Arthur O. Friel

“ If Loco León, fighting alone, should use his gun, it would make much noise and a bright flash and blue smoke. So they would know where the gun was and would shoot their own guns at it, and soon Loco León would be dead. But the arrow flies with no noise. Now does Yaracuma understand?"
He stared as if he could not believe me. Men looked at one another. One of my own Maquiritares muttered—
"Es loco!"
"Are you just learning it, Frasco?" I laughed. "For what have I been called 'Loco' all these years? Crazy I may be, but I do what I say. I want no man with me. You and Gil both shall stay here." ”

“ I want every arrow to kill."
Yaracuma thought. Men talked among themselves. I noticed that some of them looked at a thin, rather old man with bright, narrow eyes. Yaracuma also looked at that man.
"Loco León would kill his enemies with the poison," he said, as if thinking aloud.
"I would kill those enemies with poison," I corrected him. "Most men I would fight with lead and steel. But those fiends who tortured my poor muchachos with knife and fire, who for years have done every beastly crime known to men—the curare is too good for them! It does not hurt enough. ”

“ If he still waited for me, though, he might reasonably expect me to come with the same band of Maquiritares who had killed Bayona. Indeed, it seemed almost sure that he would expect this; for he himself always had a gang, he knew I was the friend of Maquiritares, and if he were in my place he would undoubtedly bring as many Indians as he could get. So he probably judged that I would do the same, and he would be alert.
With each of us seeking the blood of the other, the one who would live longest would be he who could trick his enemy. ”