thrall, and, stepping into the canoe, picked up the paddle and pushed
out into the river. The twinkling lights vanished in the foliage. There
was no sound of pursuit; the dreamy jungle hum remained unbroken. He
paddled the light canoe swiftly with the current.
The moon rose, whitening the river lane. A breeze bore the boom of
the Palcazu in flood. Once upon that river of rapids, Manuel would
scorn pursuit. Slackening current told him that backwater had swelled
the estuary. Soon his ears filled with the rumbling of waters, and he
turned out of the estuary into the sliding, moon-blanched Palcazu.
As he dipped into the glistening channel of the first rapid, the canoe,
quivering and vibrating, seemed to lurch into the air. Shock on shock
kept the bow leaping. Manuel crouched low in the stern. It took all
the strength of his brawny arms to keep the canoe straight. Whirling
suck holes raced with him; frothy waves curled along the gunwales. One
rapid led into another, until the Palcazu was a thundering succession
of broken waters. It ran wild for freedom. In the plunging inclines,
the silver-crested channels, the bulging billows, were the hurry and
spirit of the river. The current, splitting on blackheaded stones,
hissed its hatred of restraint. Manuel guided the canoe from side to
side, glancing along the gulfs, fringing the falls, always abreast of
the widest passages.
A haze crept over the moon and thickened to gray fog. Shadows shrouded
the river, hanging lower and lower, descending to mingle with the
spray. Manuel paddled on while the hours passed.
The fog curtain lightened to the coming of dawn. Manuel evinced no
surprise to find himself gazing upon the misty flood of the wide
Pachitea. He had run the Palcazu in one night. Paddling ashore, he
beached the canoe to bail out water he had shipped in that wild ride.
All night he had felt a balancing of some kind of cargo in the bow.
Upon investigating, he found the bottom of the bow covered with palm
leaves. These he lifted to discover two naked little savages cowering
on a mat of woven reeds.
“Cashibos!” ejaculated Manuel. “Boy and girl. They were in the canoe
last night when I strangled that fellow, their father, probably. What’s
to be done with them?”
The boy was a dark copper color; his hair grew straight down over his
low forehead; he was pot-bellied and altogether ugly. The girl was
younger, lighter in color, slim and graceful, and pretty in a wild way,
like a bronze elf of the jungle.
“What’ll I do with them?” repeated Manuel. “I can’t kill them, or
leave them here to starve or be eaten by jaguars. I’ll take them down
the Pachitea and turn them over to a Campas tribe.”
Having decided, Manuel folded a palm leaf and used it to bail out the
canoe. In the bottom he found a bunch of dwarfish bananas and some
dried fish. Here was good fortune in the way of food. He arranged the
palm leaves across the gunwales, making a sun, rain, and dew shield.
Then, pushing off, he paddled into the swollen current.
The blazing sun rose; the sand flies wheeled with the drifting canoe;
the afternoon rain poured; night came, with its cloud of singing
mosquitoes, its poison dews and fogs.
That day passed, and another like it. Every hour the canoe drifted
speedy as the current. The Cashibos children lost their fear of Manuel.
The boy jabbered and played; the girl smiled at Manuel, which persuaded
him not to give them to a Campas tribe, but to take them home and care
for them himself.
Three more days and nights the canoe drifted. Manuel’s strength had
returned, but it troubled him to think. Something had happened up the
river. He had for his pillow a ragged coat that fascinated him, and
which he treasured.
Early the next morning he turned the green bend at La Boca to come
abruptly upon the _Amazonas_, lying at the dock. Men shouted from her
decks; there was a thudding of bare feet.
“Look! Look!”
“Is it the outlaw?”
“No--no!”
“Yes--yes. Those shoulders and arms--it’s he!”
Manuel’s blotched face, swollen out of all proportions, was
unrecognizable.
Captain Valdez leaned hard over the rail. “Manuel, is it you?”
“Yes, captain.”
“Where’s your cowcha?”
“Lost, captain, lost! A great rubber forest, captain--I had tons of
cowcha--it’s lost--all lost!”
“I suppose so,” replied Valdez ironically. “That’s a fine cargo to pay
you--two half-grown Indian kids. The nerve of you, Manuel, dropping
into La Boca with slaves.”
“Slaves!” echoed from Manuel. His gaze traveled from Valdez’s face to
the little bronze Cashibos, once more huddling, frightened, in the bow.
“Slaves? Ha! Ha! Ha!”
“Manuel, you had your choice,” went on the captain, “and now you must
abide by it. I’ve caught some of you slave hunters this trip. There’s
Bustos in irons. Your choice Manuel--the chain gang, or the river?”
“The river for me!” said Manuel. “Only up instead of down!”
“Up! But, Manuel, there’s a chance down the Amazon. You--”
The rubber hunter faced up the wide Pachitea. His stentorian cry
froze the words upon Captain Valdez’s lips. It rolled out, a strange,
trenchant call to something beyond the wild, silent river.
“Fever,” whispered one of the fettered slave dealers.
“Bitten crazy,” said another.
Manuel started the canoe upstream. He did not look back.
Captain and crew and prisoners on the boat thrilled to Bustos’s mocking
farewell.
“_Adios_, Manuel!”
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Recently the Mexican government changed its policy toward peon
labor in Yucatan, and the Yaquis in Sonora. These Indians are now in
the regular Mexican army. [AUTHOR’S NOTE.]
* * * * * *
Transcriber’s note:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.