CHAPTER XII
THE FACTS
Those Indians picked by the white trader, Mr. Buckley, to take Tom and Cliff across the mountain ways toward the capital, were by no means pleasant companions. Even in looks they were disconcerting.
Their faces were cruel and hard; their bodies were stalwart and powerful; they spoke very little, and then in their own peculiar up-river and mountain dialects. Toosa warned Bill quietly that they were noted for their avarice.
“Give no money,” Toosa warned. “Hide. Not show. They—” He made a meaning gesture, drawing his hand across his throat.
“Not very pleasant companions, buddy,” Bill told Tom, as they got into the canoe which would take them further up the river. “But Toosa says if we don’t show fear or weakness we will be all right—only, keep what money you have in your belt close to your skin and never let on that you have any!”
Tom’s last act before leaving Toosa, completely won the old man’s heart.
He called the great-grandson, Porfirio, to his forward seat in the canoe, and gave him, for his very own, the magnet with which the boy so often played. Toosa’s eyes lighted up when he saw the boy’s dazed, almost awed look; Toosa smiled—a real smile.
Suddenly coming close to the leader of the mountain Indians, three in number, he made some very firm declarations—to the effect that the white men were in his keeping and that he would watch over them and know if anything happened to them—and on the least sign of such danger he would release all the spirits of the mountain—evil ones!—to punish the offending Indians. They seemed to be strongly impressed.
“I guess we’ll be safe enough now,” Bill said. “That magnet is going to be a life-saver, Tom.”
“It’s a cheap price to pay for insurance,” Tom grinned, and they were sent out into the current by the lusty paddles of the four river natives who owned the canoe and who would take them on the first lap of their roundabout trip to the coast.