Arthur O. Friel

“ One of the paddlers in the fleeing boat slumped down. The red head drooped, hung steady—then out cracked more shots. The first Indian canoe swerved, slowed, and blocked the others. A couple of splashes told me men were falling overboard.
Why I stopped I do not know, unless it was because I hate to run from a fight. But stop I did. I made my paddlers hold the boat at the turn, and there I stood up straight, watching and waiting. The fighting canoe did not slow up at sight of me; the two remaining Indians in it saw my carroza, my straw sombrero, my blue shirt, and knew I was a traveling blanco. ”

“ Instead, I took one quick look around, saw what a bad place we were in—walled in by high banks—and, by words and signs, ordered my paddlers to turn and get out of there. They whirled that heavy curial around faster than I had ever before seen such work done, and a few seconds later they were driving like madmen for the Ventuari. Every one of us knew that the approaching canoe must be running from Indians, and that those Indians might be swarming along both the high shores. ”

“ That brave little smile went straight to my heart, for, as I have said, the Maquiritares are my friends. The American, I knew, must be White, though I could not imagine how he had come here. But the bullets I promptly began pumping at the following canoes were fired not so much for White as for those brown boys who were giving their lives to save him. I would have done the same thing if no white man had been in their boat. ”