"Steady, Pinto, steady all," he said calmly, "They're trying to stampede us. If one of you leaves the Trail, we're all dead men."
He spoke just in time, for already Pinto was looking longingly toward the refuge of the forest, forgetting that the woodcraft of those hunters of men was superior even to his own. Perhaps even Professor Ditson's voice would not have stopped him if it had not been for a sudden happening.
As the leader of the Mayas half-circled around Joe, the latter turned to face him, still holding out his arms. The motion flung open his flannel shirt, unbuttoned to the waist, and showed, tattooed red on his brown skin, the curling, twisted totem-mark of intertwined serpents by which Joe had claimed the right of his blood in the lodge of the Great Chief during the quest of the Blue Pearl. As the Maya caught sight of this sign he stopped in his tracks. Little by little the menace died out of his fierce eyes, and, as if drawn by a magnet, he crept in closer and closer with outstretched neck, staring at the tattoo marks which wound down and around Joe's waist. Then, with a sudden gesture, he swept aside the ghastly necklace that he wore. There, outlined against his fleshless chest just over his heart, showed a similar emblem—crimson inter-twining serpents facing in opposite directions, with gaping mouths like those of which the totem-pole was made which towered before the lodge of the Great Chief in far-away Akotan. The Maya chief stood motionless for a moment. Then he stretched both hands out toward Joe, palms up, and stood as if waiting.
"Put your hands in his, boy," hissed Jud, from down the line; "he's waitin' for the brotherhood sign."
Without a word, Joe clasped hands with the Maya chief, and for an instant the two looked into each other's eyes, the spectral cannibal and the lithe son of a French trapper and a Chippewa princess. Then, disengaging his right hand, the Maya fumbled at his belt and suddenly stretched out toward Joe the supple, beautiful tanned skin of a snake, such as but one of the party had ever seen before. It was long and narrow and of a flashing golden-yellow, thickly flecked with tiny red-brown spots. This he wound around the boy's neck, so that it swung gleaming against his gray flannel shirt. Once again with outstretched hands the strange figure stood as if waiting, encircled the while by fierce, impassive faces with tusks gleaming horribly against blood-red jaws, and white painted bodies showing like ghosts against the green of the forest.
"Give him your tie," dictated Jud. "Don't you know blood-brothers have to exchange presents?"
Joe hesitated. He had a weakness, perhaps inherited from both sides of his family, for neckties of the most barbaric colors. The one that he was wearing was one of Cornwall's best and brightest, a brilliant green-and-purple creation which had cost him a whole dollar at White Wilcox's store. To give it up would leave him tieless in a great wilderness.
"Hurry!" muttered Professor Ditson, as the Maya chief began to lower his outstretched hands.
Thus urged, the boy reluctantly pulled a foot of glimmering silk from his neck, and the next instant the most brilliant tie that ever graced Mr. Wilcox's emporium was gleaming against the gray-white of a necklace of human bones.
The Maya received the enforced present with a grunt of undisguised pleasure, and, raising both hands above his head with palms outstretched, faced his waiting band and began a crooning song filled with strange minor cadences. One by one his men took up the strain, and, led by him, filed away from the trail like ghosts going back to their graves. As the clicking of their necklaces and the notes of their chant sounded faint and fainter and at last died away in the green tangle of the jungle, a long sigh of relief came unconsciously from every member of the expedition. It was Jud who first broke the silence.