CHAPTER XVII

A COLD RECEPTION

The San Blas Indians live on islands of the archipelago which guards the coast close to the line between Columbia and Panama. Most of the islands are quite small and are occupied, in some cases, by no more than three families; in others by more, and on the largest of the islands there is a city, close-packed huts crowding each other with very little free space. On this island, really the capital, the Indians live in goodly numbers, getting their food and doing much of their work by going to the mainland shore in canoes.

Before they approached the San Blas island colonies, Tom spoke of a matter that had been worrying him a great deal.

“We ought to have a plan,” he suggested. “If we go and ask about a girl—my sister—they won’t tell us, especially if they have kept her a prisoner.”

“I think you’re right,” Cliff acknowledged. “We could say we are traders, couldn’t we?”

“That would not help us to get to the inland tribes, if she is not on the islands,” Bill objected.

“We could pretend we are looking for gold,” Nicky contributed.

Mr. Gray shook his head. They were all, except Andy at the engine and the colored pilot, Bob, at the wheel, seated in the little cabin eating dinner.

“No,” Mr. Gray said with his headshake. “The San Blas Indians are not much interested in gold. There is another tribe, the Chucunaque Indians, living on the mainland, and in the interior, who are really a part of the same original stock as the San Blas people, and they are very decidedly antagonistic to white people for the very reason that Nicky has suggested. These Indians think that white men are all trying to find gold, and the Indians say, according to the information I have, that gold is what has destroyed the Indians.”

“I don’t see how,” Nicky declared.

“They argue somewhat to this effect: the white man wants gold. He comes among the Indians to look for it. He bribes them with his fiery liquors and he fights them and degrades them.”

“That’s so, too,” Cliff nodded. “Whenever you see Indians after white men have been in their country, you see a decayed race. Look at our own ‘Redskins’—they have lost their country and live on reservations and only since the Government saw what was happening and did something to protect them have they been able to protect themselves and try to get back some of their self-respect.”

“That is exactly what the Chucunaque Indians are afraid of,” Mr. Gray told them. “The Government of Columbia has tried to colonize their country but they have fought every effort and the Government had to give up because the Indians won’t let a white man get into their lands. They have drawn a sort of sacred ring around themselves and no one can get into the country without their permission, and once in, will never be heard of again unless the Indians let him go.”

“That doesn’t look very promising,” Tom said despondently.

“But if we had a plan, as you said,” Nicky said hopefully, “only—what kind of a plan would fit that sort of people?”

Jack, who kept his face shaved and clean and who took pride in his new respectability, had been listening without comment; he spoke up.

“One thing I do know, from Porto Bello and other places,” he said, “is that the Indians are all pretty sickly. Now, back in Colorado, I used to be a sort of ‘jack-leg’ doctor, a rough-and-ready kind of a doctor, I admit—but I knew something about medicine and so on. If we had some medicines, now, and any books——”

“The very thing!” cried Tom, exultantly. “We have a medicine kit on board, and it tells how to use things—first aid and all that!”

“And we have plenty of zinc ointment, and other remedies that are useful for skin diseases and so on,” Mr. Gray declared. “I know enough about tropical exploration to provide those things, and we have them.”

“Then, maybe I could pose as a great medicine man,” Jack suggested. “Not that I would be, you see, but I could do some things, maybe.”

“And we know first aid,” Nicky cried, eagerly. “The Scouts all know first aid and how to take care of hurts and stings and cuts.”

Tom found an objection.

“But they would only let you go through the guarded circle,” he said. “And where would the rest of us get in?”

“He could take me as a sort of second-string medicine man,” Bill spoke up. “Two of us could do all that was necessary. If we found Tom’s sister at all, either two could help to get her free or it would be impossible.”

“Yes,” agreed Mr. Gray. “Numbers would not count; we couldn’t expect to fight against them in their own country. Those Indians still use the old, primitive bows and poisoned arrows.”

The three chums looked at one another disconsolately.

“It looks as though we’ll be left out,” Nicky said.

“We’ll have to make the best of it, then,” Cliff stated.

“After all, the main thing is to locate my sister,” Tom added.

Nevertheless, it cast a damper on their usually gay spirits for in every previous adventure the chums had been inseparable, had participated in every exciting episode and had really brought every adventure to a happy termination.

When they talked it over, however, they decided to make the best of the situation as it then appeared, burying their personal desires for the good of their cause.

Toward sunset they came to one of the first small islands of the archipelago, and saw three huts nestling among the palms. From a distance, with glasses, they made out a number of people standing on the shore.

“They seem to be watching for us,” Nicky declared. “How do they know we are coming, do you suppose?”

“Maybe Henry Morgan has been here and told them we might come,” Cliff suggested.

“Look!” said Tom, excitedly pressing the glasses into Cliff’s hands. “They’re running away!”

“To get ready for a welcome,” Nicky offered.

“No,” cried Cliff, “they’re tumbling into three canoes!”

“I see the canoes with my naked eye,” Tom agreed. “They are pushing off from shore—they’re paddling away as fast as they can go it!”

It was a fact, and when the cruiser came near enough to lay-to and hail, there was no response and when the chums, in the boat, rowed to the rough corral beach there was not a soul on the island!

“That’s funny!” Nicky declared.

“They don’t seem to like company!” Cliff added.

Tom made no comment as they rowed back.

At a half dozen other islands, the next day, the same thing happened. Small groups gathered to watch their approach, then, as though driven by some fear of them, scrambled into canoes and disappeared among the islands or toward the mainland.

“Do you suppose they are as afraid of white people as all that?” Cliff wondered.

“Let’s all keep out of sight when we come in sight of the next island, only have Bob, who is dark and might look at a distance like an Indian, on deck,” whispered Nicky. Cliff and Tom agreed, and when Mr. Gray, Bill and Jack, all three puzzled, heard the plan, they agreed.

The change in their plan seemed to make no difference. As they came within sight of the next islet, canoes filled and were driven hastily into hiding.

“I can’t understand it,” Cliff stated.

“Nor I,” Bill acknowledged, and Jack conceded the same thing.

Tom still remained mute, his face very sober.

Finally they reached a fairly clear harbor at the largest of the islands. While they dropped anchor they watched anxiously, for there were many canoes, of different sizes, busily traversing the waterway between the island and the distant shore.

Except for giving the cruiser a wide berth, however, the canoes appeared not to know that it existed.

All the next day the company waited for the approach of a canoe. With the early sunrise a fleet of canoes, filled with women—who seemed to do all of the paddling and all other work—set out for the mainland, paying no attention whatever to the cruiser. At evening the fleet came back.

“We ought to do something,” Nicky urged, always anxious to act. “Let’s land and find out what’s what!”

“You cannot hurry an Indian,” Mr. Gray counseled. “We must wait to see what they will do.”

“More can be gained by patience than by forcing them to move,” Bill supplemented the older man’s counsel.

And so they let another day pass.

Then a canoe approached. It contained three of the older Indians, dark, steady, stolid men. They made gestures indicating that they desired the boat to go away.

Bill, standing at the bow, beckoned to them, and held out for them to see, some very flashy glass ornaments.

“For Big Chief!” he called, in Spanish.

The canoe lay quiet; the men did not move.

A long half-hour passed.

Then the men nodded, paddled closer and waited.

“Present—for Big Chief!” repeated Bill, and bent low over the coaming and rail to hand them several brightly polished silver belt-buckles, a glittering glass pendant, and some strings of gay beads. He handed them down into the canoe.

The men considered them without expression. Then one looked up.

“What you want?” he asked.

“Want visit chief—give more present—show Indians how get well. We bring big medicine.”

Taking the ornaments but hiding any show of appreciation, the men paddled swiftly toward shore.

“I hope it works!” Bill said, rather nervously, dragging an old cigar lighter from his pocket and snapping its steel wheel with his thumb to ignite its wick so he could light a cigarette.

“Darn these things!” he grumbled when it failed. “Always out of whack! And matches are so wet you get _one_ to strike out of a whole packet!”

“Let me have it,” suggested Tom. “I can turn the flint and clip the wick. I used to do it for my—for my father.” Bill nodded, handed him the implement and struck match after match, finally getting a light.

Tom worked over the lighter until it operated three out of four times, filled it with gasoline from the drip of the slightly opened carbureter drain, and, carefully closing the drain again, slipped the lighter in his pocket as Andy called him to help get out the after anchor, because a huge, stormy cloud was rapidly coming over and the cruiser must be well secured. Tom forgot all about the lighter in the ensuing excitement, for a terrific tropical wind and rain came up and everyone had plenty to do to keep the cruiser from dragging onto reefs.

Early the next morning the canoe approached again; the storm was all over and the harbor was like glass as the roughly hewn craft slid gently up to the cruiser’s side.

All of the party assembled on deck to see what would happen.

One of the older trio in the canoe stood erect and surveyed the company with expressionless, stolid gaze. Finally he spoke.

“Who doctor?” he asked. They pointed to Jack.

The man nodded, beckoned to Jack. The latter climbed, in his neat, borrowed clothes, into the canoe.

Then the trio waited. “They want the presents,” Bill suggested and he and Tom hurried to secure more gifts with which, if possible, to win the good will of the chief.

When they returned, instead of taking the gifts, the men beckoned and gestured for them to descend into the canoe, and so it was that Tom, Bill and Jack were taken to the island while the others, with what patience they could, mastered their disappointment and waited.

Noon came, and no one returned. Afternoon wore on and still nothing happened, no canoe put off from shore.

Just before dusk the fleet of canoes carrying the women who did the washing, prepared the food and other things on the mainland, came home; still the trio did not return to the cruiser. Cliff and Nicky did not voice their worry for they saw the uneasiness in Mr. Gray’s expression and did not wish to add to his concern.

Just before dark the canoe returned. Tom had hardly gotten on deck with his two companions and the canoe disappeared in the dusk when Nicky and Cliff demanded an explanation.

“Well,” Tom started his explanation, “I don’t think it looks very good. They took us to shore, and the island is fairly packed with the huts they live in, and there is a big, sort of open, hut in the middle, and they took us there.”

“The chief lived there, I guess,” Nicky broke in.

Tom nodded. “Yes,” he agreed. “He was in a hammock, lying there as though he were asleep, and he had a lot of his chief men sitting on low stools around his hammock. The rest of the place was simply packed with people, men and women.”

“It must have been a sight!” Cliff declared.

“It was. And they took us to stools in the center and let us sit down. There we sat and sat and sat!”

“I know,” Nicky agreed. “They keep you waiting for the chief.”

“Finally Bill got tired of it and stood up and made a ‘talk’ in his best Spanish, with signs and everything. He pointed to Jack, and said he was a doctor—of course we had given the chief our gifts at first and he didn’t bother to thank us. Bill made a good speech, if they understood it; they didn’t show whether they did or not!”

“Wooden Indians was a good name for them,” Bill said, coming up.

“Then we sat and sat and sat some more,” Tom went on. “It got to be noon and the place began to get pretty strong, with the heat and the sweating and packed people. But nothing happened.”

“It got so bad, finally,” Bill took up the story, “I felt like I had to have a smoke, and so did Jack. They hadn’t brought any sick people to be doctored, or made a move. And nobody talked. So I hauled out my stuff and rolled two cigarettes. And then—here’s where Tom comes in. Go ahead, Tom.”

“Bill didn’t have any matches—he’d used up all his packet the night before,” Tom explained. “So he felt around and looked blank and Jack had one match and he struck it and the head was wet so it didn’t go off.”

“That was bad,” Nicky declared. “They’d suspect you weren’t very good makers of magic.”

“But wait!” Bill urged, and motioned to Tom.

“It wasn’t anything I did,” Tom demurred. “It was just having forgotten that I fixed Bill’s cigar lighter—and when we needed it we had it. I pulled it out and flicked it and it lit!”

“Magic!” chuckled Jack.

“And did it surprise them?” demanded Bill, knowing that he answered himself.

“They were as excited as babies with new pinwheels,” Tom said. “The chief beckoned to me and I had to go over and light the thing a half a hundred times, and then let him try—and of course he couldn’t!”

“Tom’s stock went up about two million points!” grinned Jack.

“But it did help us,” Tom became serious. “That is—it helped us to learn what we were wondering about—why everybody runs from us on the other islands. But it makes our problem that much harder, too, at the same time!”

“How can that be?” demanded Nicky.

“This way,” Tom explained, despondently. “The chief called a man who speaks some Spanish and had him tell us. Two white men have come here already, a few days ago. I think it was Henry Morgan and Mort Beecher. They said they were great doctors, and they did have some medicines and they put stuff on the Indians and told them they would be cured of their sores and so on in a week.”

“They came in a sailing sloop,” Bill added. “It landed them and went on down the coast toward South America, but it is coming back in a week or so.”

“But what makes that mean anything to us, beyond the fact that they got here first?” asked Mr. Gray.

“Henry and Mort—if that’s who it was—told the Indians they are the only true medicine men, and they said that men would come soon and pretend to be as great—but they would be evil and undo all the good. And this is the diabolical part of their story—” he paused and bent forward impressively, to add:

“They said that if their medicine did not cure—it is because the evil ones that are coming—us!—are working with devil-medicine!”

“Good grief!” exclaimed Nicky. “That is wicked talk!”

“It has terrified the Indians,” Bill agreed. “And it was only because Tom’s trick with the lighter caught the chief’s fancy and impressed him that he told us. He warned us to go away. He can’t trust us, of course.”

“That does make it hard for us to do anything!” Cliff declared.

“Hard—” Nicky sniffed. “But not impossible—never say die!”

“I won’t,” Tom cried. “But what will we do?”

“Yes,” agreed Cliff, dejectedly, “what?”