CHAPTER XII.—A PLOT AGAINST THE RAMBLER
In the meantime, the three boys on the Rambler were becoming a bit restless, and not a little anxious too. The Brazilian night was dark, and there was a whisper of wind in the trees. The water lapped the shores and the sides of the boat unceasingly, as if uttering a warning to them to be up and away. It was almost unbearably hot, too, for they were nearly under the equator.
“I think I know what the kid is thinking about when he talks of a cargo,” Alex said, presently. “He has often talked to me about gathering Brazil nuts and taking a load out to some shipping point. They bring good prices in New York.”
“Do you mean these three-cornered nuts?” asked Jule.
“Sure! The ones you whittle the shells from with a knife, and find a solid, triangular piece of meat on the inside. They grow in big clusters which look like hornets’ nests, and they break open the heads of the Indians when they fall from the tree. A ton would bring nearly $400 in Chicago, and that would help some, especially as we’ll probably get back there broke and hungry.”
“When did you take up Case’s role of prophet of evil?” asked Clay.
Alex laughed and said no more at that time.
“I’ve got a better guess than that,” Jule began, then. “He is going after rubber. They tap trees and a white sap runs out, and they cook the sap in smoke, over moulds, and make rubber coats. I’ll wager he’s got a cache of rubber in there.”
“I wonder where the rubber trees first came from?” asked Alex.
“Oh, they came down from the mountains.”
This from Jule, who had been reading books about South America all the way down—books presented by Captain Joe.
“A few million years ago,” Jule went on, glad of a chance to air his knowledge, “a sort of Mediterranean sea covered all the Amazon basin. The mouth of the big river was away up to the west there, near the foothills. Then the rains of the long years washed the soil down into the valley, inch by inch, and the rivers pushed it along until the continent east of the mountains was formed.”
“Must have taken a long time to wash this continent down!” yawned Alex.
“I said millions of years, didn’t I?” reproved Jule. “And the continent isn’t finished yet. Do you comprehend that, boys? The continent isn’t finished to-day! Not after millions of years!”
“That’s about the length of time Case and Frank have been gone!” declared Alex, nudging Clay to watch Jule display anger at the irrelevant observation.
“The continent won’t be completed for millions of years,” Jule went on, not at all put out by the alleged witticism. “The Amazon alone is carrying enough sediment to the Atlantic every day to make a cube of earth five hundred feet each way. How long will it take all the rivers running down from the Andes to wash the hills into the sea? Perhaps you can tell me that, Smarty?” he added, tapping Alex on the head with his open palm, whereat Captain Joe rolled up his red eyes, though the boys could not see them in the darkness, and emitted a series of low growls.
“Where will it all end?” asked Clay, musingly.
“When there are no more mountains,” Jule answered, proudly, sure of his ground. “The mountains will be washed into the seas, and the seas will fill up, and then the world will be finished.”
“I wish this night was finished!” Alex broke in. “I wish Case and Frank would come back, cargo or no cargo.”
“I think I’ll go a little way into the forest and see what they are up to,” Clay suggested, and Alex and Jule were on their feet in a moment.
“That’s just what we’ll do,” Jule cried. “We will go look ’em up!”
“But we can’t all go and leave the boat alone.”
“Why, the boat won’t run away!”
“Someone might run away with it, though.”
“Tell you,” Jule suggested, “we’ll leave the prow light burning, so we can see if anyone goes near it, and then we won’t go out of sight of the light. How will that answer?”
“Fine!” Alex panted, trying to pull Captain Joe back into the cabin. His highness, the dog, did not relish the notion of being locked up in the hot little coop while the boys had a run on shore, so he drew back with all his strength.
Alex won at last, however, and the door was closed on the indignant bulldog. To speak the truth, Clay was rather glad that the boys had chosen to accompany him to the shore, for it was dark and uncanny in the forest. There was an indication of rain, though it was in the midst of the dry season, and a strange odor which they could not account for came to the nostrils of the lads.
“A Brazilian forest,” Jule said, as they left the row-boat tied up in a thicket and faced the jungle, “is about the most mysterious place on the round earth. Down here where we are, in the basement, it is always twilight, even at noon of a sunny day. We see only the stems of plants and creepers and the boles of the trees. The beauty, the blossoms, the colors, the magnificence, is all at the top. Someone said that the only place from which to view a South American forest in all its glory is from the top of a mountain, or from an aeroplane.”
“There isn’t much magnificence down here,” Alex answered. “Here, Jule, what you got in your clothes that smells like matches, and what you sneaking off there alone for?”
“Never you mind!” Jule replied. “You just stick to your guesses and let me alone. I’m going to give those boys the scare of their lives. I’ll teach them to go off and stay like this!”
“You stay here!” commanded Clay, but the mischievous boy was already gone. They heard him pushing through the underbrush for a time, saw the round eye of his flashlight as it swept aloft, and then the jungle was once more still—save for the natural life within it—and dark.
“Shall we go on in after him?” asked Alex. “He may get into trouble, and he’s none too strong yet.”
“I think we would better remain here,” Clay replied. “If there is danger we will hear the signal agreed upon.”
“Frank says he remained hidden in a tree in there for some time,” Alex remarked, then. “Now, what was he hiding from, and how did he get down here? If he came in a steamer, and the steamer was waiting for him outside, that wouldn’t be hiding at all. Might as well try to hide while riding on the neck of an elephant!”
“Have you ever thought that Frank may be the one who put the marked paper on the Rambler that morning?” asked Clay, irrelevantly.
“Yes, I have thought of that, but why should he have done it—if he did? If he knew where the diamonds were, why didn’t he arrange things so he could secure the reward for himself? He needed the money badly enough, according to his own story.”
“But how could he know where the diamonds were?” asked Clay.
“Well, the person who left the marked paper on the boat knew where the stones were! You can’t get away from that! Besides, Frank had been seen loitering outside, and there had been a motion at the glass panel of the door just before he showed himself. Oh, it is all rather suspicious!”
“We’ll have to give the boy time to explain everything,” Clay admonished. “I have great faith in him.”
“How long do you think that kid, Jule, will remain in there?” Alex yawned.
“Not long, I hope.”
It had been the original intention to enter the jungle as far as the boat light could be seen, but now the necessity of remaining where they were, or close to the shore, was apparent, as they had no means of knowing in which direction either of the boys had gone, and there were three wanderers to watch for instead of only two. If they followed in the direction supposed to have been taken by Frank and Case, they would be apt to get farther and farther from Jule, and if they tried to follow the latter, it would be the two who would be farthest from their help, should help be required.
The only course to pursue, then, with reference to boys who were in the dark forest, was to remain where they were, guard the boat, and be prepared to get back to the Rambler in quick time should necessity demand such action.
The boys waited with premonitions of approaching evil in their minds. Now and then Captain Joe, disgusted with the conduct of his master, sent out a call for sympathy and liberty, and the voice of the dog sounded cheerful and friendly to the anxious lads.
Small creatures of air and thicket were talking all around them, and now and then a gruffer utterance in the distance told of larger denizens of the forest aroused by the visit of the boys. After a time a crunching in the undergrowth warned the listeners that some creature of large size was approaching them on a visit of inspection.
“It may be an Indian!” Alex whispered, when the sounds were very close indeed.
“An Indian wouldn’t advance in the midst of a racket like that,” Clay reasoned. “It is probably some wild animal coming up to see what all this row is about. Keep your automatic and your flashlight ready.”
Alex did not need any such warning, for he stood with the automatic in one hand and the dark flashlight in the other.
The trampling came on, closer and closer, and the boys involuntarily drew nearer together. They could hear shrubs cracking and breaking under the heavy tread of their approaching visitor.
“It must be a jaguar!” whispered Alex. “Shall I turn on my light before he gets up to us?”
“More likely a peccary, or wild hog,” Clay suggested. “They are dangerous only when attacked.”
Snorts and grunts coming from the thicket soon proved the correctness of this supposition, and then the peccary turned back, much to the relief of the boys and the disgust of Captain Joe, who had from the cabin scented a possible enemy and a chance at pursuit.
Then another and much more surprising and disquieting sound came from the forest. This was nothing less than the gruff voices of two men, speaking in English. The boys listened in wonder and dismay. Who could these people be? Why were they there in that lonely spot? Were their intentions friendly or hostile? These questions were soon answered, and in a most unsatisfactory manner.
“The Indian will take care of the two kids, all right,” they heard a coarse voice say, “and we’ll get into the boat before the others wake up.”
“Lucky to find a boat here—and a motor boat at that,” another voice said. “It won’t take us long to get to the headwaters now.”
The boys stood perfectly still, listening to the throaty chuckles which followed this last remark. And so the new comers were enemies, and had designs on the boat! More than that, their conversation indicated that two of the boys, probably Case and Frank, had been discovered by the marauders and left in the custody of a native! The situation was serious, especially as the prow light disclosed the deserted condition of the Rambler.
One of the men moved out to the shore, so that a burly figure was outlined against the light on the prow of the boat. The lads moved forward a pace, in order to inspect the intruder at closer range, and a snapping twig betrayed their presence.
“Stay where you are!” a rough voice called back to them, “and we’ll just take charge of this boat!”
“Step into that light,” Clay answered, “and you’ll take charge of a bullet!”