At first Johnny asked few questions. Asking questions had never been his way of discovering the truth. He looked on with astonishment at the things that went on around him. The wilderness which to him had been a land of famine was suddenly as if by magic turned into a Garden of Eden. Early in the morning he heard the pop of a light rifle somewhere in the brush. At night he drank such broth and ate such tender shreds of meat as had never passed his lips before. The strange, glorious girl vanished for an hour, to return with yellow melons, melons that grew on trees,—“pawpaw” she called it. She brought water that was sweet and fresh, not from the hot stream, but from a vine torn from a tree where it clung. A hundred other miracles were wrought for his comfort and healing. And all the time, as if by magic, strength came back to him. On the fourth day he walked a bit unsteadily, but quite confidently, out of the cabin to sit on a mahogany log with a cabbage tree for a back support. Here he sat and watched dreamily the golden girl who, at this moment dressed in her humblest garb of faded khaki, was bending over a native mahogany wash bowl, found somewhere in the cabin, washing clothes.
Engaged in this task, with her thick, curly hair drawn up in a tight knot at the top of her head, with her brown arms flaked with suds, she seemed real enough.
“No angel,” he murmured, “just a real girl; a whole lot better!” he told himself. “I wonder where they came from, and where they were going when they found me?”
Strangely enough, had he asked the girl this last question she would have been obliged to answer: “I don’t know.”
The truth was that the Scotch girl and her brother were quite as lost in this wilderness as he and quite as eager to find their way out.
* * * * * * * *
In the meantime the strange doings, the flashes of phosphorescent light and strange noises, continued behind the locked door of Johnny’s office at the camp on Rio Hondo. In spite of this, however, the Caribs continued to work faithfully at their tasks and the work of getting out the red lure went on.
“You’re making fine progress,” said Hardgrave.
“Yes,” said Pant, “we’ll be able to show a fine profit. That is,” his brow wrinkled, “if we can take it out of here.”
“You’ll make it. Never fear.” said Hardgrave. “Daego’s getting worried. Another pit-pan load of his blacks went down the river last night. Wait and see.”