“That’s why I made up my mind right then and there to pay you people a visit,” Hal said impulsively. “Funny, how I wanted to do that right away when I heard what hard luck you folks have had. But I didn’t think I’d bust in this way—gosh!”
Her gray eyes twinkled as she regarded him.
“I’m glad to have you too, Mr. Hal,” she said earnestly, “but I’m sorry you had to go through so much to get here. Grandfather will send one of the Indians down to let your uncle know you’re safe. But just as soon as you rest, we’ll walk down and get you into a hammock where you can sleep and recuperate. We don’t have beds up here,” she added with a note of apology; “we live very simply.”
“Say, a hammock will feel like a feather bed after what I’ve been sleeping on,” Hal assured her breezily.
“So the Pallida Indians captured you?” she inquired, interested.
“That what they’re called?”
“By us,” she smiled. “They’re a sort of mixture. Pallida identifies them sufficiently. They’re terribly warlike and superstitious.”
“Well, they were kind enough to me at the go-off. I was in pretty bad shape when they found me—they nursed me back. That is, a fat old medicine man did, and from the way I got well, I guess he’s not all fake. But then they were willing to shoot poisoned arrows into me after going to all the trouble of making me well. If you savvy that, I don’t.”
She laughed, and got him to tell her the story at the Indian settlement right from the beginning.
“I know about their superstition,” she told him when he had finished, “but I didn’t think they’d go to such an extreme as they tried with you. I’ve heard about the demented native, though. They keep him imprisoned in that hut in the jungle and none of the tribe will go toward it, face forward. They back toward it in order to keep the evil spirit from afflicting them. It does seem awful and odd, but it’s their native and their business, and nobody interferes. They never bother us, never in all these years. And they wouldn’t bother to come after you; don’t worry. Particularly, because one of their number came away with you.”