Henry walked away.
Nevertheless, Tom’s way proved the better one, for when Bill held up a flashing bit of ornamental glass, like the crystal pendant from a glass chandelier, they spoke. In time they were induced to catch a rope and carry it out and, in the canoe, fix it fast to a projecting tooth of rock located in the proper direction to help pull the boat out of her sand bed, into which she was burrowing her nose more deeply with every roll.
“We’ll use the rocks that tried to injure us, and make them help us!” Cliff cried, and with a good will they took up slack on the rope until it was taut and throbbing with its tension.
After a long day of effort and patience they saw their craft float free, and, for another bribe, several more Indians were procured, in canoes, to tow them to a convenient beach where their rope was taken well inland to a coco-palm, secured there, and the boat was unloaded the next day, the stuff piled on the hot sand under an improvised shelter of canvas stretched over four upright pieces of timber found by the chums in a search of the beach.
Under another shelter, to which they brought heavy mosquito netting and with it made a tight enclosure, they spent the night. It was no pleasant slumber that came to them, for the Central American mosquitos are not only vicious and persistent, but they are large and their bite, on any but the toughest skin, produces red welts and a sort of itching that is as maddening as it is persistent and painful.
The next day, while Bill and Henry bargained with the Indians for canoes and guides to take them up the Rio Patuca to a tribe further inland where the old Indian, Toosa, lived, and while Cliff and Mr. Gray aided Andy in work of examining the gear and shafting, Nicky joined Tom on the beach.
“Some of the Indians are going turtle hunting,” he said. “Let’s us go along. They’ll take us. I let one young Indian play with my watch, and he promised to take us if I let him wear the watch during the trip.”
They accordingly joined the Indians. The method of hunting was interesting: they went along the beach and, watching until they saw a turtle sunning itself, or, possibly, laying its eggs, they managed to get between it and the water.
Sometimes they were not adroit enough. A turtle will instinctively try for its native element, and once in it, no expert can capture it. On land, however, once headed off, it may be turned on its back, and thus secured. After several wasted tries they managed to get a big fellow, weighing several hundred pounds, headed off and surrounded.
It was both a job and a tussle to get the huge and clumsy shell reversed; and then the boys were amazed at the cleverness of the Indians’ method of getting the creature back to their village, or near to it. To drag such a weight would be very hard. To make it “do its own driving” as Tom said, was the easier way. The Indians fastened ropes to each of its flippers, and then turned it over.