"Yep. Dip up the surgical kit. And give José a drink. I'll have to tie his artery, too. How do you feel, old chap?"
"Dizzy," McKay confessed. "What's happened?"
"Lost our crew," was the laconic answer. "All gone west but José, and he's bled white. We'll have to paddle our own canoe now."
For a time after his head was bandaged McKay lay quiet, staring out at the tiny battlefield and at his two mates working silently on the wounded arm of José. When they came back he spoke one word.
"Schwandorf."
"Yeah! He's the nigger in the woodpile, I bet my shirt. But why? What's his lay, d'ye s'pose?"
"Perhaps José knows," suggested Knowlton. "But he's in no shape to talk now. Let's see. Schwandorf said he was going to Iquitos?"
"Yes, but that doesn't mean anything."
"Probably not. Well, maybe José can explain."
There were some things, however, which José could not have told if he would, for he himself did not know them. One was that Schwandorf really had gone to Iquitos, where was a radio station. Another was that from that radio station to Puerto Bermudez, thence over the Andes to the coast, and northward to a New York address memorized from Knowlton's notebook, already had gone this message: