  The twang of the head-hunter’s bowstring was drowned by an explosive burst from farther up the trail. With it, the Macu marksman gave an upward, sideward jolt at the very instant the arrow was leaving his bow. The feathered missile zimmed high and wide by a matter of scant inches, for Biff could hear it whirr past his ear and stop with a sharp thud in a tree trunk just behind him. A piercing yell seemed to echo the timely gunshot. The Macu had dropped his bow and was gripping his left arm with his right hand as he dived off into the jungle. The bullet had jolted the bow from the Macu’s grasp, sending the arrow wide. Now, looking up the trail, Biff saw his father hurrying in his direction, rifle in hand. Biff started to meet him, shouting, “Dad!” only to have Mr. Brewster wave him back. Next, Biff saw his father take a quick shot at another Macu huntsman who had popped up in the brush, only to drop from sight again. Now, from the other side of the trail, a brown head and arm poked from among a mass of blossoms that sprouted from the thin bark of a fallen tree trunk. Biff heard the familiar call: “Biff, come this way! Quick!” It was Kamuka. Biff vaulted the log and took shelter behind it, but tried to shake off Kamuka’s restraining hand as he saw his father come along the trail with Mr. Whitman and Jacome. All three were taking long-range shots at distant Macus. “I have to warn Dad,” Biff explained. “Serbot’s party is just around the bend.” “He knows,” assured Kamuka. “We were coming back when we heard their guns. So we hurry fast.” “Coming back along this trail?” “That’s right. When they couldn’t find us on the main trail, they think maybe we take this one. So today, they take it to look for us.” “Then you sneaked ahead of Serbot’s party after you ducked from sight. But how did you know to take this side trail when you reached it?” “Jacome leave special message that I understand. Twist of grass and broken jungle branch are as good as mirror signal, sometimes.” Mr. Brewster and his fellow-marksmen had rifles with a longer range than the Macu weapons. Also, they were able to shift positions along the trail, preventing the Macus from picking a point of attack. Serbot’s party, on the contrary, had first let the Macus close in on them. Then, in solidly entrenching themselves, they had lost all chance of mobility. Soon they would have been surrounded if Mr. Brewster and his companions hadn’t come along to scatter the foe. Kamuka called Biff’s attention to that fact. “Macu run like scared deer,” said Kamuka. “But now your father is telling Mr. Whitman and Jacome to stop shooting. Why?” “I guess Dad wants to keep the Macus around as a threat,” returned Biff grimly, “until he sees what Serbot intends to do. Urubu might take a pot shot at anybody.” Kamuka gave a knowing nod. “You tell me!” “Then you saw it was Urubu who fired after you?” “Sure, Biff. I look long enough to see him aim. I tell Mr. Brewster all that happened, too.” Evidently, Mr. Brewster had profited by Kamuka’s report. He had reached the bend where he was in direct sight of Serbot’s entrenched party, but he was motioning for Whitman and Jacome to stay behind him. Serbot looked up from behind a pack, then gave a wary glance in the direction the Macus had gone. A few arrows came whizzing from high among the tree boughs, but they landed wide. They were sufficient, however, to shape Serbot’s next decision. Serbot ordered Pepito and Urubu to resume their shooting after the Macus. At the same time, Serbot clambered over the packs and came along the path to meet Mr. Brewster, who in his turn ordered Mr. Whitman and Jacome to renew their fire on the distant head-hunters. Rifles barked in unison. Biff and Kamuka joined their party in time to catch a last glimpse of the routed head-hunters. “They won’t stop until they reach their camp,” declared Biff, “and maybe they’ll still keep on going from there.” “Until they reach the Rio Negro,” added Kamuka, “and maybe they swim it quick.” Mr. Brewster’s meeting with Serbot resulted in an immediate, though guarded truce. Mr. Whitman and Jacome moved up to back Mr. Brewster, while Serbot was beckoning for Pepito and Urubu to come and join him. The boys stayed in the background as did Serbot’s bearers, none of whom had been injured in the brief fray. How many head-hunters might be lying dead in the brush or limping away wounded, there was no telling, but the battle had been won rapidly and effectively. Serbot seemed duly appreciative as he purred: “We owe you much, amigo. You have helped us. Perhaps there is some way we can help you.” “None at all,” Mr. Brewster said curtly. “Now that we have driven off the Macus, we can go our separate ways.” “But how can you go anywhere? You have no bearers.” “They are waiting farther up the main trail, with our equipment. We left them while we came back to look for the boys.” Serbot promptly raised a new line of inquiry. “Perhaps you are surprised to see me here,” he suggested, “So far from Manaus, where we last met.” “Why should I be surprised?” returned Mr. Brewster. “We are both looking for balata, aren’t we?” “I am not looking for rubber,” Serbot declared. “I am looking for a man named Joe Nara, who claims to have a gold mine somewhere near the headwaters of the Rio Negro. He came down to Manaus in a fast boat shortly before you left your hotel.” “Who told you I had left?” “The manager at the Hotel Jacares. He also said that your room appeared to have been robbed. The next day your jeep was found near an empty boathouse. I learned that Senhor Whitman had started from there on a rubber exploration trip upriver.” “And you thought I had joined him?” “Exactly, Senhor. So I came by plane to find you.” Biff realized that Serbot’s plane must have been one of those that had passed over Nara’s cruiser on the trip up the Rio Negro. “After I hired Urubu as a guide,” continued Serbot, “I learned that you had arrived on Nara’s cruiser. So I assumed that you planned to meet Nara later.” “So you bribed Luiz to kill me, to make sure of meeting Nara first.” “No, no, Senhor. I only wanted Luiz to delay your safari, as Pepito and Urubu will tell you.” Serbot gestured to the pair, and Pepito smiled broadly while Urubu showed his usual ugly grin. “I wanted to talk to Nara,” continued Serbot earnestly, “because I had heard that he was willing to sell his gold mine to the highest bidder. That is, if he really has a gold mine. Perhaps you could tell me that?” “I wouldn’t know,” returned Mr. Brewster. “As you say, I am only interested in rubber. And it’s time that I was starting off to look for some.” With that parting, Mr. Brewster motioned his companions back toward the main trail. They had only gone a dozen paces, when Mr. Brewster undertoned: “Take turns glancing back to see what that crowd is doing. I don’t trust any of them, particularly Urubu.” Biff took the first look and reported that Urubu, like Serbot and Pepito, was leaning on his gun while the trio apparently discussed what to do next. Soon Kamuka reported the same thing. Then Mr. Whitman looked back and announced that the group was now out of sight. Mr. Brewster called for a quicker pace, and when they reached the main trail, they moved even faster—so fast in fact, that Biff and Kamuka had to jog along to keep up with the three men. “We came back to look for you at dawn,” Biff’s father told the boys, “so our bearers will be packed and waiting for us when we reach our last night’s campsite. If Serbot pushes his crew to overtake us, they will be worn out, while we’ll be starting fresh.” Mr. Whitman was feeling the heat, for he removed his white helmet to mop his forehead. “More likely,” he said, “Serbot will try to overtake Nara by going up the bank of the Rio Negro. That makes all this hurry useless.” “No, we still must keep ahead of Serbot,” Mr. Brewster insisted. “If Serbot has guessed where Nara is going, he will move up the Rio Del Muerte while we are coming down it.” The bearers were waiting when they reached the campsite, and fell promptly into line. There was little difficulty in spurring them on. The mere mention that the Macus were behind them was enough. During the next few days, the bearers toiled steadily along the inland trail. Apparently, there was nothing that they feared more than the Macus. Nothing, at least, until the safari reached a deep but narrow stream that the bearers promptly identified as Rio Del Muerte. Then they broke into a babble of Indian talk that only Jacome was able to translate. “They say they leave us here,” declared Jacome. “It is death, they say, to go down this river.” Mr. Brewster studied the narrow trail that flanked the riverbank and dwindled off into the thick green of the jungle. “Tell them that if they go back the way they came, they may meet the Macus.” Jacome translated Mr. Brewster’s comment. The bearers chattered back excitedly, and Jacome announced: “They say they would rather meet Macu than stay near Rio Del Muerte. They say they go home now.” While Jacome spoke, the bearers picked up their few belongings and started on their homeward trek. Biff and Kamuka noted that they did not even stop to fill their water bags from the stream that they seemed to dread so much. “What do you make of it, Kamuka?” Biff asked. “I do not know,” Kamuka replied. “I cannot even understand the things they say to Jacome, except that they are afraid to go downriver.” However, the expedition was far from being stranded. The pack bags that the native bearers had abandoned contained three rubber boats, complete with aluminum seats and paddles. Biff and Kamuka helped pump them full of air, so that they took on a squatty, roundish shape. Then, after a survey of the rubber flotilla, Mr. Brewster decided to take Biff and Kamuka with him in one boat, while Mr. Whitman and Jacome manned the second, each carrying whatever equipment it could bear. The third boat was converted into a raft and loaded with all the remaining packs. Biff’s father took it in tow, letting Hal Whitman pace the trip downstream. To Biff, this was a fine change after the long, sweaty hours on the trail when he and Kamuka had helped relieve the bearers. They were floating through a maze of jungle green that at times actually arched into a tunnel above them. Though heavily loaded, the boats moved easily, more swiftly as the jungle banks narrowed and the river itself deepened. Whitman was waving back cheerily as they skimmed off the mileage. Suddenly they saw him rise and wag his paddle frantically as he shouted: “Stay back—stay back—” His words were drowned by a mighty roar as they turned the bend and saw what Whitman had already viewed. No wonder the natives called this the Rio Del Muerte, the River of Death! Just ahead, a curved crest of foam showed where the stream took a sudden drop in the form of a mammoth waterfall—a sheer plunge to doom on the rocks a hundred feet below! |
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