"I got me orders," said Tim, sotto voce, "and I'm danged if I crack a smile back at them girls. But I sure feel like grinnin'. Watch yourself, old-timer; they're tryin' to flirt with ye."
Pedro, mindful of watchful eyes, turned his gaze to Tim's face before allowing himself to smile. Then he laughed.
"Do not fear," he said. "My heart is still my own."
"Same here. Specially when I remember these females would grin jest the same if them club swingers had spattered our brains all over the front yard awhile back. But I wisht sombody'd give the girls a nightie or somethin' to wear. I been around some and I seen quite a lot, but I ain't used to bein' vamped by a bunch of undressed kids with goo-goo eyes the size of a plate o' fish balls. I'm only a bashful country kid from N'Yawk."
"Live and learn," chuckled Pedro. "And clothes really have nothing to do with modesty."
"True for ye. Clothes is mostly a disguise, anyhow, specially with women, and an awful expense, besides. These guys are lucky, I'll say; they 'ain't got to buy their wives no fur coats or silk stockin's or nothin'. All the same, I got all I can do to hold me face straight when I see these li'l owl-eyes givin' us the glad look. I'd oughter stayed back in Remate de Males, where a feller can wink at a woman without gittin' all his pardners massacreed."
"Perhaps it would not be fatal, now that we are guests of the chief. But it is best to take no chances."
"Safety first. That's us. Grin at one of 'em and another might git sore because she missed out, and first thing ye know ye've started somethin' without meanin' to. Let's look at somethin' harmless—one o' them poisoned spears, f'r instance."
At that moment Monitaya and Lourenço both arose, the chief to inspect in person the progress of the arrangements for the feast, the bushman to return to his companions with additional news.
"Monitaya tells me," he said, "that his people have lost girls in other ways than by the murderous attacks of the gunmen. A number of young women who have gone into the bush near their malocas to get urucu and genipapa, which they use to make the red and black body dyes, have disappeared. So have several who went to the creeks for their daily baths. Warriors who tried to trail them have found the footprints of a few men, but always lost them at water. The girls had been taken away in canoes. Even this tribe of Monitaya, which never has been attacked by night raiders because it is too strong, has not been safe from these stealthy woman stealings by daylight. Three girls have been taken from here within the past two moons, and others have disappeared from other malocas."