So slowly, reluctantly, he shook his head.
“Bomba must go on, Doto,” he said, as he smoothed the shaggy head. “The cave is warm and safe and comfortable and there is meat in plenty for Bomba and Doto, but Bomba must go into the jungle to meet whatever waits for him there. Bomba cannot linger here, even though his going may mean death to him. He must take his chance.”
Bomba offered the monkey some of his share of the tapir meat. But Doto shook his head. He would eat meat if he were starving, but he preferred the cocoanuts that he had only to break open to get at their succulent contents.
But Bomba ate ravenously of the tapir meat, for he had had nothing to eat since morning of the day before. The food put new life into him and prepared him for the strenuous task that lay before him.
With the help of Doto he rolled back the stone from before the entrance of the cave. They left a space only wide enough for their own bodies to pass through, if a survey of their surroundings should signal the need of retreat.
There was a chance that one of the pumas at least had not been content to leave the spot where the boy and the monkey had disappeared. The enemy might still be waiting among the trees or thickets ready to pounce on the first that should issue forth from the cave.
So Bomba moved with the caution that was habitual with him, hand on his machete, eyes darting in all directions.
Doto swung himself into the treetops and described a wide circle about the spot. Bomba knew that precious little would escape the monkey’s prying eyes.
Suddenly the monkey’s chatter became so loud and agitated that Bomba thought it might be meant as a warning to him, and began to make a hasty retreat toward the cave.
But in a moment he realized that it was not a warning but a summons, and he began slowly to approach the tree from which Doto was hanging by one paw. With the other he was pointing eagerly to something that lay on the ground, hidden, so far, from Bomba’s view.