CHAPTER VIII

A DUTCH UNCLE

Hal got out of the car at the edge of _San Gabriel_ aviation field and looked about. Leveled from the surrounding jungle, it was situated at the extreme end of the city and here and there over its smooth-looking surface were divers planes, some throbbing under the impetus of running engines and some still, with their spread wings catching the reflection of the afternoon sun.

Three good-sized hangars dotted the right side of the field and Hal caught a glimpse of mechanics busy within. Several groups of men stood about chattering, while here and there some nondescript individual loitered about with that solitary air that at once proclaimed him as being one of that universal brotherhood of hoboes.

One, whose features were distinctly Anglo-Saxon, despite the ravages which the South American climate had made upon his once fair skin, strolled over to Hal’s side the moment he espied him. He was hatless and his blond hair had been burned by countless Brazilian suns until it was a kind of burnt straw color. And his clothes, though worn and thin, gave mute testimony of the wearer having seen a far happier and more prosperous era than the present one.

Hal caught the look of racial hunger on his face and warmed toward him immediately.

“Hello, fellow,” said he with a warmth in his deep voice. “My name’s Keen—Hal Keen.”

A light shone from the stranger’s gray eyes.

“Carmichael’s mine, Keen,” he said pleasantly. “Rene Carmichael. Awfully glad to speak the English language with a fellow being.”

“But Americans aren’t speaking the English language, Carmichael,” Hal laughed with a twinkle in his deep blue eyes. “Nevertheless, as long as you can understand me, that’s all that counts, huh?”

“It’s music to my ears, Keen,” answered Carmichael gravely. “It’s deucedly odd how one will criticize Americans when one is safe at home, but just get away in this corner of nowhere and see the smiling face and broad shoulders of a Yankee pop up out of this dark-skinned crowd! I tell you, Keen, it makes a chap like myself almost want to fall on your shoulder and weep.” His weather-beaten face crinkled up in a smile, as he looked up at Hal. “You don’t carry a stepladder around with you so I can do that, eh?” he asked whimsically.

“Nope,” Hal laughed. “Notwithstanding my height, I couldn’t conceal it.” He glanced at Carmichael sympathetically. “Funny what you just said about Americans—I’ve thought that way about Englishmen too and yet as soon as I laid eyes on you, I felt just like you say you do. Kindred spirits and all that sort of thing, huh? Anyway, I guess the real trouble, the reason for all our prejudices is that we dislike everything we don’t know and, consequently, can’t understand, huh?”

“And now that you’ve met a regular Englishman—what is it, love at first sight?” His eyes danced with merriment.

“You’re aces high, Carmichael. I’m tickled pink we’ve run into each other, that’s a fact. My uncle and I were supposed to look for a Brazilian named Rodriguez out here who is dated to take us for a spin. Unk couldn’t come, so here am I alone. How would you like to take his place? I’d feel better if you came along—someone who can understand me.”

The fellow studied Hal closely for a moment, then nodded.

“I’ll come, but I shouldn’t really. I’m due to sail for _Moura_ at four. I’ve got a toothbrush and one or two other necessities of life back at the hotel which I have to get.”

“Then you’re not a ho ...” Hal just caught himself in time. “Honestly, I’m sorry, awfully....”

“Save the effort, Keen. I love to be thought a hobo. As a matter of fact I am—in a sense. I’m very poor really, but I don’t _have_ to wear my clothes as long as I’ve worn this suit. It’s just that it suits my—ah, purpose.” He laughed and his voice was musically resonant. “Literally, though, I’m not a hobo. I really do _something_ for a living, and a hard enough living it is, old chap.”

“I believe it,” said Hal earnestly. He studied the fellow a moment, taking note of the buoyant broad shoulders and tall slender figure. For he was really quite tall, when one did not consider Hal’s towering height.

“You’re deucedly odd for what I’ve heard about Americans, Keen,” said Carmichael. “You’re straightforward and honest, and not a bit snoopy. Seem to take me at my face value and all that. No questions—nothing.”

“Why not?” Hal countered. “It wouldn’t be my business, Carmichael. But somebody’s given you a devil of an opinion of Americans! I know there are some pretty poor specimens that go shouting around in Europe, but there’s lots of the other kind too, and lots that stay at home. Well, I guess I’m the kind you haven’t heard about, huh? I’m snoopy in some things, though—don’t think I’m not.”

“Aren’t we all?” Carmichael returned. “It’s the way of life and people, I suppose. But there’re some kinds that get on a chap’s nerves. Yours is the kind that doesn’t. That’s why I want to tell you not to take seriously what I gave you to understand about my being from the continent. I’ve lived all my life in Brazil—perhaps that’s why I like to play for five minutes or so that I’m really a native of some other country. I was educated in an English school in Rio and for eight happy years I fooled myself that I was a citizen of some Anglo-Saxon country. No doubt that sounds deucedly odd coming from a chap born here. But I shall never assimilate Latin ways if I live to a ripe old age in this desolate corner of the world.” He laughed bitterly. “I can only hope then that I shall be allowed the company of Anglo-Saxons in the spirit world, eh, Keen?”

“If you wish to live among Anglo-Saxons as much as that, Carmichael, I should think you’d get your wish before you die.” He looked across the field and saw a short, helmeted figure coming toward them. “Don Rodriguez, I bet. He’s smiling, so that must be he. He’s smiling with recognition as if he’s been given a pretty accurate description of me.”

“And a description one could never forget,” said Carmichael. “You must tell me more about yourself, Keen—that is if you care to. If all Americans are like you, then I want to meet heaps of them.”

“Well, I’m glad I’ve done so much for my country,” Hal laughed. “And I’ll tell you all you want to hear. Wait until we get up in the air—we’ll have a little shouting party, huh?”

“Righto.”

The helmeted figure came straight to Hal with outstretched hand and black, smiling eyes.

“Señor Hal Keen—tall like a mountain and red at the top,” he said in broken English, and laughed. Then he turned to Rene. “And this is the Señor uncle—no?”

“Yes,” answered Carmichael with a swift chuckle, “his Dutch uncle.” And in an undertone to Hal, he said: “Do I look as old as that?”

“It depends on how old looking you think an uncle ought to look,” Hal grinned. “My unk seems like a kid to me yet. He’s not forty.”

“And I’m not thirty,” said Carmichael with a poignancy in his voice that did not escape Hal. But he was all laughter the next second and he added: “At that I can still be your Dutch uncle, eh? Your Uncle Rene?”

“I’ll tell the world you can! _You are!_” Hal turned then to the still-smiling Rodriguez. “When do we hop off in your bus?”

“Ah, to be sure,” said the aviator. “The plane, you mean, eh? She is there—see?” he said, pointing to a small, single-motor cabin plane. “Now shall we take a fly over the jungle, you and the Señor uncle?”

“Sure,” they answered unanimously. And as they followed at the aviator’s heels, Rene whispered: “I kind of like this, being your Dutch uncle. And as long as he thinks so....”

“Why bother to explain, huh?” Hal returned in the spirit of the thing. “There’s not that much difference between a real uncle and a Dutch uncle anyway.”

But Hal was to learn that there _was_ a difference as far as Rodriguez was concerned.