CHAPTER XX.—A CALL FOR HELP
“Then why didn’t you get it out a long time ago?” asked Alex. “If I knew where there was a bunch of gold, I’d buy three automobiles and a motor boat that would fly in the air!”
“I couldn’t get it out,” Frank replied. “I was watched by thieves! The minute my father died this Señor Lewiso, who had long been in the employ of my father in the trading business, began watching me and searching for the cavern.”
“The caverns!” corrected Case.
“You let him tell this story!” Alex exclaimed.
“Perhaps caverns is more accurate,” Frank laughed, “but it is with one special cavern that we have to do. There is only one cavern which is believed to be full of gold. Father declared that it held millions, and I have no reason to doubt either his judgment or his word.”
“It ought to be easy to find, if he found it,” Jule broke in.
“But it isn’t easy to find, unless you know just where to look for it,” Frank continued. “As I have already stated, some of the caverns show fissures through which steam oozes at times, forming misty clouds about the island. In these caverns there is no gold, or a very little, if any, as the rush of the water carries it through the openings to unknown depths below.
“During the great inundation I have referred to, gold was swept by the current into a cavern where there were no fissures. Subsequent floods and periods of high water increased the gold deposit in this cavern. They also covered the yellow metal up with ooze and earth.”
“Then it is still a guess! Of course, if it is covered up!”
This from Case, who had hardly breathed during the latter part of the narrative.
“So, if you don’t know where to locate this particular cavern,” Frank resumed, “you might hunt for it for years and never find it.”
“And you really know right where it is?” asked Clay. “Well, all this was worth while, wasn’t it?”
“I think so!” smiled the boy.
“Do any of these other people know?” asked Jule.
“They have only a faint idea as to where the gold is, but they are counting on taking their time and hunting until they find it.”
“They may finally blunder on it,” Case remarked.
He was about to say more, but, remembering his recent promise to get out of the role of prophet of evil, he checked himself, much to the satisfaction of the others.
“Strictly speaking,” Frank resumed, “the cavern where the gold is, is not a cavern at all! There was once a cavern there, but it was filled with gold and the wash of the mountains, so it now presents a level surface to the eye of one entering the crater.”
“Is it above water at this time of the year?” asked the practical Clay.
“Yes, I think so. In order to reach the gold, one must enter one of the steam caverns and cut through to the one filled with gold and gravel. This is what has puzzled them all, for there are many of these steam holes, large and small, and one to investigate thoroughly would be obliged to examine the entire inner surface of each one. Father found the deposit by accident.”
“What about this Señor Lewiso,” asked Clay. “You spoke of him in connection with some action following the death of your father.”
“He found what purported to be a map of the crater,” answered the boy, “and began digging for the gold, which he knew to be there somewhere. I never objected to his quest, as he was all wrong, but let him go on while I looked for men I could trust to assist me in getting the gold out.”
“But he must have found some gold,” Jule argued, “for it took money to get that steamer and follow you when you went out.”
“He undoubtedly did,” Frank admitted, “but he did not discover the main body of it. At least it was intact when I left for Chicago.”
“Why Chicago?”
“Because I believed my father’s people to be there.”
“And you found them?”
Frank shook his head.
“All dead,” he said, sadly. “On the way out in my boat I was attacked at the mouth of the Madeira, as I hinted before. Only for the fact that I hid my gold, and—and other things—in a tree, I would have been plucked clean by the Indians this scamp of a Lewiso sent upon me.
“When I left Ruination creek I left $800 in a tree, as you know, to come back to, for there was no telling what luck I would have outside. I left too much there, as it turned out, for I was hungry and cold in Chicago, even when I possessed——”
The boy hesitated and Clay gave Case a nudge on the shoulder.
“Possessed what?” asked Jule.
“Something which would have brought money and plenty,” was the guarded reply. “I heard of you boys, and used to hang about the Rambler nights, wondering if you would let me go with you. You see, this is an ideal party to go in quest of that gold,” he went on, “for no one would give us credit for being anything but a bunch of lads out for a vacation.”
“And you saw this Lewiso in Chicago, of course?”
“Oh, yes, and he caused me to be robbed, and arrested, and put out of hotels as a thief! I shall have a long account to settle with him when the time comes!”
“Then why didn’t you go to some man of wealth and state your ease to him? You could have secured money enough for the trip back after the gold,” suggested Clay.
“I tried that,” Frank answered, “but never succeeded in closing a deal with anyone. Lewiso caused me to be shadowed, and whenever I interested a man in the enterprise he sought him out and discouraged him. At times, until the very last, he would act friendly toward me, but this was only to lead me on to confide in him. He probably followed me when I went to the South Branch pier nights and learned of my desires. Anyway, he heard plenty of talk about going to the Amazon, coming from the Rambler, and doubtless took it for granted that I had joined hands with you, and that we were going after the money.”
“You think he bought the steamer there after hearing of our trip?”
“I am sure of it. He was foolish enough to believe I would lead the way to the gold and let him get it!”
“And now where do these Englishmen come in?” asked Clay, desirous of clearing up the whole mystery at once.
“I never knew them at Cloud island, but it seems that they knew of me. One of them, I am almost certain, was formerly the valet of an English nobleman who visited father at his home on the upper Amazon. He undoubtedly interested the other in the adventure. Where he got the maps the boys secured is more than I know.”
“Are they valuable?”
“Not worth the paper they are drawn on.”
“Still their loss evidently urged the fellows on,” Clay mused. “They seem determined, now, to keep pace with the Señorita, doubtless believing that Lewiso has secured, while shadowing you, the needed information regarding the cavern.”
“Something like that,” Frank replied. “I have often wondered how those two men came to mention Cloud island at Ruination creek that night,” he continued. “I can account for it only on the theory that Ugly, the Indian who was with them there, had been a member of the party which attacked and searched me in that vicinity. They engaged him as guide, and he might have recognized me and told them about my being a member of the other Cloud island party which had stopped there.”
“I guess you have that sized up correctly,” Clay remarked. “I hope,” he went on, with a broad smile, “to be somewhere near when Lewiso and the Englishmen meet! Each one thinks the other has secured from you the important information!”
“In the meantime,” Frank remarked, “we’ll let them watch and shoot at each other on the way to Cloud island. We can loiter along the river and enjoy ourselves.”
“Why not hustle right along, and take no chances on their getting the gold?” asked Case, the most enthusiastic member of the party, now that the goal seemed within reach.
“You boys were planning a good time,” Frank answered, “when I joined you. You were figuring on long days and nights on the Amazon, fishing and hunting. Then I connected with you, bringing my troubles along as my only baggage! Since then we’ve been kept busy keeping alive. We have fought days and kept guard nights, until you must be sick of your bargain, the bringing of yours truly along.”
“Aw, it’s been fun!” Alex broke in, and the rest echoed the thought, though not in the same words. “Besides you had baggage! You’ve got our note now, this minute for $800!”
“And now,” Frank went on, “I see no reason why we can’t fall back on the old program, and loiter along, fishing and hunting and learning something of the country. As for the note, I’ve burned that!”
“That will be all right, too!” Jule cut in, “we all like that! But we’ll pay it all the same, and if you say that we’ve got any the worst of it by bringing you along, I’ll set the dog on you.”
“We should have been lacking in excitement!” Alex added.
“It would have been a quilting party without you,” Clay laughed. “Your affairs have kept us busy—but we like to be busy,” he closed with a friendly poke at Captain Joe, who immediately stood up on his hind legs and dropped his forepaws into an attitude of meditation.
“Oh, say what you will about it,” Frank protested, “I know that I’ve been a marplot all through, and now I want you boys to join in with me and have a game old time. Who’s for it?”
Four lusty yells answered the challenge.
“All right, then,” Frank continued, “we’ll tie up right here, in that little bay, and see what sort of a country Ecuador is.”
“I’d like to go into the interior,” Clay remarked.
“It seems that the forest is more open here than on the Madeira.”
“It surely is,” Alex confirmed, “and I move that we go back from the river a short distance and look up a jaguar or an ant-eater.”
“Whoo—pee!”
This from Jule, who at once began pulling on a pair of long-legged boots he had brought with him from Chicago. The boy was always obsessed to get into the forest.
“What about weapons?” asked Clay.
“I’ll take my bean-shooter,” Alex proposed.
“What’s that?” asked Frank.
“Bean-shooter?”
“Yes, what is it?”
Alex brought out his long zarabatana, or blow-gun and shot an arrow to the shore, twenty paces away, where it fluttered in the bole of a tree.
“I have used those,” Frank laughed, “but I never before heard them called bean-shooters.”
“I’m going to hunt with this,” Alex went on. “If I see a jaguar I’ll fill him so full of arrows that he’ll look like a feather bed turned wrong side out.”
“And what will he be doing all this time?” asked Jule.
“Getting out of the way!” roared Alex.
The Rambler was soon anchored, and four of the lads went ashore, leaving Case in charge of the boat. It was a beautiful afternoon, though, of course, very warm, and the boys set out with high spirits to inspect a bit of Ecuador forest which fringed a creek emptying into the Amazon.
As they proceeded through the forest Alex came to a great tree which seemed to have been “slashed,” as the knights of old “slashed” their doublets. It was almost red on the outside, and great “slashes” in the bark showed a tender green. While the boy was looking at the tree in wonder Frank came up and, catching one of the reddish strips, peeled it from the trunk as one peels a banana.
“What kind of a tree is that?” asked Alex.
“Mulatto tree.”
“Why mulatto tree?” asked Jule.
“Because it is black before it begins to shed its bark.”
“Shed its bark?” repeated Clay.
“It sheds its bark every year, like a snake,” was Frank’s amazing reply.
Clay ripped off one of the long slabs, disclosing a pretty green surface underneath.
“That is the new bark,” Frank explained.
Clay dropped the slab of bark and turned it over with his foot.
“Heavy?” asked Alex.
“As a stone.”
“It makes fine wood, and also fine shingles for a hut,” Frank went on. “We’ll use some of it to cook supper with.”
“Cook it now!” urged Alex, his hand on his stomach.
“Right now!” Jule joined in the hungry request.
“Earn your suppers!” grinned Clay. “Go and kill a jaguar.”
“But don’t get far from the river,” warned Frank, “and don’t get lost in the jungle back there.”
“Any bears back there?” asked Jule, with a wink at Alex.
“There’s worse—snakes a rod long.”
“That’s my snake!” shouted Jule, and off he went, not stopping to permit Alex to come up with him.
“That kid has steam enough for a Central Lines locomotive,” Clay said, as the boy disappeared. “Do you remember how ill he was that night on the South Branch?” he added, turning to Frank.
“He looked like death had him,” was the reply.
“And look at him now,” Clay exclaimed, proudly, “look at him now! There isn’t a healthier lad in nine states! Hear him yell, in there! Not much like tuberculosis, eh?”
“No,” Frank agreed, as he put up a hand for Clay to cease talking.
“What is it?”
Clay was all anxiety at once.
“Sounds like the kid calling for help. Did he take a gun with him?”
“Of course.”
“Where’s Alex?”
“He went the other way.”
There was a short silence and then Jule’s voice rang out, sharp and clear:
“Help! Come on a run!”