* * * * * * * *
To do two things at once; to listen and talk intelligently, and to employ one’s mind with planning safe escape requires a steady nerve and active mind. Johnny Thompson was doing that very thing. He was talking in an intelligent and connected manner to Daego, the Spanish half-caste millionaire of British Honduras. They had been talking for some time about many things that had to do with industries on the Rio Hondo, and all the time their discussion had become more animated.
Johnny was seated before a small table. Daego sat opposite him. On the table was a pile of bills. A gentle breeze, entering the hut through its lattice-like walls of cohune-nut stems, fluttered the corners of the bills. They were big bills—fifties and hundreds. There was in that carelessly flung pile over twenty thousand dollars. Although one may not feel at liberty to refuse to attend a wild turkey dinner, he may refuse to accept other things, even at the hand of a millionaire. Johnny was refusing, refusing in the most vigorous language, and at the same time his keen eyes were taking in the construction of the hut and his mind plotting swift and sudden exit.
He smiled involuntarily at thought of it. The smile, without a meaning as far as the half-caste millionaire, Daego, was concerned, angered him.
“I offer you a fortune,” Daego burst forth in a sudden rage, “and what do I get? A laugh. What sort of people are these ones from the United States? They call you dollar men. I offer you dollars, many, many dollars—your own American dollars—and all you offer me for answer is a smile!”
Johnny did not smile again. The situation was grave enough. He had been foolhardy to cross the river without his men. Daego was flanked by six husky Spaniards and at the side of each was a gleaming machete. Johnny was backed only by a wall of cohune-nut tree stems. He hoped and prayed that they might prove fairly well rotted when his moment came.
The camp in which Johnny had enjoyed his wild turkey dinner was a chicle camp. Up until these last few minutes Daego had proven a most perfect host. The food he offered was the best the jungle could provide. He was politeness itself, with one and the same breath pressing food and compliments upon his guest.
One peculiarity of the man’s nature disgusted Johnny. He seemed at every turn to wish to impress Johnny with respect and awe for his wealth and power. Before dinner he had showed Johnny about.
“This,” he had explained, “is one of my many chicle camps. I import into Honduras every year more than two million pounds of chicle. The price, as you know, is fifty cents a pound. The profit,” he smiled out of one corner of his mouth, “the profit is, well, very large—perhaps half. These men work very cheaply; like slaves they are, almost; always in debt to me. I employ them by the thousands. You have no idea how many. For that matter, neither have I. This Rio Hondo, this Black River, has made me rich, rich and powerful. On the Rio Hondo I am, you might say, a king.”
And now this “king” of the Black River, with a strong backing of his armed men, was attempting to bribe or brow-beat—he apparently did not care which—a red-blooded, honest American boy.