The days were spent in exploring the country all around and in shooting, principally for the purpose of keeping the larder well supplied.
Luckily the Indians were very easy to please in the matter of food, though their captains liked a little more luxury.
But this land was full of game of every sort, and the river was alive with fish, and so unsophisticated were these that they sprang at a hook if it were baited only with a morsel of glittering mica picked off a rock.
What with fish and fowl and flesh of small deer, little wild pigs and the young of the tapir, there would be very little fear of starvation should they remain here for a hundred years.
Far up the Maya-tata canoe excursions were made, and at every bend of this strange river the scenery seemed more delightfully wild, silent, and beautiful.
"Heigh-ho!" said Dick one day. "I think I should not mind living here for years and years, did I but know that poor Peggy was safe and well."
"Ah! yes, that is the ever-abiding anxiety, but we are not to lose heart, are we?"
"No," said Dick emphatically. "If the worst should come to the worst, let us try to look fate fearlessly in the face, as men should."
"Bravo, Dick!"
The evenings closed in at an unconscionably early hour, as they always do in these regions, and at times the long forenights were somewhat irksome.