by Zane Grey
He saw a wide bar of black crossing the moonlit ground, the grass, and the blankets. This bar moved. It was alive. Bending low Ken descried that it was made by ants. An army of jungle ants on a march! They had come in a straight line along the base of the little hill and their passageway led under the canvas. Pepe happened to be the first in line, and they had surged over him. As he had awakened, and jumped up of course, the ants had begun to bite. The same in turn happened to George and then Hal.
Ken was immensely relieved, and had his laugh out. The stream of ants moved steadily and quite rapidly, and soon passed from sight. By this time Pepe and the boys had threshed themselves free of ants and into some degree of composure.
“Say, you nightmare fellows! Come back to bed,” said Ken. “Any one would think something had really happened to you.”
Pepe snorted, which made Ken think the native understood something of English. And the boys grumbled loudly.
“Ants! Ants as big as wasps! They bit worse than helgramites,” declared Hal. “Oh, they missed you. You always are lucky. I’m not afraid of all the old jaguars in this jungle. But I can’t stand biting, crawling bugs. I wish you hadn’t made me come on this darn trip.”
“Ha! Ha!” laughed Ken.
“Just wait, Hal,” put in George, grimly. “Just wait. It’s coming to him!”
The boys slept well the remainder of the night and, owing to the break in their rest, did not awaken early. The sun shone hot when Ken rolled out; a creamy mist was dissolving over the curve of the mountain-range; parrots were screeching in the near-by trees.
After breakfast Ken set about packing the boat as it had been done the day before.
“I think we’ll do well to leave the trunk in the boat after this, unless we find a place where we want to make a permanent camp for a while,” said Ken.
Before departing he carefully looked over the ground to see that nothing was left, and espied a heavy fish-line which George had baited, set, and forgotten.
“Hey, George, pull up your trot-line. It looks pretty much stretched to me. Maybe you’ve got a fish.”
Ken happened to be busy at the boat when George started to take in the line. An exclamation from Pepe, George’s yell, and a loud splash made Ken jump up in double-quick time. Hal also came running.
George was staggering on the bank, leaning back hard on the heavy line. A long, angry swirl in the pool told of a powerful fish. It was likely to pull George in.
“Let go the line!” yelled Ken.
But George was not letting go of any fish-lines. He yelled for Pepe, and went down on his knees before Pepe got to him. Both then pulled on the line. The fish, or whatever it was at the other end, gave a mighty jerk that almost dragged the two off the bank.
“Play him, play him!” shouted Ken. “You’ve got plenty of line. Give him some.”
Hal now added his weight and strength, and the three of them, unmindful of Ken’s advice, hauled back with might and main. The line parted and they sprawled on the grass.
“What a sockdologer!” exclaimed Hal.
“I had that hook baited with a big piece of duck meat,” said George. “We must have been hooked to a crocodile. Things are happening to us.”
“Yes, so I’ve noticed,” replied Ken, dryly. “But if you fellows hadn’t pulled so hard you might have landed that thing, whatever it was. All aboard now. We must be on the move — we don’t know what we have before us.”
When they got into the boat Ken took the oars, much to Pepe’s surprise. It was necessary to explain to him that Ken would handle the boat in swift water. They shoved off, and Ken sent one regretful glance up the river, at the shady aisle between the green banks, at the white rapids, and the great colored dome of the mountain. He almost hesitated, for he desired to see more of that jungle-covered mountain. But something already warned Ken to lose no time in the trip down the Santa Rosa. There did not seem to be any reason for hurry, yet he felt it necessary. But he asked Pepe many questions and kept George busy interpreting names of trees and flowers and wild creatures.
Going down-stream on any river, mostly, would have been pleasure, but drifting on the swift current of the Santa Rosa and rowing under the wonderful moss-bearded cypresses was almost like a dream. It was too beautiful to seem real. The smooth stretch before the first rapid was short, however, and then all Ken’s attention had to be given to the handling of the boat. He saw that George and Pepe both expected to get out and wade down the rapids as they had waded up. He had a surprise in store for them. The rapids that he could not shoot would have to be pretty bad.
“You’re getting close,” shouted George, warningly.
With two sweeps of the oars Ken turned the boat stern first down-stream, then dipped on the low green incline, and sailed down toward the waves. They struck the first wave with a shock, and the water flew all over the boys. Pepe was tremendously excited; he yelled and made wild motions with his hands; George looked a little frightened. Hal enjoyed it. Whatever the rapid appeared to them, it was magnificent to Ken; and it was play to manage the boat in such water. A little pull on one oar and then on the other kept the stern straight down-stream. The channel he could make out a long way ahead. He amused himself by watching George and Pepe. There were stones in the channel, and the water rose angrily about them. A glance was enough to tell that he could float over these without striking. But the boys thought they were going to hit every stone, and were uneasy all the time. Twice he had to work to pass ledges and sunken trees upon which the current bore down hard. When Ken neared one of these he dipped the oars and pulled back to stop or lessen the momentum; then a stroke turned the boat half broadside to the current. That would force it to one side, and another stroke would turn the boat straight. At the bottom of this rapid they encountered a long triangle of choppy waves that they bumped and splashed over. They came through with nothing wet but the raised flap of canvas in the stern.
Pepe regarded Ken with admiring eyes, and called him grande mozo.
“Shooting rapids is great sport,” proclaimed George.
They drifted through several little rifts, and then stopped at the head of the narrow chute that had been such a stumbling-block on the way up. Looked at from above, this long, narrow channel, with several S curves, was a fascinating bit of water for a canoeist. It tempted Ken to shoot it even with the boat. But he remembered the four-foot waves at the bottom, and besides he resented the importunity of the spirit of daring so early in the game. Risk, and perhaps peril, would come soon enough. So he decided to walk along the shore and float the boat through with a rope.
The thing looked a good deal easier than it turned out to be. Half-way through, at the narrowest point and most abrupt curve, Pepe misunderstood directions and pulled hard on the bow-rope, when he should have let it slack.
The boat swung in, nearly smashing Ken against the bank, and the sweeping current began to swell dangerously near the gunwale.
“Let go! Let go!” yelled Ken. “George, make him let go!”
But George, who was trying to get the rope out of Pepe’s muscular hands, suddenly made a dive for his rifle.
“Deer! deer!” he cried, hurriedly throwing a shell into the chamber. He shot downstream, and Ken, looking that way, saw several deer under the firs on a rocky flat. George shot three more times, and the bullets went “spinging” into the trees. The deer bounded out of sight.
When Ken turned again, water was roaring into the boat. He was being pressed harder into the bank, and he saw disaster ahead.
“Loosen the rope — tell him, George,” yelled Ken.
Pepe only pulled the harder.
“Quick, or we’re ruined,” cried Ken.
George shouted in Spanish, and Pepe promptly dropped the rope in the water. That was the worst thing he could have done.
“Grab the rope!” ordered Ken, wildly. “Grab the bow! Don’t let it swing out! Hal!”
Before either boy could reach it the bow swung out into the current. Ken was not
only helpless, but in a dangerous position. He struggled to get out from where the swinging stern was wedging him into the bank, but could not budge. Fearing that all the outfit would be lost in the river, he held on to the boat and called for some one to catch the rope.
George pushed Pepe head first into the swift current. Pepe came up, caught the rope, and then went under again. The boat swung round and, now half full of water, got away from Ken. It gathered headway. Ken leaped out on the ledge and ran along with the boat. It careened round the bad curve and shot down-stream. Pepe was still under water.
“He’s drowned! He’s drowned!” cried George.
Hal took a header right off the ledge, came up, and swam with a few sharp strokes to the drifting boat. He gained the bow, grasped it, and then pulled on the rope.
Ken had a sickening feeling that Pepe might be drowned. Suddenly Pepe appeared like a brown porpoise. He was touching bottom in places and holding back on the rope. Then the current rolled him over and over. The boat drifted back of a rocky point into shallow water. Hal gave a haul that helped to swing it out of the dangerous current. Then Pepe came up, and he, too, pulled hard. Just as Ken plunged in the boat sank in two feet of water. Ken’s grip, containing camera, films, and other perishable goods, was on top, and he got it just in time. He threw it out on the rocks. Then together the boys lifted the boat and hauled the bow well up on the shore.
“Pretty lucky!” exclaimed Ken, as he flopped down.
“Doggone it!” yelled Hal, suddenly. And he dove for the boat, and splashed round in the water under his seat, to bring forth a very limp and drenched little raccoon.
“Good! he’s all right,” said Ken.
Pepe said “Mucho malo,” and pointed to his shins, which bore several large bumps from contact with the rocks in the channel.
“I should say mucha malo,” growled George.
He jerked open his grip, and, throwing out articles of wet clothing — for which he had no concern — he gazed in dismay at his whole store of cigarettes wet by the water.
“So that’s all you care for,” said Ken, severely. “Young man, I’ll have something to say to you presently. All hands now to unpack the boat.”
Fortunately nothing had been carried away. That part of the supplies which would have been affected by water was packed in tin cases, and so suffered no damage. The ammunition was waterproof, Ken’s Parker hammerless and his .351 automatic rifle were full of water, and so were George’s guns and Hal’s. While they took their weapons apart, wiped them, and laid them in the sun, Pepe spread out the rest of the things and then baled out the boat. The sun was so hot that everything dried quickly and was not any the worse for the wetting. The boys lost scarcely an hour by the accident. Before the start Ken took George and Pepe to task, and when he finished they were both very sober and quiet.
Ken observed, however, that by the time they had run the next rapid they were enjoying themselves again. Then came a long succession of rapids which Ken shot without anything approaching a mishap. When they drifted into the level stretch Pepe relieved him at the oars. They glided down-stream under the drooping bamboo, under the silken streamers of silvery moss, under the dark, cool bowers of matted vine and blossoming creepers. And as they passed this time the jungle silence awoke to the crack of George’s .22 and the discordant cry of river fowl. Ken’s guns were both at hand, and the rifle was loaded, but he did not use either. He contented himself with snapping a picture here and there and watching the bamboo thickets and the mouths of the little dry ravines.
That ride was again so interesting, so full of sound and action and color, that it seemed a very short one. The murmur of the water on the rocks told Ken that it was time to change seats with Pepe. They drifted down two short rapids, and then came to the gravelly channels between the islands noted on the way up. The water was shallow down these rippling channels; and, fearing they might strike a stone, Ken tumbled out over the bow and, wading slowly, let the boat down to still water again. He was about to get in when he espied what he thought was an alligator lying along a log near the river. He pointed it out to Pepe.
That worthy yelled gleefully in Mexican, and reached for his machete.
“Iguana!” exclaimed George. “I’ve heard it’s good to eat.”
The reptile had a body about four feet long and a very long tail. Its color was a steely blue-black on top, and it had a blunt, rounded head.
Pepe slipped out of the boat and began to wade ashore. When the iguana raised itself on short, stumpy legs George shot at it, and missed, as usual. But he effectually frightened the reptile, which started to climb the bank with much nimbleness. Pepe began to run, brandishing his long machete. George plunged into the water in hot pursuit, and then Hal yielded to the call of the chase. Pepe reached the iguana before it got up the bank, aimed a mighty blow with his machete, and would surely have cut the reptile in two pieces if the blade had not caught on an over-hanging branch. Then Pepe fell up the bank and barely grasped the tail of the iguana. Pepe hauled back, and Pepe was powerful. The frantic creature dug its feet in the clay-bank and held on for dear life. But Pepe was too strong. He jerked the iguana down and flung it square upon George, who had begun to climb the bank.
George uttered an awful yell, as if he expected to be torn asunder, and rolled down, with the reptile on top of him. Ken saw that it was as badly frightened as George. But Hal did not see this. And he happened to have gained a little sand-bar below the bank, in which direction the iguana started with wonderful celerity. Then Hal made a jump that Ken believed was a record.
Remarkably awkward as that iguana was, he could surely cover ground with his stumpy legs. Again he dashed up the bank. Pepe got close enough once more, and again he swung the machete. The blow cut off a piece of the long tail, but the only effect this produced was to make the iguana run all the faster. It disappeared over the bank, with Pepe scrambling close behind. Then followed a tremendous crashing in the dry thickets, after which the iguana could be heard rattling and tearing away through the jungle.
Pepe returned to the boat with the crestfallen boys, and he was much concerned over the failure to catch the big lizard, which he said made fine eating.
“What next?” asked George, ruefully, and at that the boys all laughed.
“The fun is we don’t have any idea what’s coming off,” said Hal.
“Boys, if you brave hunters had thought to throw a little salt on that lizard’s tail you might have caught him,” added Ken.
Presently Pepe espied another iguana in the forks of a tree, and he rowed ashore. This lizard was only a small one, not over two feet in length, but he created some excitement among the boys. George wanted him to eat, and Hal wanted the skin for a specimen, and Ken wanted to see what the lizard looked like close at hand. So they all clamored for Pepe to use caution and to be quick.
When Pepe started up the tree the iguana came down on the other side, quick as a squirrel. Then they had a race round the trunk until Pepe ended it with a well-directed blow from his machete.
Hal began to skin the iguana.
“Ken, I’m going to have trouble preserving specimens in this hot place,” he said.
“Salt and alum will do the trick. Remember what old Hiram used to say,” replied Ken.
Shortly after that the boat passed the scene of the first camp, and then drifted under the railroad bridge.
Hal and George, and Pepe too, looked as if they were occupied with the same thought troubling Ken — that once beyond the bridge they would plunge into the jungle wilderness from which there could be no turning back.
CHAPTER VIII
THE FIRST TIGER-CAT
THE SANTA ROSA opened out wide, and ran swiftly over smooth rock. Deep cracks, a foot or so wide, crossed the river diagonally, and fish darted in and out.
The boys had about half a mile of this, when, after turning a hilly bend, they entered a long rapid. It was a wonderful stretch of river to look down.
“By George!” s
aid Ken, as he stood up to survey it. “This is great!”
“It’s all right now,” added George, with his peculiar implication as to the future.
“What gets me is the feeling of what might be round the next bend,” said Hal.
This indeed, Ken thought, made the fascination of such travel. The water was swift and smooth and shallow. There was scarcely a wave or ripple. At times the boat stuck fast on the flat rock, and the boys would have to get out to shove off. As far ahead as Ken could see extended this wide slant of water. On the left rose a thick line of huge cypresses all festooned with gray moss that drooped to the water; on the right rose a bare bluff of crumbling rock. It looked like blue clay baked and cracked by the sun. A few palms fringed the top.
“Say, we can beat this,” said Ken, as for the twentieth time the boys had to step out and shove off a flat, shallow place. “Two of you in the bow and Pepe with me in the stern, feet overboard.”
The little channels ran every way, making it necessary often to turn the boat. Ken’s idea was to drift along and keep the boat from grounding by an occasional kick.
“Ken manages to think of something once in a while,” observed Hal.
Then the boat drifted down-stream, whirling round and round. Here Pepe would drop his brown foot in and kick his end clear of a shallow ledge; there George would make a great splash when his turn came to ward off from a rock; and again Hal would give a greater kick than was necessary to the righting of the boat. Probably Hal was much influenced by the fact that when he kicked hard he destroyed the lazy equilibrium of his companions.
It dawned upon Ken that here was a new and unique way to travel down a river. It was different from anything he had ever tried before. The water was swift and seldom more than a foot deep, except in diagonal cracks that ribbed the river-bed. This long, shut-in stretch appeared to be endless. But for the quick, gliding movement of the boat, which made a little breeze, the heat would have been intolerable. When one of Hal’s kicks made Ken lurch overboard to sit down ludicrously, the cool water sent thrills over him. Instead of retaliating on Hal, he was glad to be wet. And the others, soon discovering the reason for Ken’s remarkable good-nature, went overboard and lay flat in the cool ripples. Then little clouds of steam began to rise from their soaked clothes.