As he turned to retrace his steps he caught the long drawn, hoarse call of a jaguar. There were empty, palm thatched cottages up the river. Rumors were afloat of a man-eating “tiger” who had carried away the former owners of these cabins. Could it be that he had been mistaken about the plot? Had he misjudged the action of the unfortunate one at the river bank? Had his men become frightened by tales of the man-eater, and fled? Who could tell?
“Oh, well,” he sighed, “morning will come, and with it the light.”
CHAPTER II
SUDDEN CATASTROPHE
As if loath to disturb the perfect silence of a night, dawn lingers in the tropical jungle. Off somewhere in the distance a wild parrot screams; nearer at hand a long tailed tropical black-bird begins for the thousandth time to practice the song he will never learn. Swinging from limb to limb, a monkey chatters at a snake. Faint and from far away, like a young puppy calling for his breakfast, an alligator barks. Trunks of trees, gray bulks of cabins, green clusters of ferns take shape and then, with a sudden burst of light, day arrives.
The sound that awakened Johnny Thompson to dull reality of a hapless yesterday was the braying of a burro. He had remained seated on his bench all night. At first he had not dared to sleep. At last, overcome by fatigue, he had fallen asleep.
At first, only half awake, he imagined himself in Belize. Burros were common enough there.
“No,” he declared, shaking himself, “I am not in Belize. This is the jungle. There are no burros. I was dreaming.”
Leaping to his feet, he shook himself free of the last vestige of sleep.
As if to deny his last assertion, there struck his ears, clear and defiant, a loud, laughing “He-haw!”
“Well, I’ll be a donkey myself!” he exclaimed, turning and racing down the path that led to the creek. The sound appeared to come from there.