Reed gazed at the man uncomprehendingly, until at length the truth dawned upon him. His root-beer remedy had done its work! Then a broad grin mantled his face; but he quickly suppressed it and went with Don Nicolás to receive in person his patient’s effusive thanks. When he returned and took his place in the waiting boat, he shook his head. “It’s past all understanding,” he muttered to Harris, “what faith will do! I can believe now that it will remove mountains.”
Throughout the long, interminably long, hot day the perspiring men poled and paddled, urged and teased, waded and pushed against the increasing current, until, as the shadows began to close around them, they sighted the scarcely visible opening in the bush which marked the trail to the hacienda of Maria Rosa. It was a desperately lonely clearing on the verge of the jungle; but there were two thatch-covered sheds, and to the exhausted travelers it gave assurance of rest and protection. Before they made the landing Rosendo’s sharp eyes had spied a large ant-eater and her cub, moving sluggishly through the bush; and Reed’s quick shots had brought them both down. The men’s eyes dilated when the animals were dragged into the canoes. It meant fresh meat instead of salt bagre for at least two days.
Early next morning the travelers bade farewell to Don Nicolás and set their course again up-stream. They would now see no human being other than the members of their own little party until they reached Llano, on the distant Nechí.
“Remember,” called Don Nicolás, as the canoes drifted out into the stream, “the quebrada of Caracolí is the third on the right. An old trail used to lead from there across to the Tiguicito––but I doubt if you find even a trace of it now. 365 There is no water between that point and the Tiguicito. Conque, adios, señores, adios!”
The hallooing of farewells echoed along the river and died away in the dark forest on either hand. Harris and Reed settled back in their canoe and yielded to the fascination of the slowly shifting scene. Carmen chose to occupy the same canoe with them, and perforce Rosendo acted as patron. They therefore took the lead. Between his knees Reed held the rifle upright, in readiness for any animal whose curiosity might bring it to the water’s edge to view the rare pageant passing through that unbroken solitude.
The river was now narrowing, and there were often rapids whose ascent necessitated disembarking from the canoes, while the bogas strained and teased the lumbering dugouts up over them. In places the stream was choked by fallen trees and tangled driftwood, until only a narrow, tortuous opening was left, through which the waters raced like a mill-course, making a heavy draft on the intuitive skill of the bogas. Often slender islets rose from the river; and then heated, chattering, often acrimonious discussions ensued among the men as to the proper channel to take. Always on either side rose the matted, tangled, impenetrable forest wall of dense bush and giant trees, from which innumerable trailers and bejuco vines dropped into the waters beneath. From the surface of the river to the tops of the great trees, often two hundred feet above, hung a drapery of creeping plants, of parasitical growths, and diversified foliage, of the most vivid shades of green, inextricably laced and interwoven, and dotted here and there with orchideous flowers and strange blossoms, while in the tempered sunlight which sifted through it sported gorgeous insects and butterflies of enormous size and exquisite shades, striped and spotted in orange, blue, and vivid red. Scarcely a hand’s breadth of the jungle wall but contained some strange, eerie animal or vegetable form that brought expressions of wonder and astonishment from the enraptured Americans. At times, too, there were grim tragedies being enacted before them. In one spot a huge, hairy spider, whose delicate, lace-like web hung to the water’s edge, was viciously wrapping its silken thread about a tiny bird that had become entangled. Again, a shriek from beyond the river’s margin told of some careless monkey or small animal that had fallen prey to a hungry jaguar. Above the travelers all the day swung the ubiquitous buzzards, with their watchful, speculative eyes ever on the slowly moving cavalcade.
Carmen sat enthralled. If her thought reverted at all to the priest, she gave no hint of it. But once, leaning back and 366 gazing off into the opalescent sky overhead, she murmured: “And to think, it is only the way the human mind translates God’s ideas! How wonderful must they be! And some day I shall see those ideas, instead of the mortal mind’s interpretations of them!”
Harris heard her, and asked her to repeat her comments in English. But she refused. “You would not understand,” she said simply. And no badinage on his part could further influence her.
Rosendo, inscrutable and silent, showed plainly the weight of responsibility which he felt. Only twice that day did he emerge from the deep reserve into which he had retired; once when, in the far distance, his keen eye espied a small deer, drinking at the water’s edge, but which, scenting the travelers, fled into cover ere Reed could bring the rifle to his shoulders; and again, when they were upon a jaguar almost before either they or the astonished animal realized it.
In the tempered rays of the late afternoon sun the flower-bespangled walls of the forest became alive with gaily painted birds and insects. Troops of chattering monkeys awoke from their midday siesta and scampered noisily through the treetops over the aerial highways formed by the liana vines, whose great bush-ropes, often a foot and more in thickness, stretched their winding length long distances through the forest, and bound the vegetation together in an intricate, impenetrable network. Yellow and purple blossoms, in a riot of ineffable splendor, bedecked the lofty trees and tangled parasitical creepers that wrapped around them, constituting veritable hanging gardens. Great palms, fattened by the almost incessant rains in this hot-house of Nature, rose in the spaces unoccupied by the buttressed roots of the forest giants. Splendidly tailored kingfishers swooped over the water, scarce a foot above its surface. Quarreling parrots and nagging macaws screamed their inarticulate message to the travelers. Tiny forest gems, the infinitely variegated colibrí, whirred across the stream and followed its margins until attracted by the gorgeous pendent flowers. On the playas in the hazy distance ahead the travelers could often distinguish tall, solemn cranes, dancing their grotesque measures, or standing on one leg and dreaming away their little hour of life in this terrestrial fairy-land.