“I would frequently, in my scouting trips, go to the river, and began to tire of my isolation. I made that my home for nearly eight months. I really grew desperate from the monotonous life, and the feeling that I must undertake something hazardous if I ever expected to escape from the hunted life in the forest.
“I still had four shots in the revolver, but the gun was useless without ammunition. But I took it with me, and the first day, after I crossed the river, I was surrounded by the Osagas. I was much more rugged than you see me now, and had a long beard. I tried to make friends with them, and succeeded in this pretty well, but they were attacked by the Brabos here, and treated most barbarously during the week I was a captive.
“One night I escaped and turned to my mountain home, and again fell into the hands of a party on the warpath, but of an entirely new tribe. They took me way to the south, and I learned, in a way which could not be mistaken, that I was to be offered up as a sacrifice, and when the time came I was frenzied with desperation, and the moment my arms and legs were free I seized the very club which was prepared for me and hewed my way through the warriors and gained my liberty.
“But this is tiring you. Twice more I was captured, and escaped once more, and the last time you came to the rescue.”
The story was listened to with the utmost eagerness. His tale, taken together with John’s and Ralph’s and Tom’s experiences, gave them the clue to the mystery of the lifeboat and two of the men mentioned in the note, but it did not lift the veil from the contents of the message.
It was plain now where the Tuolos got the guns which they had, but could not use, as explained when Ralph and Tom were captured.
CHAPTER IX
MARCH TO THE SOUTH. THE MESSAGE TO THE SABORO TRIBE
“Have you any suggestion to offer why the Brabos do not return?” asked the Professor.
“I suppose,” said John, as he smiled at the remembrance, “they are hunting for the two savages who took their prisoners.”
A real council of war was now held, and the Professor gave his opinion as the wisest course to take. “We have, without question, put Stut and his friends under lasting obligations to us. From all the information obtainable, their tribe lives a considerable distance to the south, and to reach them we must pass the territory occupied by the Kurabus.”