For a moment he hesitated. Then, with a sudden resolve born of necessity, he began to descend.
CHAPTER VIII
DEATH AHEAD
Peccary meat was Johnny’s supper. A dry supper it was, and old Father Gloom sat across the fire from him while he ate. To have wasted a whole day; to face a second night of vigil; to recall those pairs of burning, greedy, red eyes; to know that with the passing of the hours the owners of those eyes must certainly grow bolder; all this was depressing in the extreme. To add to this set of depressing circumstances, a small thing happened; a very small thing indeed, but fraught with great consequences. There were not many mosquitos in this place at this time. The streams were swift, and at this time of year there were no water holes for breeding them.
For all this, a single mosquito, drifting in from nowhere, alighted on Johnny’s hand and began to drill. He had half finished his task when, without thinking, Johnny crushed him at a blow.
Instantly the boy’s mind was filled with foreboding. He had been bitten by a mosquito! One thing Hardgrave had said to him:
“Johnny, wherever you are, don’t ever lie down to sleep, not even in the daytime, without a mosquito-bar net over you. Malaria. The mosquitos carry it. It’s the only way you can get it.”
In camp they always slept beneath canopies.
“But out here,” Johnny grinned a wry grin, “what’s the chance? Well, if that was a malaria mosquito he’s got me loaded up good and plenty, and there’s no use bothering my mind about it.”
He did not bother his mind, but it bothered him. In his imagination he saw himself delirious with fever, insensible to his surroundings, wandering down narrow trails, tripped by vines, torn at by brambles. Watched from every dark hole and tree top by wild beasts, he saw himself struggle on until burned out by fever, exhausted by aimless, senseless endeavor, he at last lay down to die.
Shaking himself free from the haunting spectre, he threw fresh wood upon the fire.