Chapter VI: Part 6

It must have been late, for the moon was low. His ankle pained and throbbed, and to that he attributed his nightmare. He was falling asleep again when the clink of tin pans made him sit up with a start. Some animal was prowling about camp. He peered into the moonlit shadows, but could make out no unfamiliar object. Still he was not satisfied; so he awoke Pepe.

Certainly it was not Ken’s intention to let Pepe get out ahead; nevertheless he was lame and slow, and before he started Pepe rolled out of the tent.

“Santa Maria!” shrieked Pepe.

Ken fumbled under his pillow for a gun. Hal raised up so quickly that he bumped Ken’s head, making him see a million stars. George rolled over, nearly knocking down the tent.

From outside came a sliddery, rustling noise, then another yell that was deadened by a sounding splash. Ken leaped out with his gun, George at his elbow. Pepe stood just back of the tent, his arms upraised, and he appeared stunned. The water near the bank was boiling and bubbling; waves were dashing on the shore and ripples spreading in a circle.

George shouted in Spanish.

“Crocodile!” cried Ken.

“Si, si, Señor,” replied Pepe. Then he said that when he stepped out of the tent the crocodile was right in camp, not ten feet from where the boys lay. Pepe also said that these brutes were man-eaters, and that he had better watch for the rest of the night. Ken thought him, like all the natives, inclined to exaggerate; however, he made no objection to Pepe’s holding watch over the crocodile.

“What’d I tell you?” growled George. “Why didn’t you let me shoot him? Let’s go back to bed.”

In the morning when Ken got up he viewed his body with great curiosity. The ticks and the cigarette burns had left him a beautifully tattoed specimen of aborigine. His body, especially his arms, bore hundreds of little reddish scars--bites and burns together. There was not, however, any itching or irritation, for which he made sure he had to thank Pepe’s skill and the _canya_.

George did not get up when Ken called him. Thinking his sleep might have been broken, Ken let him alone a while longer, but when breakfast was smoking he gave him a prod. George rolled over, looking haggard and glum.

“I’m sick,” he said.

Ken’s cheerfulness left him, for he knew what sickness or injury did to a camping trip. George complained of aching bones, headache and cramps, and showed a tongue with a yellow coating. Ken said he had eaten too much fresh meat, but Pepe, after looking George over, called it a name that sounded like _calentura_.

“What’s that?” Ken inquired.

“Tropic fever,” replied George. “I’ve had it before.”

For a while he was a very sick boy. Ken had a little medicine-case, and from it he administered what he thought was best, and George grew easier presently. Then Ken sat down to deliberate on the situation.

Whatever way he viewed it, he always came back to the same thing--they must get out of the jungle; and as they could not go back, they must go on down the river. That was a bad enough proposition without being hampered by a sick boy. It was then Ken had a subtle change of feeling; a shade of gloom seemed to pervade his spirit.

By nine o’clock they were packed, and, turning into the shady channel, soon were out in the sunlight saying good-by to Cypress Island. At the moment Ken did not feel sorry to go, yet he knew that feeling would come by and by, and that Cypress Island would take its place in his memory as one more haunting, calling wild place.

They turned a curve to run under a rocky bluff from which came a muffled roar of rapids. A long, projecting point of rock extended across the river, allowing the water to rush through only at a narrow mill-race channel close to the shore. It was an obstacle to get around. There was no possibility of lifting the boat over the bridge of rock, and the alternative was shooting the channel. Ken got out upon the rocks, only to find that drifting the boat round the sharp point was out of the question, owing to a dangerously swift current. Ken tried the depth of the water--about four feet. Then he dragged the boat back a little distance and stepped into the river.

“Look! Look!” cried Pepe, pointing to the bank.

About ten yards away was a bare shelf of mud glistening with water and showing the deep tracks of a crocodile. It was a slide, and manifestly had just been vacated. The crocodile-tracks resembled the imprints of a giant’s hand.

“Come out!” yelled George, and Pepe jabbered to his saints.

“We’ve got to go down this river,” Ken replied, and he kept on wading till he got the boat in the current. He was frightened, of course, but he kept on despite that. The boat lurched into the channel, stern first, and he leaped up on the bow. It shot down with the speed of a toboggan, and the boat whirled before he could scramble to the oars. What was worse, an overhanging tree with dead snags left scarce room to pass beneath. Ken ducked to prevent being swept overboard, and one of the snags that brushed and scraped him ran under his belt and lifted him into the air. He grasped at the first thing he could lay hands on, which happened to be a box, but he could not hold to it because the boat threatened to go on, leaving him kicking in midair and holding up a box of potatoes. Ken clutched a gunwale, only to see the water swell dangerously over the edge. In angry helplessness he loosened his hold. Then the snag broke, just in the nick of time, for in a second more the boat would have been swept away. Ken fell across the bow, held on, and soon drifted from under the threshing branches, and seized the oars.

Pepe and George and Hal walked round the ledge and, even when they reached Ken, had not stopped laughing.

“Boys, it wasn’t funny,” declared Ken, soberly.

“I said it was coming to us,” replied George.

There were rapids below, and Ken went at them with stern eyes and set lips. It was the look of men who face obstacles in getting out of the wilderness. More than one high wave circled spitefully round Pepe’s broad shoulders.

They came to a fall where the river dropped a few feet straight down. Ken sent the boys below. Hal and George made a detour. But Pepe jumped off the ledge into shallow water.

“_Ah-h!_” yelled Pepe.

Ken was becoming accustomed to Pepe’s wild yell, but there was a note in this which sent a shiver over him. Before looking, Ken snatched his rifle from the boat.

Pepe appeared to be sailing out into the pool. But his feet were not moving.

Ken had only an instant, but in that he saw under Pepe a long, yellow, swimming shape, leaving a wake in the water. Pepe had jumped upon the back of a crocodile. He seemed paralyzed, or else he was wisely trusting himself there rather than in the water. Ken was too shocked to offer advice. Indeed, he would not have known how to meet this situation.

Suddenly Pepe leaped for a dry stone, and the energy of his leap carried him into the river beyond. Like a flash he was out again, spouting water.

Ken turned loose the automatic on the crocodile and shot a magazine of shells. The crocodile made a tremendous surge, churning up a slimy foam, then vanished in a pool.

“Guess this’ll be crocodile day,” said Ken, changing the clip in his rifle. “I’ll bet I made a hole in that one. Boys, look out below.”

Ken shoved the boat over the ledge in line with Pepe, and it floated to him, while Ken picked his way round the rocky shore. The boys piled aboard again. The day began to get hot. Ken cautioned the boys to avoid wading, if possible, and to be extremely careful where they stepped. Pepe pointed now and then to huge bubbles breaking on the surface of the water and said they were made by crocodiles.

From then on Ken’s hands were full. He struck swift water, where rapid after rapid, fall on fall, took the boat downhill at a rate to afford him satisfaction. The current had a five or six mile speed, and, as Ken had no portages to make and the corrugated rapids of big waves gave him speed, he made by far the best time of the voyage.

The hot hours passed--cool for the boys because they were always wet. The sun sank behind a hill. The wind ceased to whip the streamers of moss. At last, in a gathering twilight, Ken halted at a wide, flat rock to make camp.

“Forty miles to-day if we made an inch!” exclaimed Ken.

The boys said more.

They built a fire, cooked supper, and then, weary and silent, Hal and George and Pepe rolled into their blankets. But Ken doggedly worked an hour at his map and notes. That hard forty miles meant a long way toward the success of his trip.

Next morning the mists had not lifted from the river when they shoved off, determined to beat the record of yesterday. Difficulties beset them from the start--the highest waterfall of the trip, a leak in the boat, deep, short rapids, narrows with choppy waves, and a whirlpool where they turned round and round, unable to row out. Nor did they get free till Pepe lassoed a snag and pulled them out.

About noon they came to another narrow chute brawling down into a deep, foamy pool. Again Ken sent the boys around, and he backed the boat into the chute; and just as the current caught it he leaped aboard. He was either tired or careless, for he drifted too close to a half-submerged rock, and, try as he might, at the last moment he could not avoid a collision.

As the stern went hard on the rock Ken expected to break something, but was surprised at the soft thud with which he struck. It flashed into his mind that the rock was moss-covered.

Quick as the thought there came a rumble under the boat, the stern heaved up, there was a great sheet-like splash, and then a blow that splintered the gunwale. Then the boat shunted off, affording the astounded Ken a good view of a very angry crocodile. He had been sleeping on the rock.

The boys were yelling and crowding down to the shore where Ken was drifting in. Pepe waded in to catch the boat.

“What was it hit you, Ken?” asked Hal.

“Mucho malo,” cried Pepe.

“The boat’s half full of water--the gunwale’s all split!” ejaculated George.

“Only an accident of river travel,” replied Ken, with mock nonchalance. “Say, Garrapato, _when_, about _when_ is it coming to me?”

“Well, if he didn’t get slammed by a crocodile!” continued George.

They unloaded, turned out the water, broke up a box to use for repairs, and mended the damaged gunwale--work that lost more than a good hour. Once again under way, Ken made some interesting observations. The river ceased to stand on end in places; crocodiles slipped off every muddy promontory, and wide trails ridged the steep clay-banks.

“Cattle-trails, Pepe says,” said George. “Wild cattle roam all through the jungle along the Panuco.”

It was a well-known fact that the rancheros of Tamaulipas State had no idea how many cattle they owned. Ken was so eager to see if Pepe had been correct that he went ashore, to find the trails were, indeed, those of cattle.

“Then, Pepe, we must be somewhere near the Panuco River,” he said.

“Quien sabe?” rejoined he, quietly.

When they rounded the curve they came upon a herd of cattle that clattered up the bank, raising a cloud of dust.

“Wilder than deer!” Ken exclaimed.

From that point conditions along the river changed. The banks were no longer green; the beautiful cypresses gave place to other trees, as huge, as moss-wound, but more rugged and of gaunt outline; the flowers and vines and shady nooks disappeared. Everywhere wide-horned steers and cows plunged up the banks. Everywhere buzzards rose from gruesome feasts. The shore was lined with dead cattle, and the stench of putrefying flesh was almost unbearable. They passed cattle mired in the mud, being slowly tortured to death by flies and hunger; they passed cattle that had slipped off steep banks and could not get back and were bellowing dismally; and also strangely acting cattle that Pepe said had gone crazy from ticks in their ears. Ken would have put these miserable beasts out of their misery had not George restrained him with a few words about Mexican law.

A sense of sickness came to Ken, and though he drove the feeling from him, it continually returned. George and Hal lay flat on the canvas, shaded with a couple of palm leaves; Pepe rowed on and on, growing more and more serious and quiet. His quick, responsive smile was wanting now.

By way of diversion, and also in the hope of securing a specimen, Ken began to shoot at the crocodiles. George came out of his lethargy and took up his rifle. He would have had to be ill indeed, to forswear any possible shooting; and, now that Ken had removed the bar, he forgot he had fever. Every hundred yards or so they would come upon a crocodile measuring somewhere from about six feet upward, and occasionally they would see a great yellow one, as large as a log. Seldom did they get within good range of these huge fellows, and shooting from a moving boat was not easy. The smaller ones, however, allowed the boat to approach quite close. George bounced many a .32 bullet off the bank, but he never hit a crocodile. Ken allowed him to have the shots for the fun of it, and, besides, he was watching for a big one.

“George, that rifle of yours is leaded. It doesn’t shoot where you aim.”

When they got unusually close to a small crocodile George verified Ken’s statement by missing his game some yards. He promptly threw the worn-out rifle overboard, an act that caused Pepe much concern.

Whereupon Ken proceeded to try his luck. Instructing Pepe to row about in the middle of the stream, he kept eye on one shore while George watched the other. He shot half a dozen small crocodiles, but they slipped off the bank before Pepe could get ashore. This did not appear to be the fault of the rifle, for some of the reptiles were shot almost in two pieces. But Ken had yet to learn more about the tenacity of life of these water-brutes. Several held still long enough for Ken to shoot them through, then with a plunge they went into the water, sinking at once in a bloody foam. He knew he had shot them through, for he saw large holes in the mud-banks lined with bits of bloody skin and bone.

“There’s one,” said George, pointing. “Let’s get closer, so we can grab him. He’s got a good piece to go before he reaches the water.”

Pepe rowed slowly along, guiding the boat a little nearer the shore. At forty feet the crocodile raised up, standing on short legs, so that all but his tail was free of the ground. He opened his huge jaws either in astonishment or to intimidate them, and then Ken shot him straight down the throat. He flopped convulsively and started to slide and roll. When he reached the water he turned over on his back, with his feet sticking up, resembling a huge frog. Pepe rowed hard to the shore, just as the crocodile with one last convulsion rolled off into deeper water. Ken reached over, grasped his foot, and was drawing it up when a sight of cold, glassy eyes and open-fanged jaws made him let go. Then the crocodile sank in water where Pepe could not touch bottom with an oar.

“Let’s get one if it takes a week,” declared George. The lad might be sick, but there was nothing wrong with his spirit. “Look there!” he exclaimed. “Oh, I guess it’s a log. Too big!”

They had been unable to tell the difference between a crocodile and a log of driftwood until it was too late. In this instance a long, dirty-gray object lay upon a low bank. Despite its immense size, which certainly made the chances in favor of its being a log, Ken determined this time to be fooled on the right side. He had seen a dozen logs--as he thought--suddenly become animated and slip into the river.

“Hold steady, Pepe. I’ll take a crack at that just for luck.”

The distance was about a hundred yards, a fine range for the little rifle. Resting on his knee, he sighted low, under the gray object, and pulled the trigger twice. There were two spats so close together as to be barely distinguishable. The log of driftwood leaped into life.

“Whoop!” shouted Hal.

“It’s a crocodile!” yelled George. “You hit--you hit! Will you listen to that?”

“Row hard, Pepe--pull!”

He bent to the oars, and the boat flew shoreward.

The huge crocodile, opening yard-long jaws, snapped them shut with loud cracks. Then he beat the bank with his tail. It was as limber as a willow, but he seemed unable to move his central parts, his thick bulk, where Ken had sent the two mushroom bullets. _Whack_! _Whack_! _Whack_! The sodden blows jarred pieces from the clay-bank above him. Each blow was powerful enough to have staved in the planking of a ship. All at once he lunged upward and, falling over backward, slid down his runway into a few inches of water, where he stuck.

“Go in above him, Pepe,” Ken shouted. “Here-- Heavens! What a monster!”

Deliberately, at scarce twenty feet, Ken shot the remaining four shells into the crocodile. The bullets tore through his horny hide, and blood and muddy water spouted up. George and Pepe and Hal yelled, and Ken kept time with them. The terrible lashing tail swung back and forth almost too swiftly for the eye to catch. A deluge of mud and water descended upon the boys, bespattering, blinding them and weighing down the boat. They jumped out upon the bank to escape it. They ran to and fro in aimless excitement. Ken still clutched the rifle, but he had no shells for it. George was absurd enough to fling a stone into the blood-tinged cloud of muddy froth and spray that hid the threshing leviathan. Presently the commotion subsided enough for them to see the great crocodile lying half on his back, with belly all torn and bloody and huge claw-like hands pawing the air. He was edging, slipping off into deeper water.

“He’ll get away--he’ll get away!” cried Hal. “What’ll we do?”

Ken racked his brains.

“Pepe, get your lasso--rope him--rope him! Hurry! he’s slipping!” yelled George.

Pepe snatched up his lariat, and, without waiting to coil it, cast the loop. He caught one of the flippers and hauled tight on it just as the crocodile slipped out of sight off the muddy ledge. The others ran to the boat, and, grasping hold of the lasso with Pepe, squared away and began to pull. Plain it was that the crocodile was not coming up so easily. They could not budge him.

“Hang on, boys!” Ken shouted. “It’s a tug-of-war.”

The lasso was suddenly jerked out with a kind of twang. Crash! went Pepe and Hal into the bottom of the boat. Ken went sprawling into the mud, and George, who had the last hold, went to his knees, but valiantly clung to the slipping rope. Bounding up, Ken grasped it from him and wound it round the sharp nose of the bowsprit.

“Get in--hustle!” he called, falling aboard. “You’re always saying it’s coming to us. Here’s where!”

George had hardly got into the boat when the crocodile pulled it off shore, and away it went, sailing down-stream.

“Whoop! All aboard for Panuco!” yelled Hal.

“Now, Pepe, you don’t need to row any more--we’ve a water-horse,” Ken added.

But Pepe did not enter into the spirit of the occasion. He kept calling on the saints and crying, “Mucho malo.” George and Ken and Hal, however, were hilarious. They had not yet had experience enough to know crocodiles.

Faster and faster they went. The water began to surge away from the bow and leave a gurgling wake behind the stern. Soon the boat reached the middle of the river where the water was deepest, and the lasso went almost straight down.

Ken felt the stern of the boat gradually lifted, and then, in alarm, he saw the front end sinking in the water. The crocodile was hauling the bow under.

“Pepe--your machete--cut the lasso!” he ordered, sharply. George had to repeat the order.

Wildly Pepe searched under the seat and along the gunwales. He could not find the _machete_.

“Cut the rope!” Ken thundered. “Use a knife, the ax--anything--only cut it--and cut it quick!”

Pepe could find nothing. Knife in hand, Ken leaped over his head, sprawled headlong over the trunk, and slashed the taut lasso just as the water began to roar into the boat. The bow bobbed up as a cork that had been under. But the boat had shipped six inches of water.

“Row ashore, Pepe. Steady, there. Trim the boat, George.”

They beached at a hard clay-bank and rested a little before unloading to turn out the water.

“Grande!” observed Pepe.

“Yes; he was big,” assented George.

“I wonder what’s going to happen to us next,” added Hal.

Ken Ward looked at these companions of his and he laughed outright. “Well, if you all don’t take the cake for nerve!”

*XX*

*TREED BY WILD PIGS*

Pepe’s long years of _mozo_ work, rowing for tarpon fishermen, now stood the boys in good stead. All the hot hours of the day he bent steadily to the oars. Occasionally they came to rifts, but these were not difficult to pass, being mere swift, shallow channels over sandy bottom. The rocks and the rapids were things of the past.

George lay in a kind of stupor, and Hal lolled in his seat. Ken, however, kept alert, and as the afternoon wore on began to be annoyed at the scarcity of camp-sites.

The muddy margins of the river, the steep banks, and the tick-infested forests offered few places where it was possible to rest, to say nothing of sleep. Every turn in the widening river gave Ken hope, which resulted in disappointment. He found consolation, however, in the fact that every turn and every hour put him so much farther on the way.

About five o’clock Ken had unexpected good luck in shape of a small sand-bar cut off from the mainland, and therefore free of cattle-tracks. It was clean and dry, with a pile of driftwood at one end.

“Tumble out, boys,” called Ken, as Pepe beached the boat. “We’ll pitch camp here.”

Neither Hal nor George showed any alacrity. Ken watched his brother; he feared to see some of the symptoms of George’s sickness. Both lads, however, seemed cheerful, though too tired to be of much use in the pitching of camp.

Ken could not recover his former good spirits. There was a sense of foreboding in his mind that all was not well, that he must hurry, hurry. And although George appeared to be holding his own, Hal healthy enough, and Pepe’s brooding quiet at least no worse, Ken could not rid himself of gloom. If he had answered the question that knocked at his mind he would have admitted a certainty of disaster. So he kept active, and when there were no more tasks for that day he worked on his note-book, and then watched the flight of wild fowl.

The farther down the river the boys traveled the more numerous were the herons and cranes and ducks. But they saw no more of the beautiful _pato real_, as Pepe called them, or the little russet-colored ducks, or the dismal-voiced bitterns. On the other hand, wild geese were common, and there were flocks and flocks of teal and canvasbacks.

Pepe, as usual, cooked duck. And he had to eat it. George had lost his appetite altogether. Hal had lost his taste for meat, at least. And Ken made a frugal meal of rice.

“Boys,” he said, “the less you eat from now on the better for you.”

It took resolution to drink the cocoa, for Ken could not shut out remembrance of the green water and the shore-line of dead and decaying cattle. Still, he was parched with thirst; he had to drink. That night he slept ten hours without turning over. Next morning he had to shake Pepe to rouse him.

Ken took turns at the oars with Pepe. It was not only that he fancied Pepe was weakening and in need of an occasional rest, but the fact that he wanted to be occupied, and especially to keep in good condition. They made thirty miles by four o’clock, and most of it against a breeze. Not in the whole distance did they pass half a dozen places fit for a camp. Toward evening the river narrowed again, resembling somewhat the Santa Rosa of earlier acquaintance. The magnificent dark forests crowded high on the banks, always screened and curtained by gray moss, as if to keep their secrets.

The sun was just tipping with gold the mossy crests of a grove of giant ceibas, when the boys rounded a bend to come upon the first ledge of rocks for two days. A low, grassy promontory invited the eyes searching for camping-ground. This spot appeared ideal; it certainly was beautiful. The ledge jutted into the river almost to the opposite shore, forcing the water to rush through a rocky trough into a great foam-spotted pool below.

They could not pitch the tent, since the stony ground would not admit stakes, so they laid the canvas flat. Pepe went up the bank with his _machete_ in search of firewood. To Ken’s utmost delight he found a little spring of sweet water trickling from the ledge, and by digging a hole was enabled to get a drink, the first one in more than a week.

A little later, as he was spreading the blankets, George called his attention to shouts up in the woods.

“Pepe’s treed something,” Ken said. “Take your gun and hunt him up.”

Ken went on making a bed and busying himself about camp, with little heed to George’s departure. Presently, however, he was startled by unmistakable sounds of alarm. George and Pepe were yelling in unison, and, from the sound, appeared to be quite a distance away.

“What the deuce!” Ken ejaculated, snatching up his rifle. He snapped a clip in the magazine and dropped several loaded clips and a box of extra shells into his coat pocket. After his adventure with the jaguar he decided never again to find himself short of ammunition. Running up the sloping bank, he entered the forest, shouting for his companions. Answering cries came from in front and a little to the left. He could not make out what was said.

Save for drooping moss the forest was comparatively open, and at a hundred paces from the river-bank were glades covered with thickets and long grass and short palm-trees. The ground sloped upward quite perceptibly.

“Hey, boys, where are you?” called Ken.

Pepe’s shrill yells mingled with George’s shouts. At first their meaning was unintelligible, but after calling twice Ken understood.

“Javelin! Go back! Javelin! We’re treed! Wild pigs! Santa Maria! Run for your life!”

This was certainly enlightening and rather embarrassing. Ken remembered the other time the boys had made him run, and he grew hot with anger.

“I’ll be blessed if I’ll run!” he said, in the pride of conceit and wounded vanity. Whereupon he began to climb the slope, stopping every few steps to listen and look. Ken wondered what had made Pepe go so far for fire-wood; still, there was nothing but green wood all about. Walking round a clump of seared and yellow palms that rustled in the breeze, Ken suddenly espied George’s white shirt. He was in a scrubby sapling not fifteen feet from the ground. Then Ken espied Pepe, perched in the forks of a ceiba, high above the thickets and low shrubbery. Ken was scarcely more than a dozen rods from them down the gradual slope. Both saw him at once.

“Run, you Indian! Run!” bawled George, waving his hands.

George implored Ken to fly to save his precious life.

“What for? you fools! I don’t see anything to run from,” Ken shouted back. His temper had soured a little during the last few days.

“You’d better run, or you’ll have to climb,” replied George. “Wild pigs--a thousand of ’em!”

“Where?”

“Right under us. There! Oh, if they see you! Listen to this.” He broke off a branch, trimmed it of leaves, and flung it down. Ken heard a low, trampling roar of many hard little feet, brushings in the thicket, and cracking of twigs. As close as he was, however, he could not see a moving object. The dead grass and brush were several feet high, up to his waist in spots, and, though he changed position several times, no _javelin_ did he see.

“You want to look out. Say, man, these are wild pigs--boars, I tell you! They’ll kill you!” bellowed George.

“Are you going to stay up there all night?” Ken asked, sarcastically.

“We’ll stay till they go away.”

“All right, I’ll scare them away,” Ken replied, and, suiting action to word, he worked the automatic as fast as it would shoot, aiming into the thicket under George.

Of all the foolish things a nettled hunter ever did that was the worst. A roar answered the echoes of the rifle, and the roar rose from every side of the trees the victims were in. Nervously Ken clamped a fresh clip of shells into the rifle. Clouds of dust arose, and strange little squeals and grunts seemed to come from every quarter. Then the grass and bushes were suddenly torn apart by swift gray forms with glittering eyes. They were everywhere.

“_Run_! _Run_!” shrieked George, high above the tumult.

For a thrilling instant Ken stood his ground and fired at the bobbing gray backs. But every break made in the ranks by the powerful shells filled in a flash. Before that vicious charge he wavered, then ran as if pursued by demons.

The way was downhill. Ken tripped, fell, rolled over and over, then, still clutching the rifle, rose with a bound and fled. The javelin had gained. They were at his heels. He ran like a deer. Then, seeing a low branch, he leaped for it, grasped it with one hand, and, crooking an elbow round it, swung with the old giant swing.

Before Ken knew how it had happened he was astride a dangerously swaying branch directly over a troop of brownish-gray, sharp-snouted, fiendish-eyed little peccaries.

Some were young and sleek, others were old and rough; some had little yellow teeth or tusks, and all pointed their sharp noses upward, as if expecting him to fall into their very mouths. Feeling safe, once more Ken loaded the rifle and began to kill the biggest, most vicious _javelin_. When he had killed twelve in twelve shots, he saw that shooting a few would be of no avail. There were hundreds, it seemed, and he had scarcely fifty shells left. Moreover, the rifle-barrel grew so hot that it burnt his hands. Hearing George’s yell, he replied, somewhat to his disgust:

“I’m all right, George--only treed. How ’re you?”

“Pigs all gone--they chased you--Pepe thinks we can risk running.”

“Don’t take any chances,” Ken yelled, in answer.

“Hi! Hi! What’s wrong with you gazabos?” came Hal’s yell from down the slope.

“Go back to the boat,” shouted Ken.

“What for?”

“We’re all treed by javelin--wild pigs.”

“I’ve got to see that,” was Hal’s reply.

Ken called a sharp, angry order for Hal to keep away. But Hal did not obey. Ken heard him coming, and presently saw him enter one of the little glades. He had Ken’s shotgun, and was peering cautiously about.

“Ken, where are you?”

“Here! Didn’t I tell you to keep away? The pigs heard you--some of them are edging out there. Look out! Run, kid, run!”

A troop of _javelin_ flashed into the glade. Hal saw them and raised the shotgun.

_Boom_! He shot both barrels.

The shot tore through the brush all around Ken, but fortunately beneath him. Neither the noise nor the lead stopped the pugnacious little peccaries.

Hal dropped Ken’s hammerless and fled.

“Run faster!” yelled George, who evidently enjoyed Hal’s plight. “They’ll get you! Run hard!”

The lad was running close to the record when he disappeared.

In trying to find a more comfortable posture, so he could apply himself to an interesting study of his captors, Ken made the startling discovery that the branch which upheld him was splitting from the tree-trunk. His heart began to pound in his breast; then it went up into his throat. Every move he made--for he had started to edge toward the tree--widened the little white split.

“Boys, my branch is breaking!” he called, piercingly.

“Can’t you get another?” returned George.

“No; I daren’t move! Hurry, boys! If you don’t scare these brutes off I’m a goner!”

Ken’s eyes were riveted upon the gap where the branch was slowly separating from the tree-trunk. He glanced about to see if he could not leap to another branch. There was nothing near that would hold him. In desperation he resolved to drop the rifle, cautiously get to his feet upon the branch, and with one spring try to reach the tree. When about to act upon this last chance he heard Pepe’s shrill yell and a crashing in the brush. Then followed the unmistakable roar and crackling of fire. Pepe had fired the brush--no, he was making his way toward Ken, armed with a huge torch.

“Pepe, you’ll fire the jungle!” cried Ken, forgetting what was at stake and that Pepe could not understand much English. But Ken had been in one forest-fire and remembered it with horror.

The _javelin_ stirred uneasily, and ran around under Ken, tumbling over one another.

When Pepe burst through the brush, holding before him long-stemmed palm leaves flaring in hissing flames, the whole pack of pigs bowled away into the forest at breakneck speed.

Ken leaped down, and the branch came with him. George came running up, his face white, his eyes big. Behind him rose a roar that Ken thought might be another drove of pigs till he saw smoke and flame.

“Boys, the jungle’s on fire. Run for the river!”

In their hurry they miscalculated the location of camp and dashed out of the jungle over a steep bank, and they all had a tumble. It was necessary to wade to reach the rocky ledge.

Ken shook hands with Pepe.

“George, tell him that was a nervy thing to do. He saved my life, I do believe.”

“You fellows did a lot of hollering,” said Hal, from his perch in the boat.

“Say, young man, you’ve got to go back after my gun. Why didn’t you do what I told you? Foolish, to run into danger that way!” declared Ken, severely.

“You don’t suppose I was going to overlook a chance to see Ken Ward treed, do you?”

“Well, you saw him, and that was no joke. But I wish Pepe could have scared those pigs off without firing the jungle.”

“Pepe says it’ll give the ticks a good roasting,” said George.

“We’ll have roast pig, anyway,” added Ken.

He kept watching the jungle back of the camp as if he expected it to blow up like a powder-mine. But this Tamaulipas jungle was not Penetier Forest. A cloud of smoke rolled up; there was a frequent roaring of dry palms; but the green growths did not burn. It was not much of a forest-fire, and Ken concluded that it would soon burn out.

So he took advantage of the waning daylight to spread out his map and plot in the day’s travel. This time Hal watched him with a quiet attention that was both flattering and stimulating; and at the conclusion of the task he said:

“Well, Ken, we’re having sport, but we’re doing something more--something worth while.”

*XXI*

*THE LEAPING TARPON*

Just before dark, when the boys were at supper, a swarm of black mosquitoes swooped down upon camp.

Pepe could not have shown more fear at angry snakes, and he began to pile green wood and leaves on the fire to make a heavy smoke.

These mosquitoes were very large, black-bodied, with white-barred wings. Their bite was as painful as the sting of a bee. After threshing about until tired out the boys went to bed. But it was only to get up again, for the mosquitoes could bite through two thicknesses of blanket.

For a wonder every one was quiet. Even George did not grumble. The only thing to do was to sit or stand in the smoke of the campfire. The boys wore their gloves and wrapped blankets round heads and shoulders. They crouched over the fire until tired of that position, then stood up till they could stand no longer. It was a wretched, sleepless night with the bloodthirsty mosquitoes humming about like a swarm of bees. They did not go away until dawn.

“That’s what I get for losing the mosquito-netting,” said Ken, wearily.

Breakfast was not a cheerful meal, despite the fact that the boys all tried to brace up.

George’s condition showed Ken the necessity for renewed efforts to get out of the jungle. Pepe appeared heavy and slow, and, what was more alarming, he had lost his appetite. Hal was cross, but seemed to keep well. It was hard enough for Ken to persuade George and Pepe to take the bitter doses of quinine, and Hal positively refused.

“It makes me sick, I tell you,” said Hal, impatiently.

“But Hal, you ought to be guided by my judgment now,” replied Ken, gently.

“I don’t care. I’ve had enough of bitter pills.”

“I ask you--as a favor?” persisted Ken, quietly.

“No!”

“Well, then, I’ll have to make you take them.”

“Wha-at?” roared Hal.

“If necessary, I’ll throw you down and pry open your mouth and get Pepe to stuff these pills down your throat. There!” went on Ken, and now he did not recognize his own voice.

Hal looked quickly at his brother, and was amazed and all at once shaken.

“Why, Ken--” he faltered.

“I ought to have made you take them before,” interrupted Ken. “But I’ve been too easy. Now, Hal, listen--and you, too, George. I’ve made a bad mess of this trip. I got you into this jungle, and I ought to have taken better care of you, whether you would or not. George has fever. Pepe is getting it. I’m afraid you won’t escape. You all _would_ drink unboiled water.”

“Ken, that’s all right, but you can get fever from the bites of the ticks,” said George.

“I dare say. But just the same you could have been careful about the water. Not only that--look how careless we have been. Think of the things that have happened! We’ve gotten almost wild on this trip. We don’t realize. But wait till we get home. Then we’ll hardly be able to believe we ever had these adventures. But our foolishness, our carelessness, must stop right here. If we can’t profit by our lucky escapes yesterday--from that lassoed crocodile and the wild pigs--we are simply no good. I love fun and sport. But there’s a limit. Hal, remember what old Hiram told you about being foolhardily brave. I think we have been wonderfully lucky. Now let’s deserve our good luck. Let’s not prove what that Tampico hotel-man said. Let’s show we are not just wild-goose-chasing boys. I put it to you straight. I think the real test is yet to come, and I want you to help me. No more tricks. No more drinking unboiled water. No more shooting except in self-defense. We must not eat any more meat. No more careless wandering up the banks. No chances. See? And fight the fever. Don’t give up. Then when we get out of this awful jungle we can look back at our adventures--and, better, we can be sure we’ve learned a lot. We shall have accomplished something, and that’s learning. Now, how about it? Will you help me?”

“You can just bet your life,” replied George, and he held out his hand.

“Ken, I’m with you,” was Hal’s quiet promise; and Ken knew from the way the lad spoke that he was in dead earnest. When it came to the last ditch Hal Ward was as true as steel. He took the raw, bitter quinine Ken offered and swallowed it without a grimace.

“Good!” exclaimed Ken. “Now, boys, let’s pack. Hal, you let your menagerie go. There’s no use keeping your pets any longer. George, you make yourself a bed on the trunk, and fix a palm-leaf sun-shelter. Then lie down.”

When the boat had been packed and all was in readiness for the start, George was sound asleep. They shoved off into the current. Pepe and Ken took turns at the oars, making five miles an hour.

As on the day before, they glided under the shadows of the great moss-twined cypresses, along the muddy banks where crocodiles basked in the sun and gaunt cattle came down to drink. Once the boat turned a bushy point to startle a large flock of wild turkeys, perhaps thirty-five in number. They had been resting in the cool sand along the river. Some ran up the bank, some half-dozen flew right over the boat, and most of them squatted down as if to evade detection. Thereafter turkeys and ducks and geese became so common as to be monotonous.

About one o’clock Ken sighted a thatched bamboo and palm-leaf hut on the bank.

“Oh, boys, look! look!” cried Ken, joyfully.

Hal was as pleased as Ken, and George roused out of his slumber. Pepe grinned and nodded his head.

Some naked little children ran like quail. A disheveled black head peeped out of a door, then swiftly vanished.

“Indians,” said George.

“I don’t care,” replied Ken, “they’re human beings--people. We’re getting somewhere.”

From there on the little bamboo huts were frequently sighted. And soon Ken saw a large one situated upon a high bluff. Ken was wondering if these natives would be hospitable.

Upon rounding the next bend the boys came unexpectedly upon a connecting river. It was twice as wide as the Santa Rosa, and quite swift.

“Tamaulipas,” said Pepe.

“Hooray! boys, this is the source of the Panuco, sure as you’re born,” cried Ken. “I told you we were getting somewhere.”

He was overcome with the discovery. This meant success.

“Savalo! Savalo!” exclaimed Pepe, pointing.

“Tarpon! Tarpon! What do you think of that? ’Way up here! We must be a long distance from tide-water,” said George.

Ken looked around over the broad pool below the junction of the two rivers. And here and there he saw swirls, and big splashes, and then the silver sides of rolling tarpon.

“Boys, seeing we’ve packed that can of preserved mullet all the way, and those thundering heavy tackles, let’s try for tarpon,” suggested Ken.

It was wonderful to see how the boys responded. Pepe was no longer slow and heavy. George forgot he was sick. Hal, who loved to fish better than to hunt, was as enthusiastic as on the first day.

“Ken, let me boss this job,” said George, as he began to rig the tackles. “Pepe will row; you and Hal sit back here and troll. I’ll make myself useful. Open the can. See, I hook the mullet just back of the head, letting the bar come out free. There! Now run out about forty feet of line. Steady the butt of the rod under your leg. Put your left hand above the reel. Hold the handle of the reel in your right, and hold it hard. The drag is in the handle. Now when a tarpon takes the bait, jerk with all your might. Their mouths are like iron, and it’s hard to get a hook to stick.”

Pepe rowed at a smooth, even stroke and made for the great curve of the pool where tarpon were breaking water.

“If they’re on the feed, we’ll have more sport than we’ve had yet,” said George.

Ken was fascinated, and saw that Hal was going to have the best time of the trip. Also Ken was very curious to have a tarpon strike. He had no idea what it would be like. Presently, when the boat glided among the rolling fish and there was prospect of one striking at any moment, Ken could not subdue a mounting excitement.

“Steady now--be ready,” warned George.

Suddenly Hal’s line straightened. The lad yelled and jerked at the same instant. There came a roar of splitting waters, and a beautiful silver fish, longer than Hal himself, shot up into the air. The tarpon shook himself and dropped back into the water with a crash.

Hal was speechless. He wound in his line to find the bait gone.

“Threw the hook,” said George, as he reached into the can for another bait. “He wasn’t so big. You’ll get used to losing ’em. There! try again.”

Ken had felt several gentle tugs at his line, as if tarpon were rolling across it. And indeed he saw several fish swim right over where his line disappeared in the water. There were splashes all around the boat, some gentle swishes and others hard, cutting rushes. Then his line straightened with a heavy jerk. He forgot to try to hook the fish; indeed, he had no time. The tarpon came half out of the water, wagged his head, and plumped back. Ken had not hooked the fish, nor had the fish got the bait. So Ken again let out his line.

The next thing which happened was that the boys both had strikes at the same instant. Hal stood up, and as his tarpon leaped it pulled him forward, and he fell into the stern-seat. His reel-handle rattled on the gunwale. The line hissed. Ken leaned back and jerked. His fish did not break water, but he was wonderfully active under the surface. Pepe was jabbering. George was yelling. Hal’s fish was tearing the water to shreds. He crossed Ken’s fish; the lines fouled, and then slacked. Ken began to wind in. Hal rose to do likewise.

“Gee!” he whispered, with round eyes.

Both lines had been broken. George made light of this incident, and tied on two more leaders and hooks and baited afresh.

“The fish are on the feed, boys. It’s a cinch you’ll each catch one. Better troll one at a time, unless you can stand for crossed lines.”

But Ken and Hal were too eager to catch a tarpon to troll one at a time, so once more they let their lines out. A tarpon took Hal’s bait right under the stern of the boat. Hal struck with all his might. This fish came up with a tremendous splash, drenching the boys. His great, gleaming silver sides glistened in the sun. He curved his body and straightened out with a snap like the breaking of a board, and he threw the hook whistling into the air.

Before Hal had baited up, Ken got another strike. This fish made five leaps, one after the other, and upon the last threw the hook like a bullet. As he plunged down, a beautiful rainbow appeared in the misty spray.

“Hal, do you see that rainbow?” cried Ken, quickly. “There’s a sight for a fisherman!”

This time in turn, before Ken started to troll, Hal hooked another tarpon. This one was not so large, but he was active. His first rush was a long surge on the surface. He sent the spray in two streaks like a motor-boat. Then he sounded.

“Hang on, Hal!” yelled George and Ken in unison.

Hal was bent almost double and his head was bobbing under the strain. He could not hold the drag. The line was whizzing out.

“You got that one hooked,” shouted George. “Let go the reel--drop the handle. Let him run.”

He complied, and then his fish began a marvelous exhibition of lofty tumbling. He seemed never to stay down at all. Now he shot up, mouth wide, gills spread, eyes wild, and he shook himself like a wet dog. Then he dropped back, and before the boys had time to think where he might be he came up several rods to the right and cracked his gills like pistol-shots. He skittered on his tail and stood on his head and dropped flat with a heavy smack. Then he stayed under and began to tug.

“Hang on, now,” cried George. “Wind in. Hold him tight. Don’t give him an inch unless he jumps.”

This was heartbreaking work for Hal. He toiled to keep the line in. He grew red in the face. He dripped with sweat. He panted for breath. But he hung on.

Ken saw how skilfully Pepe managed the boat. The _mozo_ seemed to know just which way the fish headed, and always kept the boat straight. Sometimes he rowed back and lent his help to Hal. But this appeared to anger the tarpon, for the line told he was coming to the surface. Then, as Pepe ceased to let him feel the weight of the boat, the tarpon sank again. So the battle went on round and round the great pool. After an hour of it Hal looked ready to drop.

“Land him alone if you can,” said Ken. “He’s tiring, Hal.”

“I’ll--land him--or--or bust!” panted Hal.

“Look out, now!” warned George again. “He’s coming up. See the line. Be ready to trim the boat if he drops aboard. _Wow!_”

The tarpon slipped smoothly out of the water and shot right over the bow of the boat. Quick-witted George flung out his hand and threw Hal’s rod round in time to save the line from catching. The fish went down, came up wagging his head, and then fell with sullen splash.

“He’s done,” yelled George. “Now, Hal, hold him for all you’re worth. Not an inch of line!”

Pepe headed the boat for a sandy beach; and Hal, looking as if about to have a stroke of apoplexy, clung desperately to the bending rod. The tarpon rolled and lashed his tail, but his power was mostly gone. Gradually he ceased to roll, until by the time Pepe reached shore he was sliding wearily through the water, his silvery side glittering in the light.

The boat grated on the sand. Pepe leaped out. Then he grasped Hal’s line, slipped his hands down to the long wire leader, and with a quick, powerful pull slid the tarpon out upon the beach.

“Oh-h!” gasped Hal, with glistening eyes. “Oh-h! Ken, just look!”

“I’m looking, son, and don’t you forget it.”

The tarpon lay inert, a beautiful silver-scaled creature that looked as if he had just come from a bath of melted opals. The great dark eyes were fixed and staring, the tail moved feebly, the long dorsal fin quivered.

He measured five feet six inches in length, which was one inch more than Hal’s height.

“Ken, the boys back home will never believe I caught him,” said Hal, in distress.

“Take his picture to prove it,” replied Ken.

Hal photographed his catch. Pepe took out the hook, showing, as he did so, the great iron-like plates in the mouth of the fish.

“No wonder it’s hard to hook them,” said Ken.

Hal certainly wanted his beautiful fish to go back, free and little hurt, to the river. But also he wanted him for a specimen. Hal deliberated. Evidently he was considering the labor of skinning such a huge fish and the difficulty of preserving and packing the hide.

“Say, Hal, wouldn’t you like to see me hook one?” queried Ken, patiently.

That brought Hal to his senses.

“Sure, Ken, old man, I want you to catch one--a big one--bigger than mine,” replied Hal, and restored the fish to the water.

They all watched the liberated tarpon swim wearily off and slip down under the water.

“He’ll have something to tell the rest, won’t he?” said George.

In a few minutes the boat was again in the center of the great pool among the rolling tarpon. Ken had a strike immediately. He missed. Then he tried again. And in a short space of time he saw five tarpon in the air, one after the other, and not one did he hook securely. He got six leaps out of one, however, and that was almost as good as landing him.

“There ’re some whales here,” said George.

“Grande savalo,” added Pepe, and he rowed over to where a huge fish was rolling.

“Oh, I don’t want to hook the biggest one first,” protested Ken.