“Well, Johnny—” again the low, hollow chuckle, “it wasn’t any of my business, not really. I hadn’t come there to reform the country. I just wanted to see what it was like and to hunt up my brother. But this fellow, that big, dark-faced man with a hooked nose, I learned about the nose later, that fellow had spoiled my picture—you know, the girl, the cattle, the carpet of green, the jewel of a house. It was all spoiled after he had taken the girl. I wanted that girl back in the picture. So—natur—ally—” Pant’s voice dropped to a drawl, “I went after him.”
“Pant,” exclaimed Johnny, “you are queer!”
“That’s what I’ve been told,” Pant grinned broadly.
“So you went after him,” Johnny prompted.
“Yes—I followed him. And that was the longest bit of following I’ve ever done. That man, with the girl on his back, kept me coming along at a good pace for hours and hours. Didn’t even stop for dark, just marched on and on. Must have known every step of the way. And I—there I was pussy-footing along, expecting every minute to have him whirl about and drop me with the young cannon of a revolver he had slung from his belt.
“I didn’t carry a weapon, Johnny, just a big pocket knife, that’s all. I’d left my light rifle at a bamboo shack in the jungle. I figured that the night, darkness, and that fellow’s falling asleep was my only chance. And here he was marching on and on.
“‘Might as well give it up,’ I told myself, ‘he’ll be breaking into a clearing before long,—into a whole village of his sort. Then what will be the good?’
“I was really about ready to give up when the fellow turned abruptly to the right, went staggering up a stiff slope for maybe a thousand feet, then vanished, just vanished—” Pant paused.
“A—a cave,” Johnny breathed.
“A cave,” Pant nodded his head.