Weak as he was, he half-raised himself on his elbow and stared wildly at the hut, the only home he knew.
Bomba with one hand pushed the old man back not ungently on the ground.
“Bomba will put out fire,” he said, in the soothing tones one would use to a frightened child. “You sit quiet, Casson. Watch.”
Without further delay, Bomba, set to work to save the threatened habitation that had sheltered him and his companion for so many years.
Luckily, the bulk of the fire was thus far confined to one part of the hut. Bomba picked up a bucket, used by Casson and himself to boil the game that the boy’s hunting expeditions brought back to the cabin.
With this he worked like a madman, carrying water from a stream that ran a few yards in the rear and dashing it over the untouched portions of the hut.
When this was thoroughly saturated, he began work with his machete tearing down one flaming wall and then beating out the fire with a huge palm-leaf broom that Casson had used to keep the interior neat.
It was hard and discouraging work. More than once Bomba felt that he was fighting a losing battle. Not only was the hut in danger of being destroyed, but the jungle to the rear of it was threatened.
Many of the trees near by were rubber trees, and this thought helped to spur Bomba to renewed activity. Those were the kind of trees that Gillis and Dorn had been seeking—seeking for the Apex Rubber Corporation, whatever that might mean.
Bomba had no idea of the millions of rubber trees there must be in the length and breadth of the Amazonian jungle. All he knew was that the white men regarded them as precious. Very well then, he would guard these from fire until Gillis and Dorn should come to claim them. It was good to be able to do something for these white men who had been so good to him.