The retiring savages must either have doubled back on their tracks or waded for miles up or down the rocky stream before landing.
Nothing more could be done to-day, for the sun was already declining, and they must find their way out of the gloom of the forest before darkness. So the return journey was made, and just as the sun's red beams were crimsoning the waters of the western river, they arrived once more at the plantation and Burnley Hall.
The first to meet them was Peter himself. He seemed all anxiety.
"What have you found?" he gasped.
It was a moment or two before Roland could reply.
"Only the charred remains of my poor sister!" he said at last, then compressed his mouth in an effort to keep back the tears.
The Indian who took so lively an interest in Mr. Peter was not far away, and was watching his man as usual.
None noticed, save Benee himself, that Mr. Peter heaved something very like a sigh of relief as Roland's words fell on his ears.
Burnley Hall was now indeed a castle of gloom; but although poor Mrs. St. Clair was greatly cast down, the eager way in which Roland and Dick were making their preparations to follow up the savage Indians, even to the confines or interior, if necessary, of their own domains, gave her hope.
Luckily they had already found a clue to their whereabouts, for one of the civilized Bolivians knew that very chief, and indeed had come from the same far-off country. He described the people as a race of implacable savages and cannibals, into whose territory no white man had ever ventured and returned alive.