The Radio Detectives in the Jungle

by A. Hyatt Verrill

But as long as they were alive there still remained a chance that they might escape. The Americans might fail to locate them--although knowing that the boys possessed the latest devices in the way of radio instruments they were confident the messages which had passed between themselves and their confederates had been heard--and in the past they had always managed to slip out of the tightest places by some means.

Their one hope was in a boat, in a craft of some sort in which to navigate the lake and the rivers. They swore and racked their brains striving to devise some means of constructing a raft or a makeshift which would float. With their single, short-handled ax it was an impossible task to cut trees large enough to support their weight--and even had it been possible this would require so much time that the last of the food would be gone ere they could embark. Then they attempted to make use of the plane’s wings and although these floated, the men’s weight sank them so low that the hollow surfaces were ankle deep with water. Moreover, they were too clumsy and unwieldy to navigate.

In every effort, every plan, they were balked and then, when their case seemed utterly hopeless, fate suddenly seemed to favor them. In a despairing attempt to secure something to eat, the two had pushed through the forest until, a mile or more from their stranded aircraft, they had come out at a small, dark creek and there, drawn upon the bank, was a canoe. Beside it a naked Indian was squatting, cleaning a string of fish and the next instant the two desperate men had leaped from cover and had seized the dug-out. The Indian, startled at this sudden and unexpected appearance of the unkempt, wild-looking men, had uttered a frightened cry, and dropping his fish, had sprung away. But as he saw the strangers taking possession of his craft and realized they were human beings and not spirits or “bush devils” he rushed to the canoe, jabbering excitedly in his native tongue and strove to prevent the rascals from shoving his boat into the stream.

But he might as well have essayed to stem the flow of the river or to argue or plead with the forest trees. The “reds” were desperate; a human life more or less meant nothing to them and the red-bearded giant whipped out his pistol and fired. With a gurgling moan the Akuria staggered back, swayed drunkenly and dropped limply upon the muddy shore. The murderer, seizing a paddle swung the canoe into the creek and headed it towards the lake.

But their crime had been witnessed. Unseen among the trees, a mere brown shadow in the jungle, the dead Indian’s companion had peered from his hiding place and had seen all. And although the two in the canoe never dreamed of it, they were nearer to death at that instant than ever before in their lives of crime.

Slipping a tiny arrow into his long blowpipe, the watching Indian rested the deadly weapon across a low-growing branch and with a puff of his breath the fatal dart flashed silently through the air straight at the red-bearded fellow’s chest. But at the same instant the man leaned backward to avoid an overhanging limb and the tiny messenger of death sped by and dropped harmlessly into the water unseen and unsuspected by the intended victim. Before another dart could be fired, the canoe had slipped behind a bend and the Indian, baffled, stepped from his hiding place and hurried to the side of his dead tribesman. A single glance sufficed to show that he was beyond human help and only stopping to cover the body with broad palm leaves, the Akuria sprang into the jungle and silently as a shadow raced along a dim and indistinct trail toward the distant Akuria village.

As he came into the clearing and uttered the moaning wail that told of death, the Akurias swarmed about like a hive of angry bees. Instantly two men were despatched in a canoe to bring in the body of the murdered Indian and with scowling brows, flashing eyes and vehement gestures, the villagers gathered about their wrinkled old chief, demanding vengeance. Gravely the old man spoke, promising that tribal law and tribal customs would be followed to the letter and as the women and boys drifted back to their huts, the chief and the older men entered the great, conical-roofed house in the center of the village and seated themselves in a circle with the younger men standing about.

Presently, from his sacred hut, the “peaiman” or medicine man approached, his face concealed by a baltata mask, a gorgeous feather crown upon his head, strings of tinkling seeds about his neck, his body hideously painted and bearing a calabash rattle in one hand and a carved and decorated staff in the other.

Prancing and dancing, chanting a low, monotonous dirge, the peaiman moved through the silent throng of Indians to the side of the fire in the center of the immense house. Squatting beside the flames, the medicine man made mystic figures in the air with his wand, muttering in a low voice meanwhile, and punctuating his words with angry shaking of his calabash rattle. At last he straightened up, fumbled in the monkey-skin pouch at his side and drew forth a bundle of feathers tightly wrapped with bark fiber so that only the ends of the quills were visible. Holding the bundle forth, the medicine man spoke and gravely and silently the men approached, each in turn drawing a feather from the bundle.

As the plumes were drawn from their covering and showed green, red, yellow or blue, sighs or low moans came from the lips of those who drew them, until at last, the Indian who had witnessed the murder of his fellow approached and drawing a feather, uttered a cry of triumph as he held it up for all to see. The plume he had drawn was black as night!