"It's a gift, my boy," said Jud, patronizingly. "As for myself, I once learned three Indian languages, Apache, Comanche, an' Sioux, in less than a month."
"Indeed!" broke in Professor Ditson, cuttingly. "You surprise me. Won't you favor me with a few sentences in Apache?"
"Surely," returned Jud, generously. "Ask me anything you like in Apache, an' I'll be glad to answer it in the same language."
The appearance of a small pond ahead put a stop to further adventure in linguistics, since Pinto had promised to catch some fish from the next water they met. As they came to the shore, suddenly, before Jud's astonished eyes, a fish about a foot long thrust its head out of the dark water, opened its mouth, and breathed like any mammal. A moment later it meowed like a cat, growled like a dog, and then went under.
"I'll never dare tell 'em about this in Cornwall," exclaimed Jud, earnestly, as the talented fish disappeared. "They'd think I was exaggeratin', an' that's one thing I never do. This trip," he went on reflectively, "is liable to make me believe blame near anything."
It was Professor Ditson who told them that the strange fish was a lung-fish and was a link between the fishes and the reptiles.
A little later, Pinto, with a length of flexible palm-fiber, noosed a garpike, that strange representative of the oldest family of fishes left on earth, and another link with the reptiles. Its vertebræ had ball-and-socket joints like the spine of a snake, and, unlike any other fish, it could move its head independently of its body. Armored scales arranged in diagonal rows ran down its back, being fastened to each other by a system of hooks, instead of lapping over each other like the scales of other fishes. This armor was of such flinty hardness that Pinto struck a spark from it with his steel, and actually lighted from its own scales the fire on which the fish was cooked.
By this pond grew a great orchid with thirty-one flower-stems, on one of which Will counted over a thousand beautiful pearl-and-gold blossoms. Near the water, too, were many varieties of tropical birds flaming through the trees. Among them were flocks of paraquets colored green and blue and red; little honey-creepers with black, purple, and turquoise plumage and brilliant scarlet feet; and exquisite tiny tanagers like clusters of jewels with their lilac throats, turquoise breasts, topaz crowns, and purple-black backs shading into ruby red. These were all searching for insects, while among the blossoms whirred dainty little humming-birds of the variety known as "wood-stars." Then there were blood-red macaws with blue-and-gold wings, and lustrous green-black toucans with white throats, red-and-yellow tail-coverts, and huge black-and-yellow bills.
For the next few days the treasure-hunters followed the narrow, hard-beaten path through stretches of dark jungle and thorny thickets, or found themselves skirting lonely lakes hidden in the very heart of the virgin forest. Everywhere the Trail was omniously clear and hard-trodden. Sometimes they all had that strange knowledge that they were being watched, which human beings who live in the open acquire as well as the wild folk.
At last there came a day when the supplies had run so low that it became necessary for Pinto to do some hunting. Will went with him, and together they silently and cautiously followed one of the many little paths that at irregular intervals branched off from the main trail. This one was so hidden by vines and creepers that it seemed improbable that any one had used it for a long period of time. It led the hunters into one of the patches of open country sometimes found in the forests of the Amazon. This particular one was fringed with great trees and crossed by another path nearly parallel to the one they were following.