CHAPTER XII

THE FACTS

Those Indians picked by the white trader, Mr. Buckley, to take Tom and Cliff across the mountain ways toward the capital, were by no means pleasant companions. Even in looks they were disconcerting.

Their faces were cruel and hard; their bodies were stalwart and powerful; they spoke very little, and then in their own peculiar up-river and mountain dialects. Toosa warned Bill quietly that they were noted for their avarice.

“Give no money,” Toosa warned. “Hide. Not show. They—” He made a meaning gesture, drawing his hand across his throat.

“Not very pleasant companions, buddy,” Bill told Tom, as they got into the canoe which would take them further up the river. “But Toosa says if we don’t show fear or weakness we will be all right—only, keep what money you have in your belt close to your skin and never let on that you have any!”

Tom’s last act before leaving Toosa, completely won the old man’s heart.

He called the great-grandson, Porfirio, to his forward seat in the canoe, and gave him, for his very own, the magnet with which the boy so often played. Toosa’s eyes lighted up when he saw the boy’s dazed, almost awed look; Toosa smiled—a real smile.

Suddenly coming close to the leader of the mountain Indians, three in number, he made some very firm declarations—to the effect that the white men were in his keeping and that he would watch over them and know if anything happened to them—and on the least sign of such danger he would release all the spirits of the mountain—evil ones!—to punish the offending Indians. They seemed to be strongly impressed.

“I guess we’ll be safe enough now,” Bill said. “That magnet is going to be a life-saver, Tom.”

“It’s a cheap price to pay for insurance,” Tom grinned, and they were sent out into the current by the lusty paddles of the four river natives who owned the canoe and who would take them on the first lap of their roundabout trip to the coast.

Their last sight of Toosa was one Tom would never forget; he had an arm around the shoulders of the child; behind his dwarfed figure clustered the Indian men, women and children. He lifted his long arm high in air, and made a sort of sign with his fingers.

“Great Gravy!” whispered Tom, to Bill. “Did you see that? How in the world did he come to make that sign?”

“What sign? With his fingers? Why, I suppose it’s a benediction or something.”

“He spread all his fingers wide; then he closed them tight, then spread them wide again,” gasped Tom.

“Well, what of it?” demanded Bill.

“That,” said Tom, in some awe, “that is the sign of our Mystery Boys’ order, as you very well know—the sign of ‘Goodbye, good luck and God be with you,’ that we use at parting!”

“By golly!” said Bill, and stayed silent a long time. What a coincidence that the almost savage man who lived in the woods had made such a final message without knowing, perhaps, that he did so—unless the boys had stumbled upon some ancient sign of some old cult.

After several days on the river the canoe was beached and the trio of mountaineers bade a gruff farewell to their river brethren, and, with heavy packs, of which Tom and Bill had their full share, the five started on foot for one of the most difficult and trying tramps Tom had ever experienced.

Before nightfall a small village was reached, and there the party was to stay over night.

“From what I understand, it’s proper in these parts to give our firearms to our host as a mark of good faith, for over night,” Bill told Tom.

“It must be safe enough, if it’s a custom,” Tom said, glancing at the ring of rough, coarse, dark faces studying them curiously.

“He’s supposed to hand them right back, Toosa said,” Bill answered, and accordingly he gave his rifle and one pistol to the Indian in whose hut they were quartered, while Tom handed over the other, given him by Bill. But the host did not hand them back.

No harm came to them during the night, however, although Bill was uneasy without his weapons.

Day after day, from then on, they went forward by increasingly difficult stages, first following the river, winding upward among the lower mountains, past dangerous rapids, over steep knolls, through rough canyons and up almost precipitous inclines, where ropes had to be used to hold any one who slipped from plunging to destruction.

Hard as was the way, and tiresome as was the furious pace set by the hardened mountain Indians, Bill and Tom kept up well, for Tom was of an athletic frame and always kept his body in perfect trim by lots of exercise, sports and fresh air, while Bill was of the lean, rangy type and never seemed to tire.

The attitude of their companions was a continual worry to Bill, however. Tom felt it also. Often he caught one or another of the three fierce-looking men watching him covertly in the camps, with speculative eyes roaming over his weapon, his clothing, his pack.

The Indians said little, but in their manner there seemed to be some expectancy, as if they either felt or knew that something was going to happen.

As the way grew more steep and difficult, the men seemed to be watching even more carefully, and Tom asked Bill what it meant. Bill, who understood their degraded Spanish words, used occasionally, but who pretended not to, replied that they were making some plan but he could not guess what it was.

They had reached a deep ravine, away high among the crags, and could look from it across a wide chasm, when a sudden storm caused them to make a hasty camp under a sheltering overhang of rock.

The men drew off and huddled together while Tom and Bill stuck close together under the rubber poncho which Bill carried. Presently one of the men approached.

“We wet,” he said. “You give coat, eh?”

Bill hesitated, but Tom, with a sudden inspiration, threw aside the covering with a generous wave of his hand. The man seemed surprised but took the garment away and the trio of Indians used it.

“Now,” said Bill, “they’ll demand everything we’ve got.”

“Maybe,” said Tom, “but we can stave them off at least until we get out of this ticklish place. If we get them mad, away up here, they could push us off the side, before we could wake up from sleep. We ought to keep them quiet till we get to a better place.”

“I think they want to rob us and desert us?” Bill hazarded.

“So do I,” Tom agreed. “But as long as we keep our pistols and your rifle, it will be all safe; we can take turns watching at night.”

They did, and Tom, on watch that night, noticed a creeping figure, coming close to their soggy mosquito protection, but made no sign. He told Bill, when the later awoke, and they redoubled their watchfulness.

The next day they went on and came into a high, and rough, but fairly level plateau where they camped. Bill managed to shoot a wild pig and it was roasted for dinner. With some biscuit made of flour, salt and water, and with cocoa, they made a regular feast.

“The men are planning something,” Tom whispered, after the meal. “See how they look at one another!”

“Well, let’s just be ready!”

Soon enough they had to be. The leader came over to them and in a very polite way, for him, made a suggestion.

“We afraid,” he said. “Bad mountain cat close by.” They had heard the cry of a jaguar or panther, or some other huge cat. “You have guns, you save. We not got. We be died!”

“One of us sits up and watches all night,” declared Bill, meaningly. “Don’t be afraid. We not let you be hurt!”

The man walked away doubtfully, and that night neither Tom nor Bill took much rest; however, nothing more happened.

The next morning they were surprised to discover that the Indians seemed very much more pleasant, and the leader brought the whites a special and tasteful piece of the roast pig which he had saved for them. “That’s the way to treat them,” Bill said. “Let them know we are on guard!”

They went on, and were wading along in a small torrent of water, the only way through a deep abyss, when suddenly Tom clutched Bill’s arm.

“Bill,” he gasped, “I feel queer and sick!”

“So do I?” replied Bill. “But I tried not to let you know.”

“Do you know what?” gasped Tom, as a great, sweeping spasm of pain flooded over him and he saw, as through a haze, Bill’s face whitening, even as Bill staggered.

“Yes,” gulped Bill, “we’ve been——”

Indian poisons are subtle, but they work swiftly.

“Especially a toadstool called ‘Fruit of the earth’!”