The meeting staggered our hero. He could hardly believe that it could be his brother, he whom they had lost in the jungle now so long ago. Even the strong grip which George gave him failed to convince.
"How's it happened?" demanded Jim. "We settled that you were dead, that the fever had killed you, and that you had fallen in some hollow in the jungle. Who are all these men here? How is it that you have turned up right away at the very instant when help is wanted? My head is all of a whirl: I guess I'm getting silly."
"Then you needn't blame yourself," came George's answer. "Reckon you'd be a strange fellow if you weren't a little bit overcome by my turning up after you'd given me over for dead. But, see here, Jim; I'm your own brother George right enough, though how it comes that I am still alive and kicking is a long story. As to how I arrived here on time, that's much simpler. The natives I have been living with are at daggers drawn with a tribe over by the lagoon, and have been greatly troubled because some beggarly European rascals have been selling guns and powder to them. For three months past I've been a kind of king amongst them, and of course I've taken steps to have that other tribe watched. Well, we heard that an expedition was coming this way. We shadowed the natives through the forest, and then heard a shot. Later we followed again, and then there was heavy firing. I made out your party from the edge of the jungle, and I reckoned that I would help. Of course I couldn't tell who was in the right. I only knew that the natives who are enemies of ours were attacking a small party, and so I decided to help the weaker side. Here we are, seventy of us in all, and quite sufficient to make short work of those fellows. Now tell me all about the bother."
As rapidly as possible Jim told him how Jaime and his rascally comrades had abducted Sadie, and how he had followed.
"It's a precious long yarn, like yours," he laughed, gripping George's hand for the twentieth time, for even now he found it hard to believe that this good news was actually and really true. "But, to begin with, I took a job on the Panama Canal."
"Won a job is truer, I guess," interrupted Phineas, who was beaming on our young hero and his long-lost brother. "Won a job on the Panama Canal, sir. Let me tell you that this young Jim of yours has done mighty well since you took it into your head to clear off into the jungle. To begin with, he started right off for New York; for he had to find a job somewhere. Then there was a collision. The ship foundered, and I was left aboard her when the crew took to the boats. Jim there swam out and saved me. Give you my word, the risk he ran makes my hair stand on end even nowadays. Of course I was grateful. After all, life's pleasant to a man working on the canal; there's a real interest in it. I offered to get our young friend a job, and house his sister. That's how the business started. He won the job, siree; won it outright and by as fine a show of grit as ever you could come across."
George's sallow, fever-haunted face brightened at the words: he stretched forward a hand to grip his brother's, and then to take that of Phineas.
"It's the one thing that has troubled me ever since I was lost in the forest," he said feelingly. "There was always Sadie, and what had happened to her. I knew that Jim and the boys would stick to her and support her; but the willingness to do so doesn't make it always possible. Guess I owe you a lot, Mr. Phineas, and Jim's my own brother. I always knew he had grit."
"See here," burst in Phineas, who seemed to have suddenly found a loose tongue, "you don't owe me a cent's worth. I'll get ahead with this yarn, for this young Jim ain't likely to give it all. And ef I wasn't to tell every word, there's Tom and Sam and Ching would soon see that the news reached you. Eh, boys?"
In the fading moonlight Tom gave an expansive, seven-foot grin, and wagged his head. Sam's little eyes twinkled brightly, while the Chinaman undid his pigtail, and coiled it again, glancing from one to the other. "If you not guess dat Mass Jim play de game, den you velly stupid, sah," he said. "But you know him from de days when we were all on de salvage boat. Massa Jim a demon to work, and never know what it am to fear."