CHAPTER XXII.—A BATH IN THE NIGHT
“A nice, quiet excursion, all right!” agreed Clay. “This is one of Frank’s nature-loving trips!”
“I wish I had some of these wild animals in Lincoln park!” Alex grumbled. “I could live like a king on the income they’d bring as promoters of sensations!”
“There are said to be plenty of snakes along North Clark street,” laughed Clay.
“But most of them are not present to the senses,” Alex explained.
Jule came up with his light, and better progress was made through the forest, which grew thinner as it approached the river. The rain was still falling in dashes, but the wind seemed to be going down.
After walking a short distance they heard a call, seemingly coming from the wrack of clouds overhead.
“That was Case’s voice!” Clay declared. “He’s near by!”
“Sure it was!” Jule agreed, “but where is he? Sounds like he was up in a balloon.”
Again the call came, and this time there was no doubt that the boy was up above the surface of the ground.
“He’s in a tree!” Clay concluded. “Now, what do you think of that? This surely is a night for nature-loving kids!”
“H-e-l-l-o!” called Case. “Lookout where you go. I’ve got a whole menagerie down there.”
The boys stood still and looked about, passing the searchlight from side to side, but seeing nothing save the splash of the rain on the broad leaves about them. Then Case called again:
“Keep close to the light!” he cried.
Then a great racket in the undergrowth reached the ears of the listening lads. It sounded as if an elephant was engaged in deadly combat with an alligator fresh from the river. Cries like those of a cat and grunts like those of a huge hog came with the tumblings. Ripping sounds like tearing tough cloth or leather succeeded. Presently the racket died out, and nothing was heard save the drip-drip of the rain and the wind in the tall trees. The night was clearing a bit, and the clouds responsible for the shower were breaking and floating away, showing open spaces from which stars looked down.
A movement in the bushes caused Clay to present his gun in that direction and Jule to advance his light. Instead of the wild beast they anticipated seeing. Case came forward to meet them. His clothing was torn, and his face showed contact with thorny vines.
“What did you leave the boat for?” demanded Alex, glad of an opportunity to “roast” the boy. “Someone might have carried it away in a hand-bag!”
“I wanted to get that jaguar skin,” was the answer.
“Did you get it?” asked Jule, anxiously, for it was the desire of his heart that the party should take home such a trophy.
“Something got it, I guess,” replied Case. “Go and look where that fight was. “You’ll see what I bumped up against.”
Frank took the searchlight and peered through the thicket to the spot where the disturbance had been.
“It was a jaguar, all right,” he said, “and the tamandua got him—and he got the tamandua. Come here, boys.”
On the ground, clasped in a deadly embrace, lay a tamandua and a jaguar. The tamandua is best known as the ant-eater, and is a tough-skinned, slothful animal, bulky, muscular, and dangerous when attacked.
“I was stalking the jaguar,” Case said, approaching the bodies, “when he turned on me. I didn’t know what to do, so I mounted a tree, which was some climb—believe me! Then the ant-eater blundered along, and it looked as if the tiger was so mad because he had been delayed in getting me that he attacked the fellow. And there they lie! My, but they kept each other busy for a spell.”
“The jaguar would have kept you busy if the ant-eater hadn’t happened along!” Frank declared. “He would have been up that tree in no time. You are lucky to be alive!”
The boys found their way back to the Rambler and delighted the heart of Alex by beginning preparations for supper. Clay decided that they should have a “native” meal, as a fowl shot earlier in the afternoon would form the piece d’ resistance. Besides the fowl, which was roasted at a fire on the shore—alligators paddling about the shore and slapping the water and the sand with their unwieldy tails as the roasting went on—they had bread made of the product of the mandioca plant. This plant means as much to the people of Brazil as the potato does to the inhabitants of our Northern states.
It produces farina, cassava, and tapioca, all of which are made from the roots, which are peeled like potatoes. In order to produce most of the products of the plant the pulp secured from the roots is squeezed dry by twisting it in a bag. The juice thus secured is poisonous when new, but when fermented it makes the whisky of the Amazon valley.
The boys also had a fish fresh from the river, and Jule insisted on having this roasted also. Even the coffee they had brought in with them was a product of Brazil.
After supper they sat for a long time watching the moon rise over the river. It came out of a bank of clouds at first, but directly a long, bright path lay along the rippling surface of the water, seeming to lead straight back to the Atlantic coast. Alligators innumerable came out and raced clumsily about—playing, Frank said. Off in the forest they could hear the call of a jaguar, probably the mate of the one that had been killed by the ant-eater.
A great chattering in the trees told of the presence of monkeys, but the boys did not molest them. The alligators, too, were immune from the guns of the party. The only thing the lads killed relentlessly, at all times and under all circumstances, was the snake.
“I move,” Clay began, as they all sat under the wire netting, looking out on the attractive and unfamiliar scene, “that we go on to Cloud island in the morning and do our exploring when we come down. I have a notion that this Lewiso and the Englishmen will do murder up there unless we stifle their cause of combat by taking the gold ourselves.”
“I second the motion!” Case cried.
Case was really becoming one of the most enthusiastic and resourceful members of the party. Only at rare intervals did he give way to his imagination—an imagination, by the way, which was bright and suggestive, even if inclined to bring out disagreeable points—and let out prophecies of evil.
“I shall be glad when it is all over with,” Frank admitted. “Of course I want you boys to have all the fun you can on this trip, but I think we can have better entertainment after this suspense is over, on the way back to the coast.”
“Are you going back with us?” asked Alex.
“Yes; if you will permit it. Why not?”
“Even if we do not get the gold?”
“Why, certainly. If we get the gold I shall go out with you as a starter on a series of travels to include all the large rivers in the United States. If we do not get it, why, then I shall have to go out and find something to do.”
“Is this prospect of the gold all the interest you have up there?” asked Clay.
“Yes, nearly all; my father left considerable property, but it is about gone. My guardian helped himself, and this Lewiso has cost me a lot of money.”
“Then we’ve just got to get the gold!” Alex exclaimed. “We just can’t go back to Chicago broke!”
“I like that idea of exploring all the large rivers of the country,” Clay said, smiling at Alex’s enthusiasm. “If we win out with the gold, we’ll form a Motor Boat Club and make it our business to visit all the large streams our Uncle Sam owns.”
“Correct!” shouted Alex.
“You know it!” Jule contributed.
“Glorious!” Case declared.
The boys talked until midnight, looking over the moonlit river and listening, at intervals to the sounds of the jungle.
“It is just like a large city!” Case observed. “There is such a continuous clamor that individual noises are lost. We hear only the full-throated roar of races and forget the existence of the little voices. But the little voices are there. They make the roar!”
“We’ll all make a roar about getting up in the morning!” Jule said, “if we don’t get to bed.”
He looked about the crowded deck where so many hammocks swung and then up to the roof of the cabin.
“I wonder,” he mused, “if the mosquitos would eat me up before morning if I should make a bed up on the cabin?”
“They would do their best!” Alex replied.
“Anyway,” Jule decided, “I’m going to try it.”
So he hauled a rug and a blanket to the roof of the cabin and composed himself to slumber. The boys on the deck were asleep almost as soon as he was, and the alligators in the Amazon sported on without a human audience.
But the long silence of the boat seemed to attract the attention of the huge reptiles, and they soon began to nose about the sides of the Rambler. Pretty soon a whole school of the big fellows were swimming close to the sides, evidently attracted by the odor of the supper which had been eaten there.
Presently a huge fellow bunted into another huge fellow in what seemed to be defiance of the rules of river etiquette, and a battle was the result. In the squabble one was forced with a bunt against the boat, and the craft rocked perilously. Another bunt, and the top of the cabin stood at an angle of about 75 degrees. The sleeper rolled off his blanket and tumbled overboard, striking one of the fighters squarely on the nose.
The alligators seemed to be as much surprised at the sudden visitation as Jule was to find himself floundering in the water, with the cold noses of the ’gators touching his bare flesh. He let out a cry which brought the boys out of their hammocks with their guns in their hands, and directly a shower of lead fell into the river.
When the boy was finally pulled on deck he looked at both legs and both arms, and felt of the back of his head to see if he was all there. Alex tried to convince him that one of the river “birds” had amputated his intelligence, but Jule chased him away and lay down on his blanket again.
“You’re a nice fisherman!” Case cried. “Trying to catch an alligator by the tail! We’ll have to tie you up!”
Even Captain Joe seemed to be inclined to laugh at the lad for his accident, but quiet was soon restored, and the boat was sent up the river at great speed, Jule declaring that he would sit up and run her in order to get out of that part of the country. Its snakes and alligators, he intimated, were too numerous for him!
For two days and nights they kept on their way, stopping once to replenish their gasoline tanks. Then, on the morning of the third day, a cloud lifted from the river and Frank pointed to it with a sigh of relief. As he did so the wreck of a steamer floated past—a steamer which had been the Señorita, and which had evidently been blown up with dynamite. What had taken place, the boys asked, and where was the crew?