CHAPTER XXII

IN THE CLOSED CIRCLE

Three days were spent on that trail: at times the chums felt as though the humid, close air would overcome them, the exertion would overwhelm their endurance.

Nevertheless they kept on stubbornly. The Indians seemed not to mind any amount of exertion, and it was agreed by the white comrades that they would not show themselves weaker. Truly they were not trained to such a life, yet they were determined to stand up—and they did. Grit carried them along when weary muscles rebelled.

At last they came into a cleared spot in the foothills. In it was a sizeable village, the capital city, as one might say, of the tribe.

“I’ll be mighty grateful for a hut and a long rest,” Nicky panted, walking resolutely, with shoulders back, into the clearing.

“And so will I,” agreed Tom.

“Here too,” Cliff echoed the sentiment.

They were led across the cleared space. Around it, without any particular order, huts were erected. They were built of an open fashion, with stakes at the corners, and at intervals, to support the roofs of thatch, woven together quite tightly and sloped to shed water.

Toward one of these the chums were ushered.

“Do you see what I see?” whispered Cliff, his observant eyes taking in a squatted figure in the shade of a hut across the quadrangle.

His friends looked that way. “It’s a white man,” Nicky admitted. “But what makes you so excited about him?”

“Well,” said Cliff, “we know that Henry and that Mort Beecher got started ahead of us. I wouldn’t be surprised——”

At the instant that he paused the white man looked up. He turned his head and called to another figure resting in a hammock.

“Wake up, Henry!” he cried, in a fat, hoarse voice. “Wake up. Seems like we got visitors, seems like!”

He stood up and the chums saw a portly, very short body on two brief pillars of legs, with a round, bullet head, twinkling eyes and a smiling mouth, over which an extremely red nose spoke of the many nights he had spent with Jack in Porto Bello, for there was no doubt that the man was Mort Beecher.

While the chums paused, astonished to a degree, and hardly knowing what action to take, with this sudden discovery, Henry Morgan rolled out of the hammock and came to the side of the hut. He screened his sleepy eyes from the sun and then uttered a word under his breath.

“Henry Morgan, and no mistake!” Nicky exclaimed. In sudden anger, recalling the trick that had been played on them, he started forward; but Tom restrained him with a hand on his arm. Nicky stopped, and after an instant to collect himself he felt that Tom’s decision for silence was wise.

“As I live and breathe!” cried Henry Morgan. “Who’d ever expect to see you lads here? Hello!”

“Hello, yourself!” answered Tom, advancing. He met the outstretched hand. He grasped its perspiring breadth and gave it a good grip.

Tom saw at once that Henry Morgan, after his first surprise, had decided on some course of action: Tom proposed to hold himself alert, but not to show anger or aversion until he learned the other fellow’s plans.

“How in the world did you ever get here?” demanded Henry. “Here—meet the man I used to talk about so much—Mort Beecher. A finer pal never lived. Shake, Mort. Shake hands with Tom, and Nicky, and Cliff. Now, we’re all pals together! But how did you get here!”

“The Indians brought us, as you saw, just now,” Tom answered. “How did you get here so much ahead of us?”

He put a good deal of meaning into his look and Henry looked away for a moment: then he faced them again, grinning and speaking in the husky voice they remembered all too well.

“When I left you and Bill—but the other lads have told you how I came down the river from the village——”

“Yes,” Tom responded, “and they told us what you said—that we were sick and couldn’t get away and there was no use for them to try to follow us or to rescue us.”

“I did tell them that. Yes, I did,” Henry said, affably. Nicky thought, “what a villain he is!” but he kept still.

“I told them that. ’Cause why? ’Cause I was anxious to get them to help me find Mort Beecher and not to waste any time. That was good sense. ’Cause why? There wasn’t any time to be lost. If Toosa knew anything about the Golden Sun—and that was the little girl you was looking for!——”

“Wasn’t it a mine, instead?” interrupted Nicky.

“Mine nothing! Where did you get that fol-de-rol? No. ’Twas the little girl, and if what he said was right—that the man I wanted was in Porto Bello—the cruiser could go and find him and hurry down and rescue the girl without wasting time to wait. I knew Toosa would see that you got out all right. I had told him to. I had given him money to look out for you!”

“Oh, yes, thought the chums, Henry Morgan did that sort of thing!”

“And then, when you boys wouldn’t come on, what was I to do? I knew there was no time to waste. ’Cause why? ’Cause Mort might be took out of Porto Bello and not ever be found again—or not for a good while. And there was a innocent little golden-haired girl and her life at stake amongst the Indians.”

His face was so earnest and his tones were so sincere that if they had not seen his duplicity already the chums might have believed him. But, with all he had done, they simply stood still and listened.

Henry, however—and Mort, too—seemed to think that the story was very convincing.

“And good it was that he didn’t waste a minute,” Mort broke in. “He has your interests at heart, has Henry. Seems like no fellow ever was as fine as Henry, seems like. You can kick me for a football if that ain’t so. He knew I was likely to be took from Porto Bello, so he hurried there with a sloop and got me and we hurried here.”

“’Cause why? ’Cause we knowed the little girl’s life was in danger. So we got it fixed up that we was doctors, so we could get into the country. That’s so that the Indians would trust us.”

“Yes,” said Nicky. “And of course you told the San Blas Indians——”

He saw Tom touching his ear, in a Mystery Boys sign of warning, and he changed the statement. “You told the San Blas Indians the same thing!”

“I did.” Henry grinned at them. “And I told them more, as you may have heard. I told them that when our friends came along, to pass them right along and help them to follow us.”

Nicky could not contain his disgust any longer. All this was a tissue of falsehood and he hated such talk.

“You told them that they must forbid us to stay near them—said we were evil doctors and if we came we would do harm. And what’s more, you said that if the people you doctored didn’t get well, it was because we were working harm on them!——”

Nicky stopped for breath and Henry, after a little start, turned to Mort Beecher and held out his hands, palms up.

“Ain’t that Indians for you?” he pleaded for agreement. “Ain’t that Indians? They’ll twist and alter anything you say. ’Cause why? ’Cause they want to keep everybody out of this country. They don’t want the dear little golden-haired girl rescued. Not they. They want her to stay here and be a priestess and cure them and dance in their festivals and bring them good luck. And we——”

“And we want to save her—and here we are, risking life and limb and trying to help, and you go and get mad.” Mort Beecher drew his fat jowls into a somber, dejected appearance. “Seems like there ain’t any gratitude in the world, seems like.”

“Oh, all right—the Indians might have mixed up and twisted what you said,” Tom agreed. “Nicky isn’t really mad at you—he only felt that you ought to have brought us all along.”

“And for what?” demanded Mort Beecher. “For all of you to be killed? Wasn’t it bad enough for us to be done that to? Wasn’t two lives enough to risk—but where is the rest of your party?”

Then Cliff did demand silence. He fell back into an easy position with one leg made shorter than the other, as though he were “at ease,” and clasped both hands hanging loosely before him. That was the Mystery Boys’ signal, “Do not speak!” Nicky saw it and Tom nodded.

“Oh,” answered Cliff, with assumed lack of interest, “they’re where they can do more good than here——”

“I hope so. Seems like I never hoped anything so much, seems like,” Mort declared. “That’s so.”

“’Cause why?” Henry declaimed. “’Cause we’re in the sacred circle of the Chucunaque Indians—and who-so gets in may never get out. And yet we do all that for you. Now, tell us how you got here?”

“The Indians brought us, I tell you,” Tom answered.

“But, for why?”

“To see their chief.”

“Well, that’s something. It’s more than we are able to do.” Henry turned to Mort for sanction and Mort nodded.

“Seems like he won’t see us, seems like,” he acknowledged.

“Have you seen anything of my sister—had any clues?” demanded Tom.

“No,” said Mort.

“Nor can’t get any,” said Henry. “’Cause the chief won’t see us.”

“We don’t understand his language, what little he uses,” Mort added.

“And neither will you!” Henry stated flatly.

The Indian who was conducting them beckoned curtly. “Well, we haven’t gotten anywhere,” Mort said. “So, go ahead to your hut and rest. We can talk later.”

The Indian conducted the chums to another hut. At the time they wondered why the five white people were not put together. However, the reason was soon to be discovered.

They made the best of things. Their movements were not restricted any more than in the smaller village. The same sort of general food-pots were in evidence, into which everything that was to be cooked was dropped, the resulting stew being dished out with calabashes as it was required.

There were a number of Albinos, or light-faced, light-haired, pale-eyed people, among the Indians, and no one seemed to have much use for them. They kept a good deal to themselves.

Hammocks were provided for sleeping and rest, and several women brought food at intervals. For the balance of that day the chums were left alone. But when they tried to go over to talk further with Henry and later, when Mort came to see them, Indians firmly intervened and refused to let the two parties communicate.

“Now why is that, do you suppose?” Cliff asked.

But his chums could not furnish a reason.

That night, well after dark, great activity was to be observed in the village; mostly it centered about the chief’s large hut, a sort of place of assembly for the people. Heavy skins were hung around part of it and, from where their hut was situated, the chums could not see what was going on; but people were running about with torches, and some were carrying bundles of torch material into the enclosure.

Finally an Indian, carrying a torch, appeared and beckoned for the boys to follow.

“Now we’re in for something,” Nicky observed. “I’m glad of it. I get tired of waiting. Action for mine!”

They approached the large hut.

Suddenly Tom stopped as though shot, and gripped Nicky’s arm with a pressure that made the other wince.

Cliff, also, stopped as though an electric shock made him jump.

High and clear, from the hut, came a shrill voice, crying, in English:

“Hurry up, then! I’ll be so glad to hear somebody talk English I won’t know what to do!”