“On this Black River,” he repeated now, as they sat at the table, “on this river I am king. It is I who have always developed its industries and I it shall be in the future, and none other! I have offered you money—money not that you should speak an untruth, but that you should return to the people who control your tract and say to them: ‘There is no profit to be made in a quest for your red lure and your chicle.’
“And is it not so?” He showed all his white teeth in a half smile, half snarl. “I—will I not see that you make no profit, that no other person beside myself make a profit? More than twenty thousand dollars I offer you—for what? That you may tell the truth to a friend. What could be easier than that? Now I ask you for the last time—do you take that money or must I resort to harsher methods?
“Think well!” He held up a finger of warning, “I am a millionaire. Thousands serve me. They are all in debt to me. They are my slaves. The Rio Hondo is mine. All I need do is to stretch out a hand and take.” He swung his arm in a dramatic gesture.
“But I,” he went on, purring now like a cat, “I am not a man who loves violence. See! Here is proof. Here is money, twenty thousand American dollars. And for what? For peace. What do you say now? Do you take it?”
“We Americans,” said Johnny with a ghost of a smile about the corners of his mouth, “do not talk. We act.”
With that he seized the small table before him, swung it above his head and sent it crashing through the frail side of the hut, then followed it through the hole it had made in the rotten walls of the cohune-nut stems.
CHAPTER V
NARROW ESCAPES
To say that Pant was surprised at sight of the jaguar, the well-known “killer” above him in the bread-nut tree, would poorly express it. For once in his young life he was without a solution to the problem that lay just before him. He knew that he must act, and act instantly. But what to do? Thirty feet below him was the solid earth, far too solid. Through the gathering shadows he thought he saw directly beneath him the wide spreading leaves of a young cohune-nut tree. Of this he could not be sure. In any event these soft yielding leaves would offer slight cushion at the end of a thirty foot fall.
Flight back over the limb, the way he had come, was not to be thought of. The instant he began creeping forward the great cat would be upon his back. To remain in his present position was equally perilous. There was his machete, to be sure, but what was this against the claws of a man-eater? It would doubtless be knocked from his hand at the first spring of the spotted beast.
The great cat’s tail ceased to lash the twigs. The boy’s heart beat wildly. Was the end at hand?