By great good fortune the leader, Daego, passed without looking to right or left. With him passed the bright light and much of the danger of detection. Pant watched the passing line with increasing interest. The men following Daego went in pairs, one before and one behind. Suspended on long poles between each pair was a square, black box which, from the bending of the poles and the labored tread of the men, would appear to be heavy.
For a moment the boy’s imagination played tricks on him. These men were ghosts of the pirates and buccaneers who inhabited these waters a century or more ago. The heavy black boxes were filled with doubloons and pieces of eight.
Then with a mental jerk he brought himself back to reality. These men were men of to-day. The boxes they carried were indeed treasure chests, but chests of power, not of gold.
“Batteries,” Pant murmured. “There is no need to go farther. I see it all.”
And so he did. The long, black pit-pans near the river’s mouth were only waiting these black boxes to give them the power to steal silently up the river. They were electrically driven. The stationary engine back there was connected to an electric generator. By day it was at work charging batteries. By night these batteries were busy driving the long black shadows with their burdens up the river. What sort of freight did they carry? That he could not tell.
“Have to trap them to find out,” he told himself.
As it happened, he found out before he trapped them.
CHAPTER XIV
FORGOTTEN TRIBES
Johnny Thompson and Jean found it strangely fascinating to be marching straight on over the beaten trail that led to the great unknown. It was exciting, entrancing, this sharing a secret which had not been so much as whispered by either of them, yet the glances and curious smiles which the girl bestowed upon him told Johnny plainer than words that she knew; moreover, that she knew he knew.
“But pshaw!” he told himself with a sudden shake as if to waken himself from a dream. “There may be nothing to it, probably isn’t. There probably are many hard-beaten trails leading away into this wilderness. Why should this particular one lead to the home of a wild Maya? Probably end in scattered settlements of Mexicans in some camp. It may end—” he caught his breath, “we may have gone in a circle. It may end in Daego’s camp. Pretty mess if it does! Have to be careful!”