“Let’s hurry back to camp,” moved Bob, looking at his watch. “We’ve been gone several hours. Doesn’t seem possible, does it?”
But little did the young hunters dream that they were miles from the boats and their elders—that they had unknowingly penetrated deeper and deeper into this dense jungle.
After one last look at the great jaguar, the chums started back down the trail, heading for the boats. They wondered what kind of a reception their fathers would give them after being gone so long.
Ten minutes of constant hiking brought them to a spot where the trail branched into four or five other paths, each winding in a slightly different direction from the others. Which branch should they take to get back to camp?
“Strange,” mused Joe. “I thought sure we could pick out the right branch. But you know we didn’t have much time for thought when that jaguar was chasing us.”
The youths spent fully ten minutes in trying to decide on which trail they had turned out, but in the end they were no more enlightened than they were at the start. They tried to remember some landmark that might be suggestive but could not. The heavy Amazonian jungle had proven too much for their memories.
But they refused to admit that they were beaten, and at last chose the middle trail, as it seemed more like the one they had followed. There was no use giving up without showing fight. They walked on constantly and at last came to another place where the path branched. Here again they were at a loss to know which direction to take.
“Believe it’s the one to the left,” concluded Joe, scratching his head thoughtfully.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” the other said. “But if you think you’re right, we may as well follow it.”
They did follow it. One, two, three miles they hiked. But where was the canyon?