Perhaps the number of the Indians scared the jaguars away, for none appeared.
Yet the day was not to end without an adventure.
Darkness in this country follows the short twilight so speedily, that Burly Bill did well to get clear of the forest's gloom while the sun was still well above the horizon.
He trusted to the compass and his own good sense as a forester to come out close to the spot where he had left the boat. But he was deceived. He struck the river a good mile and a half above the place where the steamer lay at anchor and the raft aground on the shoals.
Lower and lower sank the sun. The ground was wet and marshy, and the 'gators very much in evidence indeed.
Now the tapirs--and droll pig-bodied creatures they look, though in South America nearly as big as donkeys--are of a very retiring disposition, but not really solitary animals as cheap books on natural history would have us believe. They frequent low woods, where their long snouts enable them to pull down the tender twigs and foliage on which, with roots, which they can speedily unearth, they manage to exist--yes, and to wax fat and happy.
But they are strict believers in the doctrine of cleanliness, and are never found very far from water. They bathe every night.
Just when the returning picnic was within about half a mile of the boat, Burly Bill carrying Peggy on his shoulder because the ground was damp, a terrible scrimmage suddenly took place a few yards round a backwater.
There was grunting, squeaking, the splashing of water, and cries of pain.
"Hurry on, boys; hurry on; two of you are enough! It's your show, lads."