“Harry,” he exclaimed, “I cannot see the canoe!”
“You must have mistaken the spot where I left it,” I answered. “I secured it well.”
I returned with him to the bank. In vain we searched up and down the banks of the water-path. Not a trace of the canoe did we discover.
“She must have broken adrift, then, during the night,” I observed. “Perhaps she has driven up the igarape.”
“I will go one way and you the other, then,” said John.
I made my way as well as I could through the tangled wood from the river, while John went towards it. Wherever I could, I got down to the edge of the water. Now I climbed along a trunk which overhang it; but though I thus got a view for a considerable distance, I could see no canoe. At length I returned, hoping that John might have been more successful. I met him on the spot where we had parted.
“I cannot see her,” he said. “Harry, I am afraid she has been carried off!”
The same idea had occurred to me. We now carefully examined the spot where we had left her. I found the very trunk of the tree round which I had secured the painter. It was scarcely rubbed, which it would have been, we agreed, had the canoe been torn away by the force of the wind. We were soon joined by Arthur and Domingos, who had come along with loads, surprised at our not returning. We communicated to them the alarming intelligence. Domingos was afraid that we were right in our conjectures. We returned to the camp to break the unsatisfactory news to Ellen.
“If our canoe is lost, we must build another,” she remarked, in her usual quiet way, concealing her anxiety; “but it is very trying to be thus delayed.”
Still it would not do to give up without a further search for the canoe. As the wind had set up the igarape, I knew that, should the canoe have broken away by herself, she must have driven before it. It was therefore settled that Arthur and I should go up still further in that direction, while John would try and make his way down to the main river, searching along the bank. Ellen and Maria, with Domingos and True to take care of them, were to remain at the camp. Arthur and I had our axes, for without them we could make no progress. I had my gun; Arthur a spear, with bow and arrows, which Naro had presented to him. Thus armed, we hoped to defend ourselves against any jaguar or boa we might meet. We had little to fear from any other wild animals. As we had seen no traces of natives, we did not expect to meet with any. We soon gained the point I had reached in the morning. After this, we had to hew a path for ourselves through the forest. Sometimes we got a few feet without impediment, and then had to cut away the sipos for several yards. Now and then we were able to crawl under them, and sometimes we were able to leap over the loops, or make our way along the wide-spreading roots of the tall trees. Thus we went on, every now and then getting down to the edge of the igarape, and climbing out on the trunk of one of the overhanging trees, whence we could obtain a view up and down for some distance.