They had been riding almost continuously for five hours, and the sun was beginning to get low, so that when the jaguar had been skinned and cut up, and his meat divided amongst the Indians, it was decided to halt in the very next clearing reached, which was sure to be provided with one of the numerous torrents that hurled their waters forward to the valley far below. They were not long before they came upon one of them, and then the horses were unsaddled, and picketed amongst the rich grass, which they thoroughly appreciated. To have turned them loose would have been dangerous, for the Indian horse has a proclivity for finding his way home, besides which, if a herd of wild horses crossed his path, there would be no hope of ever seeing him again.
Freddy, Willie, and Mary, to whom this wild forest life was quite new, worked hard to make a comfortable bivouac. They collected wood, and helped to light the fires, fetched water from the torrent, got out the maté from the pack-saddles, and made themselves extremely useful. Meat was put on to boil, and soon the whole party were enjoying their evening meal. Then the Indians coiled themselves up in their fur robes, and lit their pipes preparatory to seeking repose. Sentries or watchers had to be set, and Piñone offered to take the first watch along with Aniwee and Sir Francis. Topsie thought this a good opportunity to prefer a request.
“Piñone,” she said, “if we sit around this fire, will you tell me the story of your captivity amongst the Traucos?”
“Hurrah!” shouted Harry, as Piñone gravely assented.
CHAPTER XVII.
“After our bonds were loosened, and we were relieved from our helpless position by being untied from the trees, as may be imagined,” began Piñone, “we thought that we had been delivered by friends. On tearing the bandages from our eyes, however, our horror was deep and intense when we saw ourselves surrounded by quite twenty tall, hairy beings, who, taking us by the hands, made us enter the dreaded forest. At first we tried resistance. We might as well have wrestled with a granite rock, for the Traucos, as at once we knew them to be, were strong as the mountains before us. There was no resisting them, and no hope of escape.
“We spoke to them in our language, but they did not reply, and we noticed that they never addressed each other save in a kind of rumbling sound, like the low rippling of a running stream. It was not speech at all, merely what I have described it to be, and nothing more.