Mechanically he sat down, and as he did so, discovered that the sudden night of the jungle had blotted out every track of the orchard, the wide spreading green and the dark forest that lay beyond.
CHAPTER X
CAMP SMOKE
While searching among the ruins of the old Don’s castle early that morning, Pant found an ancient field glass that had by some chance escaped destruction. A clumsy model it was, and of such ancient design that it might well have been a present from Queen Isabella to Columbus. It was a powerful one, for all that, and would serve his purpose well. The old Don readily consented to loaning it.
With this new treasure in his pack, Pant struck off toward the hills. He had gone a short distance when disturbing thoughts came to him.
“Something may happen to my film,” he told himself. “I must not forget.”
Not willing to depend entirely upon memory, he took sheets of paper from his pack and stuck four of them together with the sticky juice of a wild vine. Painstakingly he traced as well as he could the outlines of his grandfather’s concessions and of the rival companies, as shown by the film. Having done this, he rebound his pack and continued on his upward journey.
“Soon,” he thought as he traveled on, “perhaps to-morrow, we may begin operations.” He had a glorious mental picture of the light on his grandfather’s face as he saw a hundred Caribs at work on their concession and saw in it a promise of a rebuilt fortune.
“Chicle gathering,” he thought. “What a strange way to amass a fortune! Yet how sure.”
As he closed his eyes he saw the work begun. The Carib Indians—great bronze men, one time cannibals, now partially Christianized and caught in the spell of white man’s influence, had always been friends of his grandfather, as they had been of Kennedy and of every true man.
“The old Colonel will appeal to them,” he thought to himself. “They will respond. They will flock to his banner. A hundred, two hundred strong, shouldering axes and machetes, they’ll march into the jungle.”