Soon Tom and Mr. Rover presented themselves at the top of the hollow, followed by Aleck and Cujo. The latter procured a rope made of twisted vines, and by this Dick was raised up without much difficulty.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE LAST OF JOSIAH CRABTREE
All listened intently to the story Dick had to tell, and he had not yet finished when Dick Chester presented himself, having been attracted to the vicinity by the roars of the lion and the various pistol and gun shots.
“This Crabtree must certainly be as bad as you represent,” he said. “I will have a talk with him when I get back to our camp.”
“It won’t be necessary for you to talk to him,” answered Dick grimly. “If you’ll allow me, I’ll do the talking.”
“All right,” grinned the Yale student. “Do, as you please. We are a getting tired of him.”
Chester and Cujo descended into the hollow to examine the lion. There was a bullet in his right foreleg which Chester proved had come from his rifle. “He must be the beast Frank Rand and I fired at from across the lake. Probably he had his home in the hollow and limped over to it during the night.”
“In that case you are entitled to your fair share of the meat—if you wish any,” said Randolph Rover with a smile. “But I think the pelt goes to Tom, for he fired the shot that was really fatal.” And that skin did go to Tom, and lies on his parlor floor at home today.
“Several of the students from Yale had been out on a long tour the afternoon before, in the direction, of the mountain, and they had reported meeting several natives who had seen King Susko. He was reported to have but half a dozen of his tribe with him, including a fellow known as Poison Eye.
“That’s a bad enough title for anybody,” said Sam with a shudder. “I suppose his job is to poison their enemies if they can’t overcome them in regular battle.”
“Um tell de thruf,” put in Cujo. “Once de Mimi tribe fight King Susko, and whip him. Den Susko send Poison Eye to de Mimi camp. Next day all drink-water get bad, an’ men, women, an’ children die off like um flies.”
“That’s cheerful information,” said Tom.
“And why didn’t they slay the poisoner?”
“Eberybody ‘fraid to touch him—’fraid he be poisoned.”
“I’d run my chances—providing I had a knife or a club,” muttered Tom.
“Or a pistol,” finished Sam. “Such rascals are not fit to live.”
Dick, as can readily be imagined, was hungry, and before the party started back for the lake, the youth was provided with some food which Aleck had very thoughtfully carried with him.
It was learned that the two parties were encamped not far apart, and Dick Chester said he would bring his friends to, see them before the noon hour was passed.
“I don’t believe he will bring Josiah Crabtree,” said Tom. “I reckon Crabtree will take good care to keep out of sight.”
Tom was right. When Chester came over with his friends he said that the former teacher of Putnam Hall was missing, having left word that he was going around the lake to look for a certain species of flower which so far they had been unable to add to their specimens.
“But he will have to come back,” said the Vale student. “He has no outfit with which to go it alone.”
He was right. Crabtree put in an appearance just before the sun set over the jungle to the westward. He presented a most woebegone appearance, having fallen into a muddy swamp on his face.
“I—I met with an—an unfortunate accident,” he said to Chester. “I fell into the—ahem—mud, and it was only with great difficulty that I managed to—er—to extricate myself.”
“Josiah Crabtree, you didn’t expect to see me here, did you?” said Dick sternly, as he stepped forward. And then the others of his party also came out from where they had been hiding in the brush.
The former teacher of Putnam Hall started as if confronted by a ghost.
“Why—er—where did you come from, Rover?” he faltered.
“You know well enough where I came from, Josiah Crabtree,” cried Dick wrathfully. “You dropped me into the hollow for dead, didn’t you!”
“Why, I—er—that—is—” stammered Crabtree; but could actually go no further.
“Don’t waste words on him, Dick,” put in Tom. “Give him the thrashing he deserves.”
“Thrashing!” gasped Crabtree.
“Yes, thrashing,” replied Dick. “If we were in America I would have you locked up. But out here we must take the law into our own hands. I am going to thrash you to the very best of my ability, and after that, if I meet you again I’ll—I’ll—”
“Dun shoot him on sight,” suggested Aleck.
“You shall not touch me!” said the former teacher with a shiver. “Chester—Rand—will you not aid me against this—er—savage young brute?”
“Don’t you call Dick a brute,” put in Sam.
“If there is any brute here it is you, and everyone in our party will back up what I say.”
“Mr. Crabtree, I have nothing to say in this matter,” said Dick Chester. “It would seem that your attack on Rover was a most atrocious one, and out here you will have to take what punishment comes.”
“But you will help me, won’t you, Rand?” pleaded the former teacher, nervously.
“No, I shall stand by Chester,” answered Rand.
“And will you, too, see me humiliated?” asked Crabtree, turning to the other Yale students. “I, the head of your expedition into equatorial Africa!”
“Mr. Crabtree, we may as well come to an understanding,” said one of the students, a heavyset young man named Sanders. “We hired you to do certain work for us, and we paid you well for that work. Since we left America you have found fault with nearly everything, and in a good many instances which I need not recall just now you have not done as you agreed. You are not the learned scientist you represented yourself to be—instead, if we are to believe our newly made friends here, you are a pretender, a big sham, and a brute in the bargain. This being so, we intend to dispense with your services from this day forth. We will pay you what is coming to you, give you your share of our outfit, and then you can go your way and we will go ours. We absolutely want nothing more to do with you.”
This long speech on Sanders’ part was delivered amid a deathlike silence. As the student went on, Josiah Crabtree bit his lip until the blood came. Once his baneful eyes fairly flashed fire at Sanders and then at Dick Rover, but then they fell to the ground.
“And so you—ahem—throw me off,” he said, drawing a long breath. “Very well. But I demand all that is coming to me.”
“You shall have every cent.”
“And a complete outfit, so that I can make my way back to the coast.”
“All that is coming to you—no more and no less,” said Sanders firmly.
“But he shan’t go without that thrashing!” cried Dick, and catching up a long whip he had had Cujo cut for him he leaped upon Josiah Crabtree and brought down the lash with stinging effect across the former teacher’s face, leaving a livid mark that Crabtree was doomed to wear to the day of his death. “There you are! And there is another for the way you treated Stanhope, and another for what you did to Dora, and one for Tom, and another for Sam, and another—”
“Oh! oh! let up! The boy will kill me!” shrieked Crabtree, trying to run away. “Don’t—I will be cut to pieces! Don’t! don’t!” And as the lash came down over his head, neck, and shoulders, he danced madly around in pain. At last he broke for cover and disappeared, not to show himself again until morning, when he called Chester to him, asked for and received, what was coming to him, and departed, vowing vengeance on the Rovers and all of the others.
“He will remember you for that, Dick,” said Sam, when the affair was over. “He will be your enemy for life.”
“Let him be—I
am not afraid of him,” responded the elder brother.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE JOURNEY TO THE MOUNTAIN
By noon of the day following the Rover expedition was on its way to the mountain said to be so rich in gold. The students from Yale went with them.
“It’s like a romance, this search after your father,” said Chester to Dick. “I hope you find him. You can rest assured that our party will do all we can for you. Specimen hunting is all well enough, but man hunting is far more interesting.”
“I would like to go on a regular hunt for big game some day,” said Tom. He had already mentioned Mortimer Blaze to the Yale students.
“Yes, that’s nice—if you are a crack shot, like Sanders. He can knock the spots from a playing card at a hundred yards.”
“Maybe he’s a Western boy,” laughed Sam.
“He is. His father owns a big cattle ranch there, and Sanders learned to shoot while rounding up cattle. He’s a tip-top fellow.”
They had passed over a small plain and were now working along a series of rough rocks overgrown with scrub brush and creeping vines full of thorns. The thorns stuck everybody but Cujo, who knew exactly how to avoid them.
“Ise dun got scratched in ‘steen thousand places,” groaned Aleck. “Dis am worse dan a bramble bush twice ober, by golly!”
For two days the united expeditions kept on their way up the mountain side, which sloped gradually at its base, the steeper portion still being several days’ journey distant.
During these days they shot several wild animals including a beautiful antelope, while Sam caught a monkey. But the monkey bit the boy in the shoulder, and Sam was glad enough to get rid of the mischievous creature.
On the afternoon of the second day Cujo, who was slightly in advance of the others, called a halt.
“Two men ahead ob us, up um mountain,” he said. “Cujo Vink one of dern King Susko.”
“I hope it is!” cried Dick quickly.
The discovery was talked over for a few minutes, and it was decided that Cujo should go ahead, accompanied by Randolph Rover and Dick. The others were to remain on guard for anything which might turn up.
Dick felt his heart beat rapidly as he advanced with his uncle and the African guide through the tangle of thorns and over the rough rocks. He felt that by getting closer to King Susko, he was also getting closer to the mystery which surrounded his father’s disappearance.
“Dar him am!” whispered Cujo, presently. “See, da is gwine up into a big hole in de side ob de mountain?”
“Can you make out if it is Susko or not?”
“Not fo’ certain, Massah Dick. But him belong to de Burnwo tribe, an’ de udder man too.”
“If they are all alone it will be an easy matter to capture them,” said Randolph Rover. “All told, we are twelve to two.”
“They have disappeared into the cave.” Cried Dick a minute later. “Come on, and we’ll soon know something worth knowing, I feel certain of it.”
Cujo now asked that he be allowed to proceed alone, to make certain that no others of the Burnwo tribe were in the vicinity.
“We must be werry careful,” he said. “Burnwos kill eberybody wot da find around here if not dare people.”
“Evidently they want to keep the whole mountain of gold to themselves,” observed Dick. “All right, Cujo, do as you think best—I know we can rely upon you.”
After this they proceeded with more care than ever-along a rocky edge covered with loose stones. To one side was the mountain, to the other a sheer descent of several hundred feet, and the footpath was not over a yard wide.
“A tumble here would be a serious matter,” said Randolph Rover. “Take good care, Dick, that you don’t step on a rolling stone.”
But the ledge was passed in safety, and in fifteen minutes more they were close to the opening is the side of the mountain. It was an irregular hole about ten feet wide and twice as high. The a rocks overhead stuck out for several yards, and from these hung numerous vines, forming a sort of Japanese curtain over the opening.
While the two Rovers waited behind a convenient rock, Cujo crawled forward on his hand and knees into the cave. They waited for ten minutes, just then it seemed an hour, but he did not reappear.
“He is taking his time,” whispered Dick.
“Perhaps something has happened to him,” returned Randolph Rover. “I do not like this oppressive silence. Have your pistol ready for use. We may need our weapons.”
“I’ve had my pistol ready all along,” answered the boy, exhibiting the weapon. “That encounter with the lion taught me a lesson. If Cujo—What’s that?”
Dick broke off short, for a sound on the rocks above the cave entrance had reached his ears. Both gazed in the direction, but could see nothing.
“What alarmed you?” asked Randolph Rover hurriedly.
“I heard a rustling in the bushes up there perhaps, though, it was only a bird or some small animal.”
“I can see nothing, Dick.”
“Neither can I; but I am certain—Out of sight, Uncle Randolph, quick!”
Dick caught his uncle by the arm, and both threw themselves flat behind the rocks. Scarcely had they gone down than two spears came whizzing forward, one hitting the rocks and the other sailing over their heads and burying itself in a tree trunk several yards away. They caught a glance of two natives on the rocks over them, but with the launching of the spears the Africans disappeared.
CHAPTER XXVIII
KING SUSKO
“My gracious, this is getting at close range!” burst out Dick, when he could catch his breath again. “Uncle Randolph, they meant to kill us!”
“Indeed they did, Dick. And this is no safe place for stopping. We must retreat.”
“But Cujo—?”
“He must be cautioned.” Randolph Rover raised his voice. “Cujo! Cujo! They have discovered us! Take care that they do not spear you.”
No reply came back to this call, which was several times repeated. Then came a crash, as a big stone was hurled down, to split into a score of pieces on the rock which sheltered them.
“They mean to dislodge us,” said Dick. “If they would only show themselves—”
He stopped, for he had seen one of the Bumwos peering over a mass of short brush directly over the cave entrance. Taking hasty aim with his pistol be fired.
A yell of pain followed, proving that the African had been hit. But the Bumwo was not seriously wounded, and soon he sent another stone at them, this time hitting Randolph Rover on the leg.
“Oh!” gasped Dick’s uncle, and drew up that member with a wry face.
“Did he hurt you much, Uncle Randolph?”
“He hurt me enough. You villain, take that!” And now the man fired, but the bullet flew wide of its mark, for Randolph Rover had practiced but little with firearms.
They now thought it time to retreat, and, watching their chance, they ran from the rocks to the trees beyond. While they were exposed another spear was sent after them, cutting its way through Mr. Rover’s hat brim and causing that gentleman to turn as pale as a sheet.
“A few inches closer and it would have been my head!” he ejaculated. “This is growing too warm for comfort. Perhaps we had better rejoin the others, Dick.”
“Cujo! Cujo! Where are you?” cried the boy once more. But as before no answer came back.
The shots had alarmed the others of the expedition, and all were hurrying along the rocky ledge when Randolph Rover and Dick met them.
“We must turn back!” exclaimed Randolph Rover. “If you go ahead we may be caught in an ambush. The Bumwos have discovered our presence and mean to kill us if they can!”
Suddenly a loud, deep voice broke upon them, coming from the rocks over the cave entrance.
“White men must leave this mountain!” cried
the voice. “This country belongs to the Bumwos. White man has no right here! Go! Go before it is too late!”
“Who is that who speaks?” demanded Randolph Rover.
“I am King Susko, chief of the Bumwos.”
“Will you come and have a talk with us?”
“No want to talk. Want the white man to leave,” answered the African chief, talking in fairly good English.
“We do not wish to quarrel with you, King Susko; but you will find it best for you if you will grant us an interview,” went on Randolph Rover.
“The white man must go away from this mountain. I will not talk with him,” replied the African angrily.
“Do you know why we are here?”
“To rob the Bumwos of their gold.”
“No; we are looking for a lost man, one who came to this country years ago and one who was your prisoner—”
“The white man is no longer here—he went home long time ago.”
“We do not believe you!” cried Tom. “You have him a prisoner, and unless you deliver him up you shall suffer dearly for it.”
This threat evidently angered the African chief greatly, for suddenly a spear was launched at the boy, which pierced Tom’s shoulder.
As Tom went down, a shout went up from the rocks, and suddenly a dozen or more Bumwos appeared, shaking their spears and acting as if they meant to rush down on the party below without further warning.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE VILLAGE ON THE MOUNTAIN
“Tom is wounded!” shouted Sam. He ran to his brother, to find the blood flowing freely over Tom’s shoulder. “Is it bad?” he asked.
“I—I guess not,” answered Tom with a gasp of pain. Then, as full of pluck as usual, Tom raised his pistol and fired, hitting one of the Bumwos in the breast and sending him to the rear, seriously wounded.
It was evident that Cujo had been mistaken and that there were far more of their enemies around the mountain than they had anticipated. From behind the Rover expedition a cry arose, telling that more of the natives were coming from that direction.
“We are being hemmed in,” said Dick Chester nervously. “Perhaps we had better retreat.”
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