The boy’s head was in a whirl. They had not said “Come.” They had not said, “You must go with us.” They had said nothing. And yet, there was a subtle something about their actions that said plainer than words, “It is useless to resist. You must come with us.”
“But where am I going?” he asked himself. “Where will I be when I get there? And why am I going at all?” Since he could find no answer to these questions, he gripped his stout bow (now quite useless without his arrows) and trudged silently on into the night.
Several hours later he found himself lying upon his back beneath a giant mahogany tree. He was far up the mountain side. Greenish-gray moss hung like beards from the tree branches. Here it was cool even in daytime.
They had left the trail a half hour before, he and the strange group of natives. He guessed they were hiding until dark. When darkness came they would travel again. Where would they go? What was the end of the trail? To these questions he could form no answer. He had dined well enough on native food. He was not being disturbed now; watched that was all.
“Strange business,” he grumbled to himself.
CHAPTER V
THE GIANT ON THE WALL
All that long, tropical day, with the sun burning hot and dry upon him, Curlie Carson had sought for some trace of Johnny Thompson. At the time Pompee discovered the break in the top of the fortress he was some distance away from the Citadel.
Toward evening he had disappeared into the brush. There, crouching low, like some great, slim cat he prowled along bush grown, vine hung trails looking for a familiar footprint.
Long after darkness had fallen, with the golden spot of an electric torch ever moving before him, he prowled on.
Here a surprised covey of wild parrots flew screaming away, and there some strange creature went scampering down his path. Here he narrowly avoided stepping on a great lizard asleep in the trail, and there a yellow snake with green eyes that gleamed horribly in the night caused him to start and shudder.