CHAPTER XXI.—“A NICE, QUIET EXCURSION”
“Come a-running!” repeated Jule, his voice sounding close at hand.
Clay swung his gun to the front as he rushed for the thicket.
“Be careful!” warned Frank. “If there is a drove of wild hogs in there, and you should happen to kill one, they would give you the fight of your life.”
“Can you follow the sound?” asked Clay, as they pushed along through the undergrowth.
“Straight ahead,” was the reply.
“But there is a movement in the brush away to the left. That may be Jule.”
“It is Alex,” panted Frank, for they were moving fast and having a hard time working their way through the jungle, which increased in density as they proceeded. “Can’t you see the point of what he calls his bean-shooter?” continued Frank. “See, he is coming this way.”
In a moment Alex joined them as they ran, and the three made good progress. Only once they stopped to listen. They had heard nothing from the boy for a minute or more, and they were not quite sure they were going in the right direction.
“If he would only shoot, or call again,” Alex grumbled.
Then the call came, from the dense copse just ahead:
“Come on a run!”
The voice sounded faint.
“Coming!” exclaimed Alex.
“Come on a run——”
The voice ceased, and Alex darted ahead so fast that Clay and Frank were left behind. In a moment they heard him shout:
“Drop your head! Drop it!”
There was no sound for a second, and then a great tumbling took place on the small growths of the forest. Then came a sound like the fall of a heavy body to the ground. This was followed by a whipping noise, like that made by slapping a rug against a post to get the dust out of it. And then the cracking of little bushes and plants, the rustling of foliage, as if a street sweeper were being drawn over them.
“Come on in!” yelled Alex.
“The water’s fine!” came Jule’s voice, but it was not so strong as it had been an hour before.
“What has been going on in there?” asked Clay. “What is that noise, that slapping, that threshing about?”
“That’s probably a serpent—a boa—kicking the bucket,” Frank answered.
“A what?” questioned Clay. “A serpent in there?”
“Surest thing you know! And I imagine from familiar sounds that he nearly got Jule!”
“But how?” puzzled Clay.
“Hypnotized him!” Frank answered. “But come on,” he continued. “We may as well go in and learn the facts as to stand here and guess.”
They passed through a fringe of thorny vines and came out in a small glade. In the middle of this slight clearing stood Alex and Jule, the latter looking pale and shriveled. At their feet lay the still writhing body of a giant boa—one of the constrictor serpents which make the forests of South America so dangerous.
“Look at him,” Alex shouted, pointing to the serpent. “Look at the arrow plump through his neck! Broke the backbone of him at the first shot. Don’t you ever tell me that I can’t edit one of these bean-shooters! What? That’s his snake!” he added, making a face at Jule.
The serpent was still pounding about the glade, but his backbone had been broken by the boy’s arrow, and his death was only a question of time. Jule approached Clay with an apologetic smile on his face.
“He near got me!” he said.
“How?” asked Clay, not having understood Frank’s short explanation of what might have taken place.
“I guess he hypnotized me,” answered Jule. “You see, fellows, I was walking along right here when I heard a hiss and a sliding motion in the tree, the one straight ahead. I looked up quick, of course, and there was that great flat, triangular head swinging back and forth before my eyes.”
“Why didn’t you duck and run?”
Jule glanced at Alex scornfully and went on.
“I just couldn’t move. All I could do was to wag my tongue, and I take it you know what I said. I don’t. I know my head swayed back and forth in response to the motions of the snake. I saw all kinds of bright and beautiful lights in the wicked eyes of him. I felt his great, sticky face rubbing against my cheek! Ough!”
“That’s the way they charm birds and monkeys,” Frank said.
“And then Alex came up and his arrow struck the serpent in the neck and I was free from the fascination, but weak—just as weak as a cat!”
“That was a good shot, Alex,” Frank said, stepping forward to inspect the arrow, which had passed entirely through the neck of the great reptile, protruding at both sides.
“It is a wonder!” the boy replied. “I was so scared that I didn’t know what I was doing. You see, this great brute had his head right on the kid’s shoulder. I never saw a human face as white as his was at that time!”
“It wasn’t any whiter than I felt,” grinned Jule. The boys finished the serpent with a couple of shots and started back to the river. They walked a long ways, but still no water showed in the distance.
Then Frank put out his hand and stood still. When he put it out to Clay there was a drop of rain in the palm.
“That’s fine!” Alex exclaimed. “Lost in the woods and the rain coming down. Now what, fellows?”
“Who has a searchlight?” asked Clay.
“I have!” answered Jule. “I’ve got one tucked up under this sweater. Never go away from the boat without it.”
“Why didn’t you turn it on the serpent?” asked Alex, with a most provoking laugh.
“I hope you’ll get a snake on your shoulder some day!” Jule retorted. “Then you’ll see what you are capable of doing. Turn it on the serpent!” he repeated. “Why, I couldn’t have turned it over in my hand.”
“What do you want of the light?” asked Frank. “It will soon be dark,” Clay responded, “and then we shall have hard work finding our way back to the boat.”
“Unless a miracle takes place,” Frank predicted, “we’ll remain in the forest to-night. We might as well try to bore through a mountain with a gimlet as to pick our way through this jungle in the night.”
“But it rains, and there are snakes and jaguars abroad!” protested Jule, who was not in favor of giving the serpents of the forest another chance at him.”
“A fire will keep them both away.”
With this comforting remark the boy set to work gathering up the long, red slabs of the mulatto tree. The boys assisted him in bending and tying down a small tree and the slabs were put over the horizontal trunk, slanting to the ground. They were piled against each other so as to more effectually keep out the rain, which was now falling in great drops.
“Now,” said Frank, after the roof was on the proposed habitation of the night, “we’ll build a fire at one end and pile bark at the other. We shall have a house as cozy as a bug-in-a-rug nest.”
“If Case would only shoot!” Jule hinted, disliking the idea of a night there, “I could find my way to the river. Perhaps he will, after a time, for he will be lonesome and anxious as soon as it gets dark.”
But no signals came from the river, which seemed a long ways off, and the boys, hovering under the bark roof and listening to the patter of the drops on the growths of the forest, began to wonder if something hadn’t happened to the lad in the boat.
Presently a wind came up, blowing great guns, and the boys were obliged to cling tight to the swaying ridge-pole of their tent in order to prevent the whole frail habitation being blown away. It looked as if a dreary night lay ahead of them.
After an hour or more had been passed in this way a faint drumming, whirring sound was heard, followed by a sharp whistle and a splash of paddles.
“That’s Frank’s miracle!—a steamboat on the river!” cried Alex, jumping out into the rain. “Now I reckon we can tell which way to go to the Rambler!”
Clay and Jule arose and peered out in the direction from which the sounds appeared to come. Frank burst into a laugh.
“Look the other way!” he cried. “That is the echo! The sound is stopped by the foliage and hurled back.”
“Not!” disputed Jule. “The boat is off that way. I can see a light over there.”
“If you do,” Frank returned, “you see a campfire. The river lies off in the opposite direction.”
“We’ll see when the boat gets nearer,” Clay conciliated. “If I had my way about it now, I should chase off in the direction those sounds come from.”
The lads crept back under shelter and listened patiently as the sounds came nearer. Then music was heard. It was evidently a large passenger steamer, and a lady was playing and singing in the cabin!
“Sounds like a bit of paradise!” declared Clay. “It has been a long time since we have heard a woman sing.”
“Her song points out our way,” Alex observed, as the lights of the boat struck the green, wet foliage and flashed back a thousand tiny stars!
“Give it up?” asked Frank, as the steamer passed and the lights and music faded in the distance. “Give it up? You would have gotten deeper into the woods if you had followed that echo.”
The rain was now coming down harder than ever, and the wind was blowing a perfect hurricane from the west. Clay stepped out of the shelter and was nearly blown off his feet.
“Never mind,” he said, bracing himself against the wind,” we can make it if we try hard enough. We know where to go now.”
“Dark?” Jule broke in, savagely. “Who said it was dark?”
“No one!” scoffed Alex. “That isn’t a dark jungle out there! That is the Great White Way!”
“You’re crazy!” Jule laughed. “Who said there were snakes and jaguars in the woods of Ecuador?”
“Who’s crazy now?” chanted Alex. “Give my regards to Herald Square.”
“I believe you are both afraid to make the journey back to the boat,” Clay laughed. “Hence these meaningless observations.”
“Who’s afraid?” demanded Jule.
The next instant he was out in the rain, his flashlight shining in front of him like a headlight to a locomotive. When the others called out to him to wait a second and give them the benefit of his light, there was no reply. Nettled at the seeming taunt, he had started off alone toward the Rambler.
It was dark, and the rain fell in torrents, and the wind was tipping over great trees in the forest, but the boys started out toward the river hoping to come upon Jule with his searchlight before long.
Presently they saw it, coming toward them through the trees, and then they heard the boy’s voice, raised to a great pitch to combat the clamor of the wind and rain.
“I’ve found the Rambler,” he said, “but Case isn’t there!”
“Nice quiet excursion this,” said Alex, with an answering whoop.