CHAPTER XXXIII

RENAN!

The guards marched Hal to a hut not far from the river trail and with a push thrust him into the gloomy interior. Suddenly he felt a hand reach out and touch his shoulder.

“Keen, as I live!” cried a familiar voice.

Hal looked down, his eyes becoming accustomed to the dimness, and saw the smiling face of Rene Carmichael.

“_Renan Carmichael Pemberton!_” he laughed and proffering his hand gripped the other’s with a hearty pressure.

“Well, I hear you’ve got the dope all firsthand, eh, Keen?”

“And how!” Hal laughed. “But I don’t know which I like better—Rene or Renan! I’ll change off to vary the monotony, huh? Just the same I’m darn glad to see you—boy, how glad!”

“And you’re well and safe, eh, chappie? Heavens, but I was worried about you. I suppose you thought that I didn’t care what happened to you, eh?”

“Never. I just didn’t know, that’s all.”

Renan pointed to two rickety stools. They sat down.

“Not knowing that it was a put-up job by that skunk Goncalves, I came straight here to get Ceara to help me. That’s where I made my mistake, for Goncalves was here and when he heard me mention your name to the general, all was off. He accused me of being an informer to the Federals and all that sort of thing. Ceara understood that I didn’t know Rodriguez from Adam and he thought it was pretty rotten work for Goncalves to do, but he couldn’t say too much. He was afraid of Goncalves, that’s the long and short of it. That’s why he had to put me in here—he _had_ to, or that little trouble maker would have gone all over this camp saying the _General_ played me for a favorite—which he did.”

“And here you’ve been ever since, huh?”

“Here I’ve been. But tell me about yourself?”

Hal told him briefly, yet missing no important detail, and summed it up with his singular interview with the Coronel Goncalves.

“And here I am, Rene, too. By special permission of Col. Calves Liver out there. You can be certain there are rats in his garret. He talked like a madman.”

“Great Heavens, Keen! You don’t think he really intends to play the _Pallidas_ onto my sister and grandfather, do you? Not that!”

“Rene, I wouldn’t tell you only that I think he means to do just that. I tell you the bird isn’t right! He means to make short work of us, too.”

Renan clenched his hands together.

“I’ve got friends in this outfit—all these men trust me and like me. They liked Ceara, too, but, like everyone else, they fear Goncalves like poison. But maybe I can work something, Keen. Don’t get discouraged.”

“I’m not, only Calves Liver told me the glad news that Ceara died of fever.”

“He lied,” Renan muttered darkly. “He’s had the poor man shot. He was jealous of everybody. Now that he’s got Ceara out of the way, and myself—he can rule. _Maybe._ We’ll see, Keen—we’ll see!”

“And what a mess for a couple of Americans to get into, huh? Excuse me though, Rene, I forgot.”

“Don’t, Keen! I rather like being taken for an American. If I had to do it all over again....”

“Yes?”

“Oh, I went into this more because I liked Ceara. It was fascinating and Grandfather talked radically to me. I got to think we were abused, but now I see differently—I have ever since I met you on the field that day. I got to realize that we Civil War refugees are nothing but a lot of soreheads and anything but a sporting lot. Our grandparents and great-grandparents who are responsible for bringing us down to this desolate corner of the world weren’t big enough to stay on in the South and come up smiling like the rest. Oh, how I see it! We’ve been brought up on bitterness and prejudice and our terrible poverty’s made us think even worse things about this land of our adoption. But no more. If I ever get out of here I’m going to the Brazilian Government and get down on my knees for forgiveness. Goncalves has made me see what a pack of fools we are. What does he care about political freedom or a square deal for the jungle plantation owner? Not a darn thing. Goncalves is rooting for Goncalves!”

“Rene, you’re simply great! My uncle would be tickled pink to hear that kind of talk. I do believe you’d be given a full pardon by both governments if you’d only tell who the munitions manufacturers are from whom Ceara got his stuff.”

“I couldn’t tell you from Adam, Keen. That’s the work Goncalves did. He used my name, that’s all. So I got the credit for it, eh? No, what I did was to run up and down the jungle for recruits, that’s all. Now you’ve heard it all.”

“Well, my story is that, if we get out of here, the most sensible thing for you to do is to get that mine working and see that your kid sister lives in a country where she’s going to be healthy. I never saw anybody so sad—honest!”

“I know it—I know it, Hal. And I will! I’ll see that I do! Tonight! We’ll get out of here somehow!”

And somehow they did!