For two days the boys sat under an awning which had been spread over the hot forward deck and feasted their city-bred eyes on the luxuriance of the tropical forest. It was all new and strange to them. In some places the boughs of the great trees met over their heads, making a green bower of the bayou through which they were passing.
Now and then a native Indian glided past them in a canoe made of some light wood. These natives are dark as negroes, but their hair is long and straight. They are not at all warlike.
The night before reaching the Amazon the boys tied up in a bayou and put all lights out early.
“If the Señorita is sneaking along after us,” Clay said, “we must know it. This is as good a place to fight it out as any other.”
“They will never fight it out in the open,” Frank declared, moodily. “They will wait for a chance to blow us out of water, or to knife us from behind.”
The Rambler was dark and still at midnight, and Alex was on watch, on the forward deck with Captain Joe sniffing the heavy air at his side.
“What do you see, old boy?” asked Alex, as the dog ran, whining, toward the prow.
Captain Joe lowered his ugly-looking muzzle and appeared to be looking down into the water. Alex groped about in the darkness for an instant and then called Clay, speaking very softly, “so as not to queer the act that is coming on,” he explained.
“What is it?” whispered Clay, as the two crouched in the prow, looking into the dark bayou.
“Watch the dog,” advised Alex.