What was it?
CHAPTER XIX
A PRISONER
Hal had not time to consider this at all, for in a moment, it seemed, the natives had swarmed up from the clearing and surrounded him. And the native lying before the hut had gotten to his feet in an amazingly short time, producing a bow and arrow and looking as if he would use it on the slightest pretext.
Hal’s pet guardian, Big Boy, stepped up to his side at this juncture and pulling him by the arm urged him back toward the clearing. He did so, willing but puzzled, and as he turned his back toward the hut, the same cry of misery broke out, pleading and utterly pathetic.
Hal stopped, hesitated, as if he were going to go back, when he noticed that a number of the warriors were following him with bows and arrows drawn. Big Boy, too, marching at his side, had acquired an exceedingly pugnacious expression on his usually bland countenance.
Straight back to the maloka they marched him, saw him safely to his apartment in the rear, then left Big Boy standing guard while they gathered in the front for a long and noisy conference.
Hal could make nothing out of the whole proceedings. He did not know what it was all about. Yet the uneasy thought recurred that it was not a promising sign to see naked savages following him about with drawn bows and arrows. They had not done so before. What did it mean now?
Had his presence before that strange hut incurred their enmity? And if so—why? Why should that wretched cry bring them swarming to his side and cause them to treat him as if he had committed some crime? Why?
Hal was to learn why, to his sorrow, and that the way of the Amazon Indian is indeed very strange.
In the meantime he was doing all in his power to get Big Boy in a spirit of good will. He coaxed and cajoled to find out why he was being guarded thus.