Jose shrugged.

"Once an enemy, always an enemy. That is their rule. And do not think that I traveled the bush and threw myself into this snake heap from love of Monitaya. I do not care if he and all his race are blown to hell. I am here because, as I once told you, Jose Martinez never forgets. Thank you, senor, I will eat now and talk later."

Deftly he extracted a chunk of meat from a clay pot which had been placed before Knowlton and in turn tendered to him. Monitaya watched him eat, but gave no sign of disapproval; and the Americans, and even the Brazilians, made an aggressive show of friendship toward the lone Peruvian for the express benefit of the chief. They knew well that by their rescue of the Mayoruna women they had made their own position among these people virtually impregnable, and that their recognition of Jose as a friend probably would be his only bulwark. Wherefore they left no doubt in the minds of the watchers as to where he stood in their regard.

Monitaya, sitting in regal dignity, looked down upon two parties of seven feasting with famished speed—the rescued women who were not members of his own tribe, and the four Americans, two Brazilians, and one Peruvian. All the others had scattered—Tucu and his band to their own family triangles, and the four Monitaya girls to become the nuclei of feminine groups which demanded intimate accounts of their capture and treatment by the captors.

To the strange women at his feet the chief paid scant attention now, though he meant to interrogate them after their hunger was satisfied. His eyes dwelt on Rand, the strange combination of white man, Indian, and jungle demon of whom he had heard so much and on whose tanned skin the red skeleton streaks told the tale of a "mind out of the skull." Jose and Tim stared in frank curiosity at the dead-alive newcomer, whose silent composure remained totally unperturbed. But the seven new girls, though ignored by the chief and his guests, were by no means neglected by the other men of the maloca, being thoroughly stared at by most of the young bucks—and, it must be confessed, by a goodly proportion of the married men also.

When at length the meal was finished Monitaya commanded the girls to stand before him and narrate their experiences. The men lit smokes, Jose seizing the proffered cigarette with avidity, Rand accepting his with the usual odd deliberation.

"Wal, Hozy, old feller, ye're in right with the chief now," asserted Tim. "Ye got all our gang with ye, and she's some li'l' old gang, I'll tell the world. This feller Renzo can talk cannibal so good he makes Monitaya hunt for the dictionary, and he'll tell the chief in ten seconds what I tried half an hour to say this afternoon—that ye belong. I 'ain't been here long enough to learn much o' their lingo, ye understand. If I could spout it like French, now, there wouldn't been no trouble."

McKay and Knowlton snickered. They knew Tim's French was several degrees worse than the usual American doughboy's "frog" talk.

"Good thing you couldn't," derided Knowlton. "You'd have had Jose crucified before we got here."

"That's right, gimme the razz! Course, I did have a li'l' trouble makin' some o' them frogs understand, but that was because they was so ignorant they didn't know their own language when they heard it spoke right. Anyways, ye got to admit Hozy's still with us and sassy as ever, and he wouldn't been if Timmy Ryan hadn't been round to powwow for him."

"You have it right, senor," Jose agreed, gravely. "Without you I should now be dead. I can speak the Mayoruna tongue quite well, but of what use is it to talk any language when men will not listen? It was you and your gun that saved me."

"Gun? Good Lord! Did you pull a gun on Monitaya?" ejaculated the lieutenant.

"Aw, no. That is—I guess mebbe I did wave me piece around while I was arguin'—I can always convince a guy better if I got somethin' in me hand. But I didn't git real rough."

"You are lucky to be still alive, Senhor Tim," said Lourenco. "If Monitaya were not the man he is you would not be alive. I am glad we have returned."

"Meanin' I need a guardeen? Say, lookit here now—"

"As you were!" clipped McKay. "We're all wasting time. Jose, let's hear your report. I thought you were going to put Schwandorf out of action for good?"

"And I am, Capitan! That is why I now am here. If I had reached him immediately after leaving the Nunes place it would have been done at once. But a man travels slowly when he is alone and has lost much blood, and before I met Schwandorf again I had time to think coolly. Then when I saw him I changed my plans.

"Some days down the river I met him traveling fast in a canoe paddled by hard men whom I know. He pretended to be greatly grieved when I told him you all were dead. Oh yes, senores, I told him that! I was playing with him, and it amused me to see how he thought he was deceiving me when I was really fooling him. I said we were attacked by Indians a short way above the Nunes place and that I alone escaped. Then he said something that made me decide not to kill him for a time.

"He told me he had learned that this man here—his name is Rand, yes?—that the man Rand was a bank thief who had run away from North America, and that a reward would be paid for him. He said your real reason for coming here was that you were detectives trying to earn the reward. That is false, is it not, senores?"

"We're no detectives. Rand's no thief."

"Ah, so I thought. But Schwandorf often tells truth to conceal his lies, so that it is sometimes hard to know which is true and which untrue. He went on to say he had warned you not to come into this Indian country, and he was sorry you had been killed—the snake—but since you were dead we might get the money for ourselves. If we succeeded in catching the man Rand and taking him out alive I should get half the reward, or five hundred dollars.

"I saw plainly what his plan was. I might be useful to him in catching Rand if Rand was out in the bush, for I have traveled this country alone more than once and am a far better bushman than the German. But whether I got Rand or not, I never should live to demand my part of the money. I know too much about Schwandorf—things which I shall not tell now. So when the right time should come, Jose would meet with a fatal accident, such as a bullet in the back, or a knife in the throat while sleeping. But I did not let him know I saw this. I pretended to fall in with his plan like the fool he thought me to be.

"It was not Rand alone that brought him here. You have brought back Mayoruna women from the Red Bone country, so you know the Red Bones are women stealers. And they steal for Schwandorf. You may believe me or not, senores, but I did not know this until the German told me. Oh yes, I knew he dealt in women, but of the Red Bone part of his business I was ignorant. As soon as I learned it I saw how I could put the illustrious Senor Schwandorf out of action, as you say, and at the same time try to save you.

"I sharpened my knife to a razor edge, deserted the German when we reached the right place, shaved with my knife, painted myself with the red and black plant dyes, and came overland to this place, thinking you would be here if still alive. But you had traveled faster than I expected and had gone into the Red Bone country, so my chance to save you seemed to have passed. I could only try to tell this chief the Red Bones were stealers of his women and that the German was with them, knowing that if he believed me he would go on the war trail against them and kill them all. But if Senor Tim had not befriended me I should have died too soon to tell my tale. That is all, senores. Now can you spare a little more tobacco?"

They could and they promptly did. With a new cigarette glowing he lay back and looked quizzically at the women lined up before Monitaya.

"How many men has Schwandorf?" asked McKay.

"About twenty in all, Capitan. There were eight in his crew, and they were to meet a dozen more at a place on the Peruvian side."

"All riflemen?"

"Si. He brought many cartridges for them. They are to raid tribe houses of these people."

"Capture women and run them into Peru?"

"Si." Jose yawned as if speaking of a deal in salt fish.

The Americans looked thoughtfully around the big house. They saw that every man near them was inspecting some kind of weapon—making sure that bow cords were unfrayed, that arrow heads and spear points were firm, that the long blowguns had received no cast from suspension, and that darts were absolutely straight and true. The strong but cruel faces of the warriors were stamped with malignant hatred of the Red Bone tribe and the Blackbeard who enslaved their women. The command to prepare for a march at dawn had not been withdrawn.

"We'll be expected to go, too, and I'd sure like another crack at Umanuh, not to mention the Schwandorf outfit," said Knowlton, "but we have friend Rand on our hands now, and our first duty is to get him out of here safely."

"Aw, Looey, have a heart! I 'ain't had no action since that li'l' scrap down the river, and I got to have some excitement before we blow. What's more, we can't beat it now, with Monitaya dependin' on us to fight on his side. He'd git sore, and I don't blame him."

His superior officers and the Brazilians frowned. Every man of them itched to close with the enemy in one final decisive battle. Yet—

"What 'll we do with Rand?" Knowlton voiced the general thought.

The green eyes of the Raposa turned to him, rested long on his, traveled deliberately along the other faces. And then, to the utter astonishment of all, the dumb spoke.

"I'll fight," said Rand.

Speechless, the men around him stared. His face was inscrutable as ever, his eyes fathomless, his voice flat and toneless. But slowly he raised his hands as if holding a bow; twitched his right thumb and forefinger in the motion of loosing a shaft; let the hands sink. His gaze calmly lifted from theirs and dwelt on the farthest wall. Not another word did he speak.

"Begorry! there's yer answer!" triumphed Tim. "He says, 'Fight!' And I bet he can sling a wicked bow and arrer, at that. Don't ye s'pose he wants a crack at them Red Bones, after the way they used him?"

"I think, comrades, that the man has settled the matter for us," Pedro seconded. "None of us wants to run away; and, as Tim says, we are expected to help Monitaya. We should be considered cowards, worse than dogs, if we refused. If we do not fight the Red Bones we may have to fight these Mayorunas, who now are our friends. We must stay."

McKay nodded, still studying the expressionless countenance of Rand.

"That's settled," he announced, crisply. "Now, Lourenco, find out Monitaya's plan of battle."

The chief had finished his examination of the women and Lourenco promptly put the question. Monitaya laconically replied.

"His purpose is not changed by our arrival, Capitao. He and his men go to-morrow to attack and destroy the Red Bones. When they reach the town of Umanuh they will surround it, and all will rush in when the chief gives his yell of war."

"About what I expected. An Indian has a single-track mind always. But his strategy is rotten. Might be good enough if he had only Umanuh to deal with, but with Schwandorf in the game it's different. Ask him how he expects to protect his women while he's gone."

"He says," Lourenco reported, "that there will be no danger to the women, because his warriors will be between the women and their enemies until those enemies are dead."

"Very simple. So simple that it's foolish. He doesn't figure on the other fellow's mind at all; doesn't realize that a man like Schwandorf is bound to outguess him on such straightaway tactics and isn't at all likely to play into his hands. But that's the exact situation. The German will outguess him, and it's up to him to outguess the German in turn. We'll do his guessing for him.

"Schwandorf goes into Umanuh's town, learns what's happened, finds the Red Bones frothing at the mouth, and is sore himself. He figures that we've returned here with the women, that Monitaya's men are blood-mad against the Red Bones, and that they'll do just what they are planning to do—march on Red Bone town and leave their women unprotected except by the old men, whose defensive power is negligible. He is in this country for the express purpose of getting girls, and with Monitaya's men away from their malocas he has a wide-open chance to make the biggest slave haul of his life. So he plans to outmaneuver Monitaya, attack this place, capture all the young women, allow the Red Bones to massacre everyone else and burn the houses, and then move on without the loss of a man. After that perhaps he intends to find us and get Rand, or perhaps to attack other Mayoruna malocas. At any rate, his first objective is this place. Am I right so far?"

"Dead right," Knowlton nodded.

"Very well. Now he may figure that, having found the water connection between the two creeks, the Mayorunas will come against Umanuh by the canoe route. Or he may think they'll make the overland trip. In either case, the Red Bones have to come through the bush, for the simple reason that they haven't boats enough to carry all their force. Their canoes were rather few when we were there, and we commandeered several of them for our own use. If they decide to come part of the way in canoes they'll have to work a come-and-go transport service, bringing the fighting men down in batches to some rendezvous from which they must finish the journey on foot. Chances are that they'll disregard the canoes and all march overland by some route that would dodge the Mayoruna line of march. But in either case they're coming here. And it's here, in the place where he's not expected to be, that Monitaya should meet them. Let him fortify himself and await the assault. It will come."

"And we shall be saved many weary miles of leg work," Jose smiled. "Capitan, your strategy is magnificent."

"Begorry! it ain't so bad at that!" Tim approved. "Hozy, me and you will have our hammicks slung out front here when the show starts and do our shootin' prone. Suits me fine. Put it up to the chief, Renzo."

Lourenco did. Very carefully he explained it all to Monitaya, dwelling on the fact that McKay himself was a warrior chieftain and familiar with the fighting methods of such men as the atrocious Blackbeard, and depicting graphically the horror of an attack by the barbarous Red Bones on the defenseless women. It took him some time to divert the chief's stubborn mind from the original plan, but in the end he succeeded.

To the vast astonishment and disappointment of the vengeful warriors, Monitaya curtly announced that the projected march would not take place. They stared as if disbelieving their ears, and more than one black look was given Lourenco. But not a man questioned the countermanding of orders, not a mutter was heard. The great chief had spoken, and his word was final.

Reluctantly they laid aside the weapons on which they had been toiling with such purposeful zeal. The chief watched them with a little smile of pride—pride in their zest for war, pride in their unquestioning acceptance of his dampening order. Then he coolly told them to continue their work; told them, further, that the next morning all the streams were to be poisoned, new traps set, and scouts stationed far out on every trail to await and report the approach of foes. Instantly their faces flamed again and from every quarter of the wide house rose an excited hum. They were to fight, after all!

"Tough eggs, these lads, if ye ask me," yawned Tim. "Bet ye we'll see a row worth lookin' at when she does break."

He forebore to mention the fact that in rifle power their assailants would outnumber them four to one.



CHAPTER XXIV.

THE BATTLE OF THE TRIBES

The next four days, though they were days of waiting, were busy enough to satisfy the most impatient Mayoruna warrior.

Outposts were established on every route by which the attacking force would be likely to approach the twin malocas, the watchmen being given the strictest commands not to fight, nor even to allow themselves to be seen, but to run at top speed with the warning.

Poison detachments went forth to collect the ingredients for making deadly the water and the weapons. Those detailed to the work of polluting the streams gathered quantities of blue-blossomed, short-podded plants with yellow roots, the roots being pulped and thrown into the slow currents, which straightway became fatal to man or beast The wurali squad procured their favorite materials and, in a flimsy shed well away from the houses, prepared a plentiful supply of the venomed brew.

New traps were set at points where a man or two might be picked off, though it was realized that these would have little effect on the final result. And inside the big houses men especially skilled in the manufacture of arrows and darts toiled swiftly and steadily from dawn till far into the night.

These activities, however, were only the usual defensive preparations made by the warriors whenever they knew a sizable body of foes was somewhere in the vicinity. It remained for the brains of the white men to devise additional features, simple enough in themselves, but astounding to the savages, who were accustomed only to the primitive battle tactics of their ancestors. For the first time in their lives the cannibals found themselves digging in—and also digging out.

After a survey of the terrain and a catechism of Lourenco and Monitaya as to the usual methods of attack and defense, the two officers broached an idea born of the exigencies of the situation. As they expected, the great chief was somewhat slow to approve it, for it involved a literal undermining of the walls of his fortresses. But despite the natural inflexibility of his mental processes he was an unusually intelligent savage, and eventually the patient reiteration of the advantages of the scheme won him first to assent and then almost to enthusiasm. Wherefore the amazed tribesmen were set to work, armed with crude wooden shovels, in digging holes under the logs which sheltered them from man, beast, and jungle demon.

All along the walls, at intervals marked by McKay and Knowlton, the tunnels were dug. At the same time another large gang excavated before each of the malocas a deep, curving trench, the two long pits being separated by a ten-foot space of solid earth affording free passage from the houses to the creek. Meanwhile the women and the older children were weaving flimsy covers from withes and vines. As soon as a tunnel was completed it was masked outside the walls by one of these covers, on which a thin layer of earth and grass was laid. The two trenches were likewise concealed, and the loose earth was carried inside the house and packed solidly against the walls flanking the doors.

At sundown of the fourth day the work was ended. And so well was it done that when the great chief, his subchiefs, and his foreign allies went on a final tour of inspection they could find no sign that the houses were honeycombed with exits or that the ground in front of the little entrances was not solid at all points.

"Rod and I took the idea from those pit traps out on the trails," Knowlton explained for the dozenth time. "Holes are covered to look exactly like the rest of the ground. Every man of us has to be inside when the enemy arrives, but we have to get out quick when the right time comes, so we go under the walls. And can't you see those brave women stealers go kerplunk down into the trenches? Oh boy!"

Whereat Lourenco and Jose smiled as if enjoying a secret joke. They were. For they knew something of which the Americans were not aware—that Monitaya had improved on the trench-trap idea of the whites by studding the bottom of those trenches with barbed araya bones smeared with wurali.

"Yeah, and I figger them guys 'll git some jolt when these houses, which 'ain't got nobody in 'em but women and kids, begin to spit lead out o' loopholes and spew screechin' cannibals up out o' the ground. Gosh! I wouldn't miss seein' Sworn-off's face for a keg o' beer—and that's sayin' somethin'."

Wherein Tim expressed the general sentiment.

So ended the fourth day. When the fifth broke no man showed himself outside the walls. Except the few outposts, every male of the Monitaya malocas bided within, awaiting with growing tension the arrival of the enemy. It was more than likely, McKay had pointed out, that the main body of the barbarous force led by Schwandorf would be preceded by a handful of scouts, and quite possible that one or more of these would slip past the outguards and spy on the tribal houses. The sight of even one warrior would instantly apprise any such spy that the others must be near, and the word would go back at all speed to the Red Bones. Wherefore the only Monitayans to pass through the tiny doorways that morning were a few young women sent out as bait. These, naturally, took good care to stay near the entrances.

Within, the men waited at their appointed places. Each tunnel had its quota of warriors, the number being divided evenly to assure a speedy and simultaneous exit. The Americans had elected to fight from the maloca of the great chief, while the Brazilians and Jose were to garrison the doorway of the other house as soon as the warning came. Rand, wordless and imperturbable as ever, now was armed with a strong bow and plenty of new arrows with unpoisoned heads; and he, of course, would remain with his own countrymen. Thus, preparations completed, all settled themselves to the interminable hours of waiting.

Up on the heaped earth near the doorway, which made the walls practically bullet-proof to a height of six feet and thus would protect the women and children, one or more of the Americans was constantly on the lookout through some inconspicuous loophole. Hour after hour dragged past, and no unusual movement or sound came to reward their vigilance. Under the glare of the sun the roof and walls grew hot; under the silent strain of endless anticipation the impatience of the fighting men became a ferment. At length Pedro, unable to keep still, mounted to a peephole near Knowlton. Scarcely had he put his eye to the opening when both men sucked in their breath.

At the edge of the bush a man's head peered from behind a tree. And at the same moment a single canoe came creeping out of the bush and up to the landing place. The head behind the tree was that of a Red Bone spy. The two in the small canoe were Yuara and a companion from the Suba tribe.

"Lourenco!" hoarsely whispered Pedro. "Yuara comes. Tell girls to run to welcome him and guide him between the pits. A spy is watching. If Yuara walks on the pits he dies and our trap is revealed. Por amor de Deus, send girls quickly!"

Lourenco acted instantly. Seizing two young women, he propelled them doorward, talking swiftly the while. Yuara and his mate were already advancing innocently toward the few girls outside, none of whom had wit enough to warn him. But the two whom the Brazilian had grasped happened to be of quick intelligence, and now they darted out. Before the visiting pair could reach the death trap the girls were upon them, laughing as if delighted to see a man once more, and deftly turning them aside to the point where two unobtrusive stubs marked the bridge of safety.

Vastly astonished by such effusive welcome from two girls whom they did not know, but by no means displeased thereby, the young warriors of the Suba clan were piloted to the door and inside. As they disappeared, the head of the spy also vanished.

"Woof!" muttered Knowlton, wiping sweat from his brow. "That was close! Here's hoping we have no more visitors."

Yuara and his companion meanwhile were being interrogated by both Lourenco and Monitaya, who in turn enlightened them as to the present state of affairs. At the promise of war the faces of the Suba men lit up.

"Yuara comes only on a visit to learn news," Lourenco told the rest. "You remember that the day after our return a canoe was sent downstream to a point where the wooden bars could be beaten and heard by Suba's men, and that a warning against the Red Bones and Schwandorf was given in that way. Yuara has become anxious to know more, so he is here."

"If he sticks around he'll learn a lot," predicted Tim.

With no waste of words or motion Yuara coolly attached himself and his fellow-tribesman to McKay. Monitaya and his subchiefs were informed of the arrival and departure of the enemy scout. The word passed among the warriors, who, despite their innate equanimity, began to grit their pointed teeth and quiver like dogs held in leash. But another hour passed, and yet another; and still no word from the outposts arrived.

Suddenly a chorus of screams shrilled from the women outside. In a frenzy of fear they plunged through the doorways. Blending with their outcries, a hoarse yell of ferocity rose raucously from the direction of the creek. At once a louder ululation burst forth at the rear and sides of the clearing. Monitaya's outguards had failed and the malocas were surrounded.

Loping from the bush fringing the stream came a score of yellow-faced, shirtless, barefooted brutes crisscrossed with cartridge belts and gripping rifles. At their head loomed a burly black-whiskered creature with a revolver in each hand—the malignant Schwandorf himself.

Grinning like a pack of yellow-fanged wolves, they doubled toward the low entrances, their guns spouting wantonly at the upper walls—a ragged volley meant to terrorize the defenseless women within, none of whom were to be killed until the handsomest had been cut out and set aside for slavery. Some of the heavy bullets bored through between logs and thudded wickedly into rafters and roof poles within. But from the loopholes where the defending rifles lurked no shot cracked in reply.

The fiendish howling of the Red Bones, sweeping in from all sides to the butchery, swelled into a feline screech that almost drowned the roar of the rifles. Into the view of the watchers at the loopholes streamed hideous faces and naked brown bodies swerving inward from left and right to follow at the heels of the Blackbeard and his gunmen. In a few seconds more the trotting line of Peruvians was backed and flanked by a horde of demons hungering for the taste of women and babes. On they came—

With the suddenness of a cataclysm the ground opened. Riflemen vanished in midstride. Savages screaming triumphant hate were gone in the flick of an eye. Others, instinctively digging their heels into the ground the instant those ahead of them disappeared, were hurled forward and down by the momentum of the following mass. Before the rush could be checked the trenches were packed with men struggling in frenzy to get out, wounding themselves and one another with the deadly points of their poisoned weapons.

Of the twenty gunmen only four remained. They were the four immediately behind Schwandorf. By blind chance the German had set foot on the narrow isthmus separating the twin trenches, saving himself and the henchmen at his heels from being engulfed. Now, as the Red Bones fought back from the trap yawning before them, he and the surviving Peruvians stood staring in momentary stupefaction at the welter of death on their flanks. The malevolent yells of the savages had been cut short by the catastrophe, and for the moment no sound was heard but the grunts and snarls of struggling men.

Then into the semisilence burst a mighty voice—the battlefield voice of McKay.

"Now! Fire at will!"

The walls spat flame and lead. A scythe of death swept above the ground where stood Schwandorf and his riflemen. The Peruvian half-breeds collapsed and lay still. But Schwandorf, shocked into activity by the impact of that first word, dodged death by an infinitesimal fraction of a second. Hurling himself backward, he struck the earth just as the bullets sped through the air over him. With a lightning rebound he was up while fresh cartridges were jumping into the rifle barrels menacing him. Headlong he dived into the mass of Red Bones just behind. And the next bullets darting after him killed the savages, leaving him unharmed.

The command of McKay and the crack of the rifles sent the quivering Mayorunas into the fight. In a flash every masking tunnel cover was thrown bodily into the air. Before the thunderstruck Red Bones had recovered from the shock of finding their gun-armed leaders annihilated and their mass being swept by swift-shooting rifles hidden in the walls, they beheld a horde of vindictive foes erupting from under those walls like warrior ants rushing from subterranean galleries. A blood-chilling yell of concentrated fury smote their ears; a hastily loosed storm of war arrows and short throwing-spears ripped into their flesh; a swift-running arc of light-skinned men swerved around them, shooting and stabbing as they went. They, who had so exultantly surrounded the homes of women and children, now were surrounded in turn.

From the doorway of Monitaya's maloca the two Brazilians and Jose now leaped forth and, firing as they ran, dashed to hold the entrance of the other big house. A few arrows whirred around them during their transit, but the shafts were shot hurriedly and missed. Meanwhile the three bushmen were striking down enemies at every flash of their guns, firing with the swift surety of veterans of many a running fight. They reached their objective unwounded; and when they reached it a fringe of dead foes marked their passage along the face of the hostile array. Once within the door, they rapidly reloaded and sprayed lead along the trenches, which, though now nearly full, had become a dead-line past which no Red Bone sought to go.

Up on the earth embankments within the chief's house the four Americans fought steadily on; the soldiers shooting as coolly as if engaged merely in rapid-fire target practice, the silent Rand methodically driving arrows in swift succession from his wall-slit. Arrows thudded thickly into the logs masking them. Bullets, too, slammed into their rampart—bullets from the heavy revolvers of Schwandorf, who, ever keeping himself protected by the bodies of his cannibal allies, shot with both hands as the chance came. And the German could shoot. With only the small gun muzzles as targets, he planted bullets so close as to knock dirt more than once into the eyes of the riflemen and render them momentarily useless. After a time he got a bullet fair into a loophole.

Knowlton grunted suddenly, swayed back, toppled, fell down the parapet. For a few seconds he lay still.

"Looey!" howled Tim. "How ye fixed? Hurt bad?"

The lieutenant heaved himself into a sitting position, stared around, clapped a hand to his right shoulder, looked at the red smear his palm brought away, reeled up, and scrambled back to his rifle. Schwandorf's bullet had drilled clear through the shoulder, and in falling his head had struck one of the upright poles. Without a word he got his gun into action once more, shooting now from the left shoulder. Tim, with a tight grin of relief, devoted himself once more to trying to shoot down the dodging German.

The encircling Mayorunas, their first paroxysm of fury vented, now settled in cold hate to their work. On all sides their clubmen and spearmen were bludgeoning and stabbing at the close-packed Red Bones, leaping in, killing, springing back and onward with terrible efficiency. Beyond these a thin but deadly line of bowmen poured arrows in high-looping curves over the heads of the hand-to-hand combatants, the shafts whizzing far up, turning, and plunging down unerringly into the center of the enemy force. Each of those arrows could, and many did, end the lives of two or three adversaries by gouging their skins and letting the fearful wurali into their blood. The blowgun men too were darting into every opening, handling their clumsy weapons like feathers and constantly moving to spy out fresh targets.

But the men of Monitaya were by no means escaping unscathed. The Red Bones, assailed from every quarter and milling about in hopeless disorder, were fighting now with desperate frenzy. Their own clubbers and stabbers were charging out and smashing skulls or piercing abdomens, their arrows rose in all directions at once, and some into whose veins the wurali had struck sprang in the last moments of life on nearby foes and bit like mad dogs. With a leader and a chance to form into any sort of flying wedge they might have broken through with comparative ease and taken a far heavier toll. But they had no leader: for Umanuh, whose name meant "corpse," now was a corpse in truth, his merciless brain oozing from a skull shattered by a Mayoruna clubman; and Schwandorf was very busy looking out for Schwandorf. So it was every man for himself, with the devil rapidly taking not only the hindmost, but the foremost as well.

Thicker and thicker fell the dead. The trenches now not only were filled to the level of the ground, but piled with a windrow of bullet-torn bodies knocked down by the ever-spitting rifles. Jose, Pedro, and Lourenco abandoned all shelter and knelt in plain sight before the door which they had kept clear of all close attack. Monitaya, until now a field general who strode up and down roaring commands and encouragement, suddenly cast away his regal role and, seizing a club from one of his bodyguard, hurled himself on the nearest Red Bones—a raving, ravening demon of destructiveness whose glaring eyes smote terror into those fronting him and whose weapon swung like the club of Hercules. His bowmen and blowgun men, at last out of missiles, came charging in with bare hands or weapons seized from fallen warriors. Maneuvering had ended. Henceforth the fight was a grappling melee.

Then the gunfire dwindled and died. The rifle cartridges were spent.



CHAPTER XXV.

THE PASSING OF SCHWANDORF

The three soldiers flung down their hot, empty guns.

"Nothin' left but the gats and the steel," rumbled Tim. "Me, I'm goin' out and git some fresh air."

With which he drew pistol and machete, leaped down, and lunged through the door. McKay bounded at his heels.

"Merry! Rand! Stay here!" he commanded. Then he was outside, his pistol roaring in unison with Tim's.

Knowlton and Rand looked at each other. The lieutenant fumbled his pistol from its holster, got it firmly in his left hand, slid down the embankment, and staggered out. Rand coolly walked over to Tim's discarded gun, picked it up, and followed.

Over at the other doorway the bushmen threw aside their useless guns and drew their machetes. Jose, grinning like a death's-head, whirled the bush knife aloft and mockingly dared the Red Bones still fronting him to come and take it from him. Pedro and Lourenco indulged in no such bravado, but leaped like jaguars at their foes. Whereupon Jose, muttering a curse on them for getting the jump on him, dashed forward with furious abandon.

Their pistols emptied, the Americans also drew machetes—all except Rand, who had no weapon but the bulletless rifle—and waited. Few unwounded Red Bones now were left; but among those few Schwandorf still lived.

"Schwandorf!" bellowed McKay. "You yellow cur—you Schweinhund! Come and fight!"

"Yeah!" taunted Tim. "The women and kids are inside. Come and git 'em!"

Schwandorf came. He came not because he wanted to, however, for his guns, too, were empty. He came because the Red Bones, sensing the challenge and loathing the Blackbeard who had shielded himself so long among them, threw him out bodily. They had no time to stand and watch what might happen to him, but they took time to cast him out where he must stand on his own legs. Then, snarling, they resumed their now hopeless battle against their encompassing executioners.

For a moment the German stood glowering at McKay. Then, with a dramatic gesture, he threw aside his useless revolvers and advanced empty handed.

"Man to man?" he growled.

"Man to man!" echoed McKay, passing his pistol to Tim and sheathing his machete. Fists clenched, he sprang forward.

Schwandorf halted. His hands remained empty—until the captain was within eight feet of him. Then he leaped back, his machete jumped into his fist, and its point stabbed for his antagonist's abdomen.

An instantaneous side-step and twist of the body saved the captain from evisceration. The blade ripped through breeches and shirt and scraped the skin. As Schwandorf yanked it back for another thrust McKay struck it away with one hand and, without drawing his own steel, jumped again at his assailant. An instant later the two blackbeards were clenched in a death grapple.

Schwandorf found his long knife useless and dropped it. He strove for a back-breaking hold, but found it blocked. McKay, though an indifferent swordsman, was a formidable wrestler and fist fighter, and the German's advantage in weight was more than offset by the American's quickness and wiry strength. Science was thrown to the winds. A heaving, choking, wrenching man-fight it was, stumbling over bodies, each straining every muscle, trying every hold to twist and break the other and batter him down to death.

Smashing fist blows brought blood dripping from their faces. Bone-wringing grips forced gasps from their lungs and superhuman spasms of resistance from their outraged nerve centers. They fell across a corpse, rolled on the ground, throttled, kicked, struck, and tore. Finally, in a furious outburst of energy, the American fought his enemy down under him, clamped his body with iron knees, and crashed a terrific punch squarely between the German's glaring eyes. Schwandorf went limp.

At that instant a backward eddy of the battle surged over the pair. The maniacal Red Bones, fighting to the last bitter drop of doom, found two white men under their feet. Screeching, snarling, they fell on them like wild beasts, tearing with tooth and nail. Their arrows were gone, their darts exhausted, and no spearman was among them; they fought with nature's weapons, while above them one lone clubman struggled to swing down his lethal bludgeon without killing his fellows.

McKay, wrenching his machete loose and gripping it with both hands, got its point upward and jabbed blindly at the weight of flesh bearing him down. Faintly to his ears came yells of rage and the impact of blows—the battle roars of Tim and Knowlton, who with their machetes were cleaving a way to their captain. But the beastly demons over him still crushed him down on Schwandorf, smothering him under the burden of bodies dead and alive. His stabs grew weak. Exhaustion and lack of air were killing him more surely than the savages.

Pedro, Lourenco, Jose and the inexplicable Rand came slashing and clubbing a path of their own to the beleaguered Scot—the Brazilians cutting straight ahead with deadly surety, the painted Peruvian chopping and thrusting with a fixed grin, Rand swinging the gun butt down on head after head. From still another direction Yuara and his satellite came boring in with spears snatched from dead hands. The three rescue parties reached the squirming heap at almost the same moment. But Yuara was the one whose arrival counted most.

In one last convulsive struggle McKay heaved himself up until he was once more on his knees. His head came out of the welter, his mouth wide and gulping for breath. The lone clubman grunted, swung his weapon high, and with all the power of his muscular body drove it down at that upturned, unprotected face.

With a mighty plunge Yuara threw himself over the captain. His spear sank into the stomach of the clubman. But the heavy wooden war hammer fell with crushing force. As the Red Bone collapsed with the spear head buried in his middle, his slayer also dropped under that terrible stroke with head mangled beyond recognition.

Yuara, son of Rana, warrior of Suba, who owed his life to McKay's rough surgery, had paid his debt.

Under the impact of his body McKay also slumped forward, senseless.

Over them now burst the bloodiest berserk battle of that bloody day. The soldiers, the bushmen, and the reclaimed Raposa, already smeared from head to foot with red stains from their own veins and those of foemen, went stark mad. Before their united ferocity the men of Umanuh dropped as if rolled under by an inexorable machine of war. Backward they reeled, striving now to escape the red wall of cold steel surging at them—only to fall under a fresh attack of ravening Mayorunas who came pouring in upon them from the sides. The last of the group lurched headless to the ground under a decapitating side-swing from the awful club of Monitaya himself.

Then Knowlton, his lifeblood still draining slowly but surely away through his wounded shoulder, pitched on his face and was still.

"Back!" gasped Tim. "Git looey and cap out o' this! Here, you Raposy! Lend a hand!"

The Raposa, his green eyes ablaze and his obdurate calmness totally gone, glared around as if seeking one more Red Bone to kill. Then, as Tim heaved the lieutenant across his shoulders and went lunging across contorted bodies toward the malocas, he ran back to the heap where McKay lay and dug him clear. Lourenco aided him in lifting the captain, and they bore him off after Knowlton.

Pedro and Jose shoved the other bodies aside until they uncovered the prone figure of Schwandorf—a ghastly form dyed from hair to heels with the blood of the cannibals whom he had led there. To all appearances he was dead. Yet the Brazilian and the Peruvian looked keenly at him, then at each other.

"There is a saying, is there not, that the devil takes care of his own?" grinned Jose. "It would be sad if this man should yet live and escape. See! What is that tall Red Bone doing over yonder?"

Pedro followed his pointing finger. He saw no such Red Bone as Jose had mentioned. But when he looked back at Schwandorf he noticed something that made him glance quickly at Jose once more.

"Ah yes, Senor Schwandorf is truly dead," the Peruvian added, wiping his machete carelessly on one bare leg. "Whether or not the devil takes care of his own, as I was saying, there is no doubt that el Aleman now is with the devil. So, since we can do nothing for him, let us look after the two North American senores."

Pedro, with a grim smile, turned with him toward the tribal houses. There was nothing else for them to do, for the Mayorunas now were dispatching the last survivors of the attacking force. Before the pair entered the low doorway a long, triumphant yell burst from the hoarse throats of the men of Monitaya. Of all the Red Bones who had swept in such ghoulish glee into that clearing not one now remained alive.

At that shout of victory and the entrance of the men to whose precautions and prowess they owed so much, the women flocked again into the center of the maloca and the children dived out through the tunnels to behold the battlefield. Though bullets and arrows had come through the doorway, those inside had escaped all injury by hugging the protective earth embankment or taking refuge in the vacant shafts under the walls. Now the older women, experienced in treatment of wounds, busied themselves with the white warriors, while the younger ones fetched water and pieces of isca—a natural styptic made by ants—or made up pads of poultices of healing herbs.

Tim, who had expected to play surgeon with his crude knowledge of first aid, found himself not only relieved of his job, but being bathed and plastered with the others. He, Jose, Pedro, Lourenco, and even Rand were gashed by thrusts from broken spear hafts, bleeding from open bites, ripped by glancing sweeps of tooth-set clubs, bruised by fierce blows—minor injuries all, but such as might easily have resulted in blood poisoning unless given prompt attention. Later on they were to be thankful for those ministrations, but now they tolerated them only because they could do nothing for the captain and the lieutenant.

McKay and Knowlton were under the direct and capable treatment of the wives of the great chief. Of the two McKay looked by far the worse, but actually was in much better condition. From the waist up he was clawed, bitten, and bruised so badly that he was a fearsome spectacle; his left arm was dislocated, three fingers of his right hand were broken, and his muscles were so wrenched that for a week afterward he moved like a cripple; but his present unconsciousness was largely due to exhaustion and partial asphyxiation. Knowlton, whose skin was comparatively unmarked, but whose veins had continued to pour vital fluid from his gaping bullet wound during his stubborn fight, now was badly weakened. But whatever could be done for him was being done, and the others could only stand by.

The women not engaged in caring for the fighting visitors soon found themselves busy with their own male relatives, who came stumbling in by themselves or were carried by others. The Red Bones, though finally annihilated, had made their mark in the Mayoruna tribe. At that moment thirty-six of Monitaya's warriors lay dead among the bodies of their enemies, and before the next sunrise several more passed on to join the spirits of their comrades in arms. Yet all who survived, though some were crippled for life, thought only of the victory and gloated on their scars of combat. As for those who had fallen, they were dead, had died as Mayorunas should, and so needed no sympathy or regret. Even now their bodies were being collected for immediate transportation into the forest, where, in accordance with the tribal custom, they would be burned.

Some of the men who brought in the wounded men continued on to the bushmen and, in significant sign manual, requested a loan of their machetes. Having received them, they hastened out to join those who, equipped with hardwood knives, were gathering the sinister trophies of triumph before heaving the dead Red Bones out to the waiting vultures.

"Urrrgh!" growled Tim. "'Twas a lovely scrap, but I wisht I was somewheres else, now it's over. While ye was away they brought in the fists and feet o' some guy they caught in a trap—"

"We know," nodded Pedro.

"Yeah. Wal, I s'pose we got to look pleasant. Dog eat dog, as the feller says. Long as somebody has to git et, I'm glad it ain't us." Wherewith he turned to the Raposa and changed the subject. "Raposy, old sport, ye sure done some good work, for a crazy guy. I'll tell the world ye cracked heads like a Bowery cop full o' bootleg booze."

The Raposa's green eyes glimmered. In fact, they almost twinkled. And for the second time the wild man spoke.

"I am not crazy."

"Huh? My gosh! Ye spoke four whole words! That makes six in a week. Be careful, feller, or ye'll strain yerself. And as far's bein' crazy's concerned, don't let it worry ye none. We're all crazy, too, or we wouldn't be here."

Under cover of his banter the veteran eyed the other sharply. As he turned his gaze aside to the moving figures about him he thought: "Begorry! he don't look like a nut, at that. Mebbe somethin's unscrambled his brains again. Here's hopin', anyways."

The big tribe house now was full of life. Small groups of warriors, their hurts dressed with primitive poultices, gathered around the hammocks of those more seriously injured and discussed the battle. Others came in bearing armfuls of severed Red Bone hands and feet, which were distributed among the family triangles. The women, their remedial work done, now turned to the clay cooking vessels, freshened the fires, stripped the flesh of their enemies from the bones, and set it to boil. Among the hammocks moved the subchiefs, their eyes still shining with the light of battle, examining the wounded men and glancing at the preparations for the dire feast to come.

Over all drifted a steadily thickening smoke which rolled up and out through the vent in the peak of the roof, where the setting sun smote it with rays of gleaming red. Around the maloca gleamed the red light of the cooking fires among whose burning fagots bubbled the red pots and pans. Red men and women passing about in a crimson setting—the scene formed a fitting end to the reddest day in the unwritten records of the tribe, who since noon had proved themselves worthy champions of the ancient god whose name they never had heard, but who nevertheless ruled their lives—the red god Mars.

Monitaya himself, head high and chest swelling with pride, now came striding lithely in, followed by a young warrior carrying something. He stopped between the hammocks of McKay and Knowlton, studied their faces gravely, listened as his wives told of what had been done. At almost the same moment the eyes of the pair slowly opened and stared up at him.

The face of the great chief melted in one of its transforming smiles. The captain and the lieutenant grinned pluckily back. With a nod of silent comradeship the big savage turned to his own hammock and sat down. Two of his women built up the royal fire and fell to work on the things handed over by the young warrior. Tim and his mates took one squint at what they were doing. Then they moved between the fire and the two officers, blocking the view.

"'Bout time ye woke up and listened to the birdies," Tim chaffed. "Fight's over, and we been hangin' round waitin' for ye to quit snorin' so's we could hear ourselves think. Lay still, now! Ye're all plastered up nice and comfy—and don't preach to me no more about the girls. Ye had every dang one o' the big chief's wives hangin' over ye and kissin' ye so hard it sounded like a machine gun. Ain't that right, fellers? Me, I'm so jealous I could bite the both of ye."

"Schwandorf dead?" hoarsely queried McKay.

"Huh? Oh, him? Sure. Ye fixed him right, Cap. The pretty li'l' blackbirds has flew away with him by now. Say, ye mind that feller Yuarry? Know what he done? Wal—"

And while he talked, behind his back the wives of Monitaya completed their task and dropped into the great chief's stewpot the flesh of the black-bearded slaver and slayer who would menace them no more.



CHAPTER XXVI.

PARTNERS

Seven men squatted around a camp fire on the river bank. Beyond them, half revealed by the flickering light of the flames, rose the poles of a tambo wherein empty hammocks hung waiting. At the edge of the water lay two canoes.

Five of the men wore the habiliments of civilized beings, though their shirts and breeches were so tattered and stained that a civilized community would have looked askance at them. The other two were nude as savages, but their beards and tanned skins were those of white men. Beards of varying length seemed, in fact, to be the fashion, for everyone present wore one, and all but two were very dark. Of the odd pair, one's thin face was partly covered by stubby, blond hair, while the other's jaw was masked by a growth of unmistakable red.

Lifting their cigarettes, the blond man and a tall, eagle-faced comrade moved their arms stiffly, as if still hampered by injuries. Newly healed scars showed on the skins of the rest.

"Injuns are a funny lot," declared the red-haired one. "There's Monitaya, now. Keeps us a couple weeks, doctors us half to death, feeds us till we gag, gives us new canoes, sends a platoon o' hard guys with us to see that we git to the river safe—and don't even say good-by. No handshake, no 'Good luck, fellers'—jest a grin like we was goin' to walk round the house and come right back. And the lads that come out with us done the same—turned round and quit us without a word. I bet if we lived amongst 'em long we'd git to be dummies, too."

For a moment there was silence. For no apparent reason all glanced at one of the naked men, on whose skin faintly showed reddish streaks.

"You would," he said.

"Huh! Gee! Rand's talkin' again! First time since we licked them Red Boneheads. Two whole words. Go easy, feller, easy!"

"I will be easy. But it's time I talked. I am not dumb. I am not crazy."

The green-eyed man spoke slowly, as if forming each word in his mind before pronouncing it. The rest squatted with eyes riveted on his face.

"I have not talked before because I had to find myself. I had to hear English spoken and become used to it. I had to put things together in my mind. Even now some things are not clear. But I can talk and make sense of my talk. I will tell what I can remember. First tell me one thing. McKay, am I a murderer?"

"A murderer? You? If you are we never heard of it."

"A man named Schmidt. Gustav Schmidt. German merchant at Manaos."

"Gustav Schmidt? Piggy little runt, bald and fat, with a scar across his chin?"

"Yes."

"He's dead, but you didn't kill him. He was shot a little while ago by a young Brazilian for getting too intimate with the young fellow's wife. We heard about it while we were in Manaos, and saw his picture. What about him?"

"I thought I killed him. I struck him with a bottle. I was told he was dead. How long have I been here?"

"You left the States in 1915. It is now 1920."

"Five years? My God! What has happened in that time? Is my mother well?"

The others looked pityingly at him. Slowly Knowlton spoke.

"Your mother died two years ago from heart trouble. Your uncle, Philip Dawson, also is dead."

Rand's jaw set. The others shifted their gaze and busied themselves with making new cigarettes, spending much time over the simple task.

"Poor mother!" Rand said, huskily. "Uncle Phil—he was a good old scout. And I was here—buried alive—only half alive! My head—Tell me, what happened on the night before you dressed my lame foot? I remember clearly everything from the time I woke in the canoe before daylight that morning. Before that there is a blur."

Knowlton sketched the events of that night, and told also of the glimpse which he and Pedro had caught of the "wild man" while waiting outside the house of the Red Bone chief. A flash lit up Rand's face.

"So that is how I got my sore head. You struck me with your rifle butt. That explains much. Before I became a wild beast I was shot in the head. The bullet did not go through the skull. It struck me a terrible blow on the crown. When I recovered consciousness I was not myself. I have never been the same until—"

"Gee cripes!" exploded Tim. "That's it. I seen that same thing up home. Bug Sullivan, it was. When he was a li'l' feller he tumbled downstairs and hit his head, and for 'most ten years he was foolish. Then a brick fell off a buildin' and landed on his bean. It knocked him for a gool, but when he come out of it he was bright as a new dime. Looey, when ye busted Rand with yer gun ye jarred somethin' loose inside, and now he's good as any of us."

"By George! You're right!" cried the lieutenant. "Things like that do happen. I've heard of them. Haven't you, Rod?"

McKay nodded.

"That is it," affirmed the Raposa. "I have not been insane. But much was gone from me. My mind was a house full of closed doors which I could not open. I knew who I was and why I was here, but I knew also that something had happened to my brain; knew I was defective; believed I was wanted for murder. So I could not go out. I could only stay here, prowl the jungle, live the jungle life.

"Now that the closed doors have opened again, others have swung shut. I cannot remember much of my wild-beast life here. Some things are clear. Too clear. Torturings and horrible feasts. Perhaps I should be grateful that some things are forgotten.

"But now my life up to the time I was shot is plain again. I talked with a man who had traveled the Amazon and the Andes. I never had seen either, and I was ripe for something new. A steamer was just sailing south, and I got aboard in a hurry. No baggage but a suitcase and five thousand dollars. I had traveled a good deal—Europe, Canada, Japan—and always found that plenty of money was all a man needed. Thought it was the same way here. I've learned better.

"I visited Rio—a few hours—and then came up along the coast and inland. At Manaos I got into trouble. Went ashore and got to drinking with two Germans. One of them—Schmidt—grew ugly and said a lot of rotten things about the States. Tell me something, men—is the war over and did our country get into it?"

"It is, and it did." And Knowlton outlined the epochal occurrences of the world conflict.

"And I missed that, too!" mourned Rand. "But I started a war of my own down here, anyway. When I quit seeing red I had a bottle neck in my hand and both the Germans were down. Somebody said Schmidt was dead. A couple of men tried to grab me. I fought my way clear, hid awhile, got back on the boat without being noticed, and paid one of the crew well to hide me in the hold and feed me. Nearly died from heat and suffocation down there, but lived to reach Iquitos, where my man smuggled me ashore. I thought I was safe there. But before I could make a move to travel on I fell into the hands of that cursed Schwandorf."

"Schwandorf!"

"Schwandorf. He was in Iquitos. The sailor who hid me must have sold me out to him. Schwandorf told me he was a police officer in Brazilian employ. Said he would take me back to stand trial for murdering Schmidt. The dirty blackmailer took all my money to keep his mouth shut and take me to a 'safe place.' The safe place was up this river. I came up here with him in a canoe paddled by some tough Peruvians. Then he began trying to bully me into doing dirty work for him—running women into Peru. I saw red again and jumped for him. He gave me that bullet on the head.

"After that things are badly blurred. I found myself among savages. How I got there, why I wasn't killed, I don't know. Schwandorf was there awhile. Then he went away with his gang, leaving me very sure of only one thing—I was a murderer and would be executed if caught. And—well, that's about all, except that the savages seemed rather afraid of me and didn't want me around."

There was another silence. Then Lourenco remarked:

"Between Schmidt and Schwandorf you have suffered much. It is possible that there was a connection of some sort between them. But neither can ever trouble you again. I do not see why Schwandorf took the trouble even to put you among the Red Bones. One more bullet would have ended you."

"Any ideas on that subject, Jose?" asked McKay.

"Only a guess, Capitan. I was not here five years ago, and I knew nothing of Schwandorf then. But I know he always schemed for his own good and overlooked no chances. So perhaps, finding this man not dead, but darkened in mind by his bullet, he thought he might be able to use him in some way at some future time. A dead man is not useful to anyone. If this man should never become valuable he could live and die forgotten among savages, where he could do Schwandorf no harm. If worth something he could be found again."

"Cold-blooded Prussian efficiency," nodded McKay. Then he spoke directly to Rand.

"Since you're mentally sound," he went on, "we may as well tell you how you happen to be among us. We three—Merry, Tim, and I—came here to find you. The settlement of the Dawson estate hinges on you."

"On me? How? I've no claim to it. Paul Dawson, Uncle Phil's son—"

"Is dead, too. Killed in action in the Argonne, You're next in line."

McKay watched him keenly. So did Knowlton. The half-expected jubilance did not come.

"So Paul's gone," was Rand's reply. "Hard luck. Suppose I hadn't been found—then what?"

"In due time the money would go to a school. Boys' school."

"Orphans? Blind? Cripples?"

"Hardly." McKay's mouth curved sardonically. He named a preparatory school of the "exclusive" type. Rand's mouth also twisted.

"That hotbed of snobbery? That twin sister to a society girls' finishing school? Might have known it, though. Uncle Phil was fond of the sort of education that doesn't educate. I'm glad you fellows found me. I'll go home and collect every red cent, just to keep it out of the hands of the supercilious bunch of bishops that run that sissy-spawner."

Knowlton chuckled appreciatively.

"It's not the sort of school that breeds he-men, for a fact," he agreed. "But you don't seem much enthused over having a couple of millions dropped into your lap."

Rand sat still. His face remained cheerless, impassive.

"What is money?" he said, presently. "I've always had plenty of it. What's it done for me? When you have it you can't tell whether people are friends to you or only friends to your money. It makes you cynical, suspicious. What's worse, you depend too much on it. You think it will do everything. Then if you land in a place where it's no good and you haven't got it, anyway, you're up against it a good deal harder than the fellow who never had it but knows how to handle himself without it."

"True for ye," Tim concurred, heartily. "All the same, I bet ye'll change yer tune after ye git home."

"Will I?" The green eyes impaled him. "Maybe. But I don't think so. I've had my run at blowing in money on myself alone. Now I'm going to blow some on other folks. I missed out on the war, but—There must be quite a few of our fellows lamed and crippled by that war. And I'll gamble that the government isn't treating them all like princes. I know something about governments."

"Princes? Say, feller, there's many a dog that's took better care of than some of our boys back home!"

"So I thought. The income from a couple of millions, along with some of the principal, will do a lot of good if used right. And—" His eyes turned to the three bushmen.

"Do not look at us in that way," said Lourenco, reading his thought. "We can make all the money we need, and we came with the capitao and his comrades only because we wanted excitement. Use your money for the crippled men who need it."

"And Jose Martinez also is well able to provide for his wants," coolly added the other naked man. "I am here only to settle old scores, and now they are settled. Each man is goaded by his own spur—money, wine, women, excitement, revenge. Money is not mine."

He yawned, arose, stretched like a cat, and stepped toward his hammock. The two Brasilians also moved toward the tambo. The others stood a moment longer beside the fire.

"Well, since we three didn't come here because of wine, women, or revenge," Knowlton said, whimsically, "it must have been for money and excitement. Don't know which was the stronger lure, but if we could have only one of the two I think we'd let the money slide. How about it, Rod?"

"Right! And, Rand, let me say this: Before we knew you we had an impression that you were more or less of a worthless pup. We've changed our ideas. If you ever go broke and want to hit a trail into some new place to make a strike of your own, and you need partners, let us know."

And he held out his hand.

The naked millionaire took it. For the first time a faint smile lightened his face.

"I'll do that, partners!" he promised.

"Yeah! That's the word. Pardners! Only, li'l' Timmy Ryan bucks at ever travelin' back into this here, now, Ja-va-ree jungle. I got enough of it. Right now I'm homesick."

"So say we all," affirmed Knowlton. "Now let's turn in."

But Tim stood a little longer looking out at the moonlit river and the two waiting canoes. His gaze roved along the stream, northward. He lifted his head, opened his mouth, expanded his lungs, and then the astounded denizens of forest and stream cut short their discordant concert to listen to something they never had heard before and never would hear again—a great voice thundering a censored version of a North American army song.

"Home, boys, home! Home we want to be! Home, boys, home, in God's countree! We'll raise Ol' Glory to the top o' the pole And we'll all come back—not a dog-gone soul!"

THE END