by Grey, Zane
"Git off me, will you?" shouted Hal. "Are you c-c-cr-azy?"
But Had's voice had not the usual note when he was angry or impatient. He was laughing so he could not speak naturally.
"Uh-huh!" said Ken, and sat up. "I guess here was where I got it. Is my leg broken? What came off?"
Pepe was staggering about on the bank, going through strange motions. He had the line in his hands, and at the other end was a monster of some kind threshing about in the water. It was moonlight and Ken could see plainly. Around the ankle that felt broken was a twisted loop of trot-line. Hal had baited a hook and slipped the end of the trot-line over Ken's foot. During the night the crocodile or an enormous fish had taken the bait. Then Ken had nearly been hauled off the island.
Pepe was doing battle with the hooked thing, whatever it was, and Ken was about to go to his assistance when again the line broke.
" Great! Hal, you have a nice disposition," exclaimed Ken. "You have a wonderful affection for your brother. You care a lot about his legs or his life. Idiot ! Can't you play a safe trick? If I hadn't grabbed you and George, I'd been pulled into the river. Eaten up, maybe! And my ankle is sprained. It won't be any good for a week. You are a bright boy!"
And in spite of his laughter Hal began to look ashamed.
Chapter XIX - ADVENTURES WITH CROCODILES.
THE rest of that night Ken had more dreams; I and they were not pleasant. He awoke from one in a cold fright.
It must have been late, for the moon was low. His ankle pained and throbbed, and to that he attributed his nightmare. He was falling asleep again when the clink of tin pans made him sit up with a start. Some animal was prowling about camp. He peered into the moonlit shadows, but could make out no unfamiliar object. Still he was not satisfied ; so he awoke Pepe.
Certainly it was not Ken's intention to let Pepe get out ahead ; nevertheless he was lame and slow, and before he started Pepe rolled out of the tent.
"Santa Maria!" shrieked Pepe.
Ken fumbled under his pillow for a gun. Hal raised up so quickly that he bumped Ken's head, making him see a million stars. George rolled over, nearly knocking down the tent.
From outside came a sliddery, rustling noise, then another yell that was deadened by a sounding splash. Ken leaped out with his gun, George at his elbow. Pepe stood just back of the tent, his arms upraised, and he appeared stunned. The water near the bank was boiling and bubbling; waves were dashing on the shore and ripples spreading in a circle.
George shouted, in Spanish.
"Crocodile!" cried Ken.
"Si, si, Senor," replied Pepe. Then he said that when he stepped out of the tent the crocodile was right in camp, not ten feet from where the boys lay. Pepe also said that these brutes were man-eaters, and that he had better watch for the rest of the night. Ken thought him, like all the natives, inclined to exaggerate; however, he made no objection to Pepe's holding watch over the crocodile.
" What'd I tell you?" growled George. " Why didn't you let me shoot him? Let's go back to' bed."
In the morning when Ken got up he viewed his body with great curiosity. The ticks and the cigarette burns had left him a beautifully tattoed specimen of aborigine. His body, especially his arms, bore hundreds of little reddish scars--bites and burns together. There was not, however, any itching or irritation, for which he made sure he had to thank Pepe's skill and the canya.
George did not get up when Ken called him. Thinking his sleep might have been broken, Ken let him alone a while longer, but when breakfast was smoking he gave him a prod. George rolled over, looking haggard and glum.
"I'm sick," he said.
Ken's cheerfulness left him, for he knew what sickness or injury did to a camping trip. George complained of aching bones, headache and cramps, and showed a tongue with a yellow coating. Ken said he had eaten too much fresh meat, but Pepe, after looking George over, called it a name that sounded like calentura.
"What's that?" Ken inquired.
" Tropic fever," replied George. "I've had it before."
For a while he was a very sick boy. Ken had a little medicine - case, and from it he administered what he thought was best, and George grew easier presently. Then Ken sat down to deliberate on the situation.
Whatever way he viewed it, he always came back to the same thing---they must get out of the jungle; and as they could not go back, they must go on down the river. That was a bad enough proposition without being hampered by a sick boy. It was then Ken had a subtle change of feeling; a shade of gloom seemed to pervade his spirit.
By nine o'clock they were packed, and, turning into the shady channel, soon weiv out in the sunlight saying good-by to Cypress Island. At the moment Ken did not feel sorry to go, yet he knew that feeling would come by and by, and that Cypress Island would take its place in his memory as one more haunting, calling wild place.
They turned a curve to run under a rocky bluff from which came a muffled roar of rapids. A long, projecting point of rock extended across the river, allowing the water to rush through only at a narrow mill-race channel close to the shore. It was an obstacle to get around. There was no possibility of lifting the boat over the bridge of rock, and the alternative was shooting the channel. Ken got out upon the rocks, only to find that drifting the boat round the sharp point was out of the question, owing to a dangerously swift current. Ken tried the depth of the water about four feet. Then he dragged the boat back a little distance and stepped into the river.
" Look! Look!" cried Pepe, pointing to the bank.
About ten yards away was a bare shelf of mud glistening with water and showing the deep tracks of a crocodile. It was a slide, and manifestly had just been vacated. The crocodile-tracks resembled the imprints of a giant's hand.
" Come out!" yelled George, and Pepe jabbered to his saints.
" We've got to go down this river," Ken replied, and he kept on wading till he got the boat in the current. He was frightened, of course, but he kept on despite that. The boat lurched into the channel, stern first, and lie leaped up on the bow. It shot down with the speed of a toboggan, and the boat whirled before he could scramble to the oars. What was worse, an overhanging tree with dead snags left scarce room to pass beneath. Ken ducked to prevent being swept overboard, and one of the snags that brushed and scraped him ran under his belt and lifted him into the air. He grasped at the first thing he could lay hands on, which happened to be a box, but he could not hold to it because the boat threatened to go on, leaving him kicking in midair and holding up a box of potatoes. Ken clutched a gunwale, only to see the water swell dangerously over the edge. In angry helplessness he loosened his hold. Then the snag broke, just in the nick of time, for in a second more the boat would have been swept away. Ken fell across the bow, held on, and soon drifted from under the threshing branches, and seized the oars.
Pepe and George and Hal walked round the ledge and, even when they reached Ken, had not stopped laughing.
" Boys, it wasn't funny," declared Ken, soberly.
" I said it was coming to us," replied George.
There were rapids below, and Ken went at them with stern eyes and set lips. It was the look of men who face obstacles in getting out of the wilderness. More than one high wave circled spitefully round Pepe's broad shoulders.
They came to a fall where the river dropped a few feet straight down. Ken sent the boys below. Hal and George made a detour. But Pepe jumped off the ledge into shallow water.
" Ah-hl" yelled Pepe.
Ken was becoming accustomed to Pepe's wild yell, but there was a note in this which sent a shiver over him. Before looking, Ken snatched his rifle from the boat.
Pepe appeared to be sailing out into the pool. But his feet were not moving.
Ken had only an instant, but in that he saw under Pepe a long, yellow, swimming shape, leaving a wake in the water. Pepe had jumped upon the back of a crocodile. He seemed paralyzed, or else he was wisely trusting himself there rather than in the water.. Ken was too shocked to offer
advice. Indeed, he would not have known how to meet this situation.
Suddenly Pepe leaped for a dry stone, and the energy of his leap carried him into the river beyond. Like a flash he was out again, spouting water.
Ken turned loose the automatic on the crocodile and shot a magazine of shells. The crocodile made a tremendous surge, churning up a slimy foam, then vanished in a pool.
"Guess this '11 be crocodile day," said Ken, changing the clip in his rifle. "I'll bet I made a hole in that one. Boys, look out below."
Ken shoved the boat over the ledge in line with Pepe, and it floated to him, while Ken picked his way round the rocky shore. The boys piled aboard again. The day began to get hot. Ken cautioned the boys to avoid wading, if possible, and to be extremely careful where they stepped. Pepe pointed now and then to huge bubbles breaking on the surface of the water and said they were made by crocodiles.
From then on Ken's hands were full. He struck swift water, where rapid after rapid, fall on fall, took the boat downhill at a rate to afford him satisfaction. The current had a five or six mile speed, and, as Ken had no portages to make and the corrugated rapids of big waves gave him speed, he made by far the best time of the voyage.
The hot hours passed--cool for the boys because they were always wet. The sun sank behind a hill. The wind ceased to whip the streamers of moss. At last, in a gathering twilight, Ken halted at a wide, flat rock to make camp.
"Forty miles to-day if we made an inch!" exclaimed Ken.
The boys said more.
They built a fire, cooked supper, and then, weary and silent, Hal and George and Pepe rolled into their blankets. But Ken doggedly worked an hour at his map and notes. That hard forty miles meant a long way toward the success of his trip.
Next morning the mists had not lifted from the river when they shoved off, determined to beat the record of yesterday. Difficulties beset them from the start--the highest waterfall of the trip, a leak in the boat, deep, short rapids, narrows with choppy waves, and a whirlpool where they turned round and round, unable to row out. Nor did they get free till Pepe lassoed a snag and pulled them out.
About noon they came to another narrow chute brawling down into a deep, foamy pool. Again Ken sent the boys around, and he backed the boat into the chute; and just as the current caught it he leaped aboard. He was either tired or careless, for he drifted too close to a half-submerged rock, and, try as he might, at the last moment he could not avoid a collision.
As the stern went hard on the rock Ken expected to break something, but was surprised at the soft thud with which he struck. It flashed into his mind that the rock was moss-covered.
Quick as the thought there came a rumble under the boat, the stem heaved up, there was a great sheet-like splash, and then a blow that splintered the gunwale. Then the boat shunted off, affording the astounded Ken a good view of a very angry crocodile. He had been sleeping on the rock.
The boys were yelling and crowding down to the shore where Ken was drifting in. Pepe waded in to catch the boat.
"What was it hit you, Ken?"' asked Hal. "Mucho malo," cried Pepe.
" The boat's half full of water--the gunwale's all split!" ejaculated George.
"Only an accident of river travel," replied Ken, with mock nonchalance. "Say, Garrapato, when, about when is it coming to me?"
"Well, if he didn't get slammed by a crocodile!" continued George.
They unloaded, turned out the water, broke up a box to use for repairs, and mended the damaged gunwale--work that lost more than a good hour. Once again under way,. Ken made some interesting observations. The river ceased to stand on end in places; crocodiles slipped off every _muddy promontory, and wide trails ridged the steep clay-banks.
" Cattle-trails, Pepe says," said George. "Wild cattle roam all through the jungle along the Panuco."
It was a well - known fact that the rancheros of Tamaulipas State had no idea how many cattle they owned. Ken was so eager to see if Pepe had been correct that he went ashore, to find the trails were, indeed, those of cattle.
"Then, Pepe, we must be somewhere near the Panuco River," he said.
"Quien sabe?" rejoined he, quietly.
When they rounded the curve they came upon a herd of cattle that clattered up the bank, raising a cloud of dust.
"Wilder than deer!" Ken exclaimed.
From that point conditions along the river changed. The banks were no longer green; the beautiful cypresses gave place to other trees, as huge, as moss-wound, but more rugged and of gaunt outline; the flowers and vines and shady nooks disappeared. Everywhere wide-horned steers and cows plunged up the banks. Everywhere buzzards rose from gruesome feasts. The shore was lined with dead cattle, and the stench of putrefying flesh was almost unbearable. They passed cattle mired in the mud, being slowly tortured to death by flies and hunger; they passed cattle that had slipped off steep banks and could not get back and were bellowing dismally; and also strangely acting cattle that Pepe said had gone crazy from ticks in their ears. Ken would have put these miserable beasts out of their misery had not George restrained him with a few words about Mexican law.
A sense of sickness came to Ken, and though he drove the feeling from him, it continually returned. George and Hal lay flat on the canvas, shaded with a couple of palm leaves; Pepe rowed on and on, growing more and more serious and quiet. His quick, responsive smile was wanting now.
By way of diversion, and also in the hope of securing a specimen, Ken began to shoot at the crocodiles. George came out of his lethargy and took up his rifle. He would have had to be ill indeed, to forswear any possible shooting; and, now that Ken had removed the bar, he forgot he had fever_ Every hundred yards or so they would come upon a crocodile measuring somewhere from about six feet upward, and occasionally they would see a great yellow one, as large as a log. Seldom did they get within good range of these huge fellows, and shooting from a moving boat was not easy. The smaller ones, however, allowed the boat to approach quite close. George bounced many a .32 bullet off the bank, but he never hit a crocodile. Ken allowed him to have the shots for the fun of it, and, besides, he was watching for a big one.
"George, that rifle of yours is leaded. It doesn't shoot where you aim."
When they got unusually close to a small crocodile George verified Ken's statement by missing his game some yards. He promptly threw the worn-out rifle overboard, an act that caused Pepe much concern.
Whereupon Ken proceeded to try his luck. Instructing Pepe to row about in the middle of the stream, he kept eye on one shore while George watched the other. He shot half a dozen small crocodiles, but they slipped off the bank before Pepe could get ashore. This did not appear to be the fault of the rifle, for some of the reptiles were shot almost in two pieces. But Ken had yet to learn more about the tenacity of life of these water-brutes. Several held still long enough for Ken to shoot them through, then with a plunge they went into the water, sinking at once in a bloody foam. He knew he had shot them through, for he saw large holes in the mud-banks lined with bits of bloody skin and bone.
" There's one," said George, pointing. " Let's get closer, so we can grab him. He's got a good piece to go before he reaches the water."
.. Pepe rowed slowly along, guiding the boat a little nearer the shore. At forty feet the crocodile raised up, standing on short legs, so that all but his tail was free of the ground. He opened his huge jaws either in astonishment or to intimidate them, and then Ken shot him straight down the throat. He flopped convulsively and started to slide and roll. When he reached the water he turned over on his back, with his feet sticking up, resembling a huge frog. Pepe rowed hard to the shore, just as the crocodile with one last convulsion rolled off into deeper water. Ken reached over, grasped his foot, and was drawing it up when a sight of cold, gla. Ssy eyes and open-fanged jaws made him let go. Then the crocodile sank in water where Pepe could not touch bottom with an oar.
" Let's get one if it takes a week," declared George. The lad might be sick, but there was noth
ing wrong with his spirit. " Look there!" he exclaimed. "Oh, I guess it's a log. Too big!"
They had been unable to tell the difference between a crocodile and a log of driftwood until it was too late. In this instance A long, dirty-gray object lay upon a low bank. Despite its immense size, which certainly made the chances in favor of its being a log, Ken determined this time to be fooled on the right side. He had seen a dozen logs--as he thought--suddenly become animated and slip into the river.
"Hold steady, Pepe. I'll take a crack at that just for luck."
The distance was about a hundred yards, a fine range for the little rifle. Resting on his knee, he sighted low, under the gray object, and pulled the trigger twice. There were two spats so close together as to be barely distinguishable. The log of driftwood leaped into life.
" Whoop !" shouted Hal.
" It's a crocodile!" yelled George. " You hit--you hit ! Will you listen to that ?"
" Row hard, Pepe--pull!"
He bent to the oars, and the boat flew shoreward.
The huge crocodile, opening yard-long jaws, snapped them shut with loud cracks. Then he beat the bank with his tail. It was as limber as a willow, but he seemed unable to move his central parts, his thick bulk, where Ken had sent the two mushroom bullets. Whack! Whack! Whack! The sodden blows jarred pieces from the clay-bank above him. Each blow was powerful enough to have staved in the planking of a ship. All at once he lunged upward and, falling over backward, slid down his runway into a few inches of water, where he stuck.
" Go in above him, Pepe," Ken shouted. "Here-- Heavens! What a monster!"
Deliberately, at scarce twenty feet, Ken shot the remaining four shells into the crocodile. The bullets tore through his horny hide, and blood and muddy water spouted up.
George and Pepe and Hal yelled, and Ken kept time with them. The terrible lashing tail swung back and forth almost too swiftly for the eye to catch. A deluge of mud and water descended upon the boys, bespattering, blinding them and weighing down the boat. They jumped out upon the bank to escape it. They ran to and fro in aimless excitement. Ken still clutched the rifle, but he had no shells for it. George was absurd enough to fling a stone into the blood-tinged cloud of muddy froth and spray that hid the threshing leviathan. Presently the commotion subsided enough for them to see the great crocodile lying half on his back, with belly all torn and bloody and huge claw-like hands pawing the air. He was edging, slipping off into deeper water., "He'll get away--he'll get away!" cried Hal. "What '11 we do?"