,” explained Gillis patiently.
“You could see my arrow if I shot it,” said Bomba.
“That’s different,” said Gillis. “The arrow is bigger, and it doesn’t
go as fast. And it doesn’t go as straight, either.”
“It goes straight,” declared Bomba.
“Do you mean to say that you could hit that card?” asked Dorn
incredulously.
“Yes,” said Bomba.
“I’m from Missouri,” remarked Gillis.
“Where is that?” asked Bomba.
The men laughed.
“Never mind,” said Gillis. “Let’s see you hit the card.”
Bomba drew an arrow from his belt, fitted it to the string, and,
scarcely appearing to take aim, let it go.
A cry of surprise broke from his new acquaintances as they saw the
arrow standing out straight from the center of the card.
“The boy’s a wonder!” cried Gillis.
“Robin Hood had nothing on him!” declared Dorn.
“Who was he?” asked Bomba. “And why did he have nothing on him?” as
he glanced at the well-clothed forms of the white men.
“I can see that we’ll have to cut out slang,” laughed Dorn. “Robin
Hood was a great shot with the bow and arrow, and what I meant to say
was that you could shoot as straight as he could.”
Bomba’s heart swelled with pride at the approbation of the white men.
It seemed to him the sweetest music he had ever heard.
Dusk was drawing on now, and the forest began to waken. From the
lairs in which they had lain during the heat of the day wild beasts
rose, yawned, stretched themselves, and then stalked out on their
nocturnal search for prey. Death was abroad.
Two or three times, as Bomba sat by the tent of his new-made friends,
he raised his head and sniffed the air.
“What is it?” asked Gillis curiously, after the third repetition.
“Jaguars,” answered Bomba.
The men grasped their rifles and peered into the darkening forest
surrounding them.
“I don’t see any,” remarked Gillis, after a moment.
“They see you,” replied Bomba.
The calm matter-of-fact statement sent a little chill down their
spines.
“How do you know there are any about?” asked Dorn.
“I smell them,” was the reply.
“On what side of the camp are they?” queried Gillis.
“All sides,” said Bomba.