Chapter VII: Cold Steel

Some two hours after the start, while Knowlton and Tim loafed at the fore end of the cabin, enjoying the comparative coolness of the early day, another boat hove in sight up ahead--a longish craft manned by eight paddlers and without a cabin.

As it came into view its bowman tossed his paddle in greeting. The Peruvians ignored the salutation. The bowman, after shading his eyes and peering at the flamboyant figure of José, resumed paddling without further ceremony, evidently intending to pass in silence. But then McKay arose, waved a hand, and told José to steer for the newcomers. José, with a slightly sour look, gave the signal to Francisco, and the course changed.

The other canoe slowed and waited. Its men watched the tall figure of McKay. Tim and Knowlton scanned the bronzed faces of those men and liked them at once. The paddlers evidently were Brazilians, but of a different type from the sluggish townsmen of Remate de Males--alert, active-looking fellows, steady of eye, honest of face, muscular of arm--in all, a more clean-cut set of men than the Peruvians. All three of the Americans noticed that no word was exchanged between the two crews.

“Boa dia, amigos!“ spoke McKay. “Who are you and whence do you come?”

“We are rubber workers of Coronel Nunes, senhor,” the bowman answered, civilly. “We go to make a new camp. This land is a part of the seringel of the coronel, and we left his headquarters yesterday.”

“Ah! Then the headquarters is above here?”

“One more day’s journey,” the man nodded.

“I thank you. Good fortune go with you.”

“And with you, senhor. May God protect you.”

With the words the Brazilian glanced along the line of Peruvian faces and his eyes narrowed. Though his words were only a respectful farewell, his expressive face indicated that McKay might be badly in need of divine protection at no distant date. As his paddle dipped and his men nodded their leave-taking, Francisco, the popero; sneered raucously:

“Hah! Mere caucheros! Workers! Slaves!”

And he spat at the Brazilian boat.

Fire shot into the eyes of the bowman and his comrades. Their muscles tensed.

“Better be slaves--better be dogs--than Peruvian cutthroats!” one retorted. “Go your way, and keep to your own side of the river.”

“We go where we will, and no misborn Brazilians can stop us,” snarled Francisco. To which he added obscene epithets directed against Brazilians in general and the men of Coronel Nunes in particular.

The unprovoked insults angered the Americans as well as the Brazilians. Knowlton leaped through the toldo and confronted Francisco.

“Shut your dirty mouth!” he blazed.

For reply, the evil-eyed steersman spat at him the vilest name known to man.

An instant later, his lips split, he sprawled dazedly on his platform, perilously close to the edge. Knowlton, the knuckles of his left fist bleeding from impact with the other’s teeth, stood over him in white fury. Francisco’s right hand fumbled for his knife. Knowlton promptly stamped on that hand with a heavy boot heel.

“Good eye, Looey!” rumbled Tim’s voice at his back. “Boot him some more for luck. Hey, you! Back up or I’ll drill ye for keeps!” This to a pair of the Peruvian paddlers who had come scrambling through the cabin.

After one searching stare into Tim’s hard blue eyes and a glance at his fist curled around the butt of his belt gun, the bogas backed up. A moment later they were thrown boldly into their own part of the boat by José, who blistered them with the profanity of three languages at once. Then McKay came through and took charge.

“That’ll do, Tim! Same goes for you, Merry! José, I’ll handle this. You, Francisco! Get up!”

The curt commands struck like blows. Every man obeyed. And when the squat steersman again stood up McKay went after him roughshod. In the colloquial Spanish of Mexico and the Argentine, in the man talk of American army camps, he flayed that offender alive. José himself, efficient man handler though he was, stared at his captain in awe. And Francisco, though not given to cringing, skulked like a beaten dog when the verbal flagellation was finished.

Turning then to the Brazilians, McKay formally apologized for the insults to them.

“It is nothing, senhor,” coolly answered the bowman--though his glance at the Peruvians said plainly that it would have been something but for the swift punishment by the Americans. “Again I say--may God protect you! Adeos!”

The Brazilian boat glided away. The Peruvian craft crawled on upstream in silence.

When the next camp was made all apparently had forgotten the affair. The men badgered one another as usual, though none mentioned Francisco’s split mouth; and Francisco, himself, albeit sulky, betrayed no sign of enmity. After nightfall the regular camp-fire meeting was held and at the usual time all turned in. One more night of listening to the sounds of the tropical wilderness seemed all that lay ahead of the secret sentinels.

Sleep enveloped the huts. Snores and gurgles rose and fell. Tim himself, for the sake of effect, snored heartily at intervals, though his eyes never closed. Through his mosquito bar he could see only vaguely, but he knew any man walking from the crew’s quarters must cast a very visible shadow across that net, and to him the shadow would be as good a warning as a clear view of the substance. But the hours crept on and no shadow came.

At length, however, a small sound reached his alert ear--a sound different from the regular noises of the bush--a stealthy, creeping noise like that of a big snake or a huge lizard. It came from the ground a few feet away, and it seemed to be gradually advancing toward his own hammock. Whatever the creature was that made it, its method of progress was not human, but reptilian. Puzzled, suspicious, yet doubtful, Tim lifted the rear side of his net, on which no moonlight fell. Head out, he watched for the crawling thing to come close.

It came, and for an instant he was in doubt as to its character, for around it lay the deep shadow of some treetops which at that point blocked off the moon. It inched along on its stomach, its black head seeming round and minus a face, its body broad but flat--a thing that looked to be a man but not a man. Then, pausing, it raised its head and peered toward the hammock of Knowlton. With that movement Tim’s doubts vanished. The lifting of the head showed the face--the face of Francisco, the face of murder. In its teeth was clamped a bare knife.

Forthwith Tim applied General Order Number Thirteen.

In one bound he was outside his net, colliding with Knowlton, who awoke instantly. In another he was beside the assassin, who, with a lightning grab at the knife in his mouth, had started to spring up. Tim wasted no time in grappling or clinching. He kicked.

His heavy boot, backed by the power of a hundred and ninety pounds of brawn, thudded into the Indian’s chest. Francisco was hurled over sidewise on his back. Another kick crashed against his head above the ear. He went limp.

“Ye lousy snake!” grated Tim. “Crawlin’ on yer belly to knife a sleepin’ man, hey? Blast yer rotten heart--”

“What’s up?” barked McKay from his hammock.

“Night attack, Cap. If ye’re comin’ out bring along yer gat. Hey, Looey, got yer gun on? Some o’ these other guys might git gay. They’re comin’ now.”

True enough, the Peruvian gang was jumping from its hut. With another glance at the prostrate Francisco to make sure he was unconscious, Tim whirled to meet them, fist on gun.

“Halt!” he roared. “First guy passin’ this corner post gits shot. Back up!”

The impact of his voice, the menace of his ready gun hand, the sight of Knowlton and McKay leaping out with pistols drawn, stopped the rush at the designated post. But swift hands dropped, and when they rose again the moonlight glinted on cold steel.

“Capitan, what happens here?” demanded José, ominously quiet.

“Knife work,” McKay replied, curtly. “Your man Francisco attempted to creep in and murder Señor Knowlton. If you and the rest have similar intentions, now’s your time to try. If not, put away those knives.”

“Knives! Por Dios, what do you mean?”

“Look behind you.”

José looked. At once he snarled curses and commands. Slowly the knives slipped out of sight. The paddlers edged backward to their own shack, leaving their puntero alone.

“The capitan has it wrong,” asserted José. “We awake to find our popero being kicked in the head. We want to know why. If Francisco has done what you say I will deal with him. That I may be sure, allow me to look.”

“Very well. Look.”

José advanced, stooped, studied the ground, the position of Francisco’s body, the knife still clutched in the nerveless hand. Tim growlingly vouchsafed a brief explanation of the incident. When José straightened up, his mouth was a hard line and his eyes hot coals.

“Si. Es verdad. To-morrow we shall have a new popero.”

With which he stooped again, grasped the prone man by the hair, dragged him into the moonlit space between the huts, and flung him down. “Juan, bring water!” he ordered.

One of the paddlers, looking queerly at him, did so. José deluged the senseless man. Francisco, reviving, sat up and scowled about him. His eyes rested on the three Americans standing grimly ready, shoulder to shoulder, before their hut; veered to his mates bunched in sinister silence beside their own quarters; shifted again to meet the baleful glare of José. His hand stole to his empty sheath.