He was very hard on his Indians. He yelled at them, drove them, said foul things to them and about them. Tom and Bill, on the contrary, were decent in their attitudes; and, although the Indians were stolid and silent, seldom speaking, almost never smiling, they showed, in little services, that were human and responsive under their stolid exteriors. They often put up Tom’s mosquito bar for him, gave him and his closer companion the best they had, but always without the least flicker of expression.
Henry had to demand help, had to drive and threaten to get anything done; Tom had only to wish for an adjustment of his sleeping couch, of boughs, in a rude camp—and it was done! Perhaps it was because, during the long, humid, tensely hot days, he took the trouble to see that the heavy bough with which he fought mosquitos was used to drive them away from the paddlers as well; also, because he and Bill shared their food when the Indians had little. There seemed to be no open appreciation, but gratitude was evident in many ways, although Henry, seeing them wave their branches to flick the mosquitos from the Indians’ backs, derided them and sneered, saying an Indian had no feelings.
Camping on mud banks, uncomfortable and mean, paddling through muddy waters, past vast jungles and wide, low savannas of lush grass, past wide cane-brakes, they pursued slow but steady, if tedious progress. Tom began to wish the trip were done. Rain, fog and wet, dreary days were far more frequent than dry ones; and this, added to the mud beneath their camps, the small food supply and the mean temper of Morgan, made things more than unpleasant.
In time they reached a small village; the huts were of palmetto stakes, driven into the ground close together, in the shape of an oblong enclosure with rounded ends and a space for a door; roofs were of a thatch of woven reeds or brush. The few Indians were silent, stolid people, but not unkind or cruel in their attitude. At this village, Bill and Henry were informed, they would be left until men came down the river to take them on.
“Do they know we’re here—and in a hurry?” ventured Tom.
The canoeman looked blank and said little.
“They know,” Morgan responded in surly, husky tones. “Indians know when people come.”
“How do they know?” Tom persisted. “Do they send messengers?”
“They know!” snapped Henry and turned away.
Tom made no comment on the rude behavior, but busied himself making friends with a small boy, evidently a child belonging to some one of importance. The youngster, about eight, liked the white boy, some years older, and when his shyness was overcome, he spent hours watching Tom as the white youth demonstrated how a small, bright red magnet he carried would draw and cling to several nails he also had.