Roy J. Snell

“ As if loath to disturb the perfect silence of a night, dawn lingers in the tropical jungle. Off somewhere in the distance a wild parrot screams; nearer at hand a long tailed tropical black-bird begins for the thousandth time to practice the song he will never learn. Swinging from limb to limb, a monkey chatters at a snake. Faint and from far away, like a young puppy calling for his breakfast, an alligator barks. Trunks of trees, gray bulks of cabins, green clusters of ferns take shape and then, with a sudden burst of light, day arrives. ”

“ Half the workers were blacks from Belize. The others were Spaniards. These seldom laughed.
At times, when the hum of voices ceased and laughter died away, from out of the bush there came the hoarse call of a jaguar, and who could say it was not the “killer?”
Pant had dropped upon a mat at the edge of a group of black men. In the shadows no man could see his neighbor’s face. No questions were asked. The moon, just rising over the edge of the jungle, cast long shadows and sent ghost-like shimmers of light across the patches of mist that rose from the river. ”

“ The death dealing compact of the flying cat did not come. For an instant Pant’s senses reeled. Then, like a flash, it came to him. The tiger had launched himself against the burro. Feeling the machete in his grasp, without reasoning as to the outcome, Pant sprang to battle.
It was well that he did. A strange thing had occurred. As the tiger sprang, the burro had reared upon his hind feet. In this way he had struck the great cat squarely in the head with his sharp hoofs. The blow had been a stunning one and as Pant entered the battle he found the jaguar just returning to consciousness. ”

“ The instant Johnny’s eyes fell upon the dark, gleaming, strong and well-moulded forms of the Caribs, he felt himself admiring them.
“Black faces,” he told himself, “but real men.”
“See that big fellow over in the corner,” whispered Hardgrave, “the one with the sprinkle of gray in his hair?”
Johnny nodded.
“That’s Tivoli, the chief Carib of them all.”
A half hour later Johnny Thompson found himself facing this chief and champion of the Caribs. How had it come about? Why ask? When two devotees of an art meet, how long a time passes before they begin displaying their skill? ”

“ Johnny was in a strange land, the strangest he had ever seen. In other days, as you will know if you have read our other stories of the adventures of Johnny Thompson, fate had led him over the frozen trails of Alaska, down the timber roads of the Cascades and out over the sea. Now here he was far up a tropical river, in the heart of the “bush,” alone.
It is not pleasant to be alone in a tropical jungle at night. Johnny rose to go. His flashlight gone, there was nothing left but to grope his way back over the machete-hewn trail to camp. ”

“ He left camp in his low, black dugout that night and paddled swiftly down the river. For some time he drove straight on; then of a sudden, as his keen eye caught a speck of light that flashed on and then blinked out like a match that is lighted and blown out, he swerved to the shore, threw a rope over the low limb of a mangrove, then sat there motionless, watching the river.
His thoughts were of that Spanish half-caste, Daego. “Isn’t it strange,” he mused. “There’s a man worth millions. If he never made another cent and lived a thousand years he’d never come to want. ”

“ His fire must last longer, much longer, for somehow he must snatch a little sleep.
Waving his firebrand before him in one hand, he gathered fuel with the other. Some dead ferns and palm branches, the fallen branch of a black tamarind, the half rotted stem of a yamra, some large branches of a tree quite unknown to him, all these would send the light of his fire gleaming out into the night for hours to come. ”

“ Native medicine, the jungle’s nourishment, the black woman’s wild music, the white girl’s tender care, all these in their way had helped. When Johnny woke the second time he was well on his way to recovery.
It is one thing to lie alone, helpless and dying in a wretched cabin in the heart of a wilderness; quite another to find one’s self surrounded by true friends, none the less real because they are new, and to feel strength and life coursing back into one’s veins. ”

“ One of Daego’s keen-eyed Spaniards was the first to recognize him. With a wild cry of fear he dashed for his pit-pan.
“There is the man who has died,” he shouted. “His ghost has been seen many times above the treetops. Now he comes back. He is a ghost. Who are these with him? They have gleaming spears. They, too, are ghosts.” So he thought, and prepared to flee.
So thought they all. To a man they dropped oar, maul, pike, pole or machete, and turned to flee.
When Johnny’s boat bumped the raft there was not a Spaniard within gunshot. ”

“ Here were four tractors on a flat-boat; there many wheels that might have belonged to cannons, but did belong to logging wagons; here a pit-pan loaded high with great vats and kettles that had once held the boiling sap of the sapodilla tree. So they drifted by. It was like the passing of a defeated army. And so it was. The defeated king of the Black River was leaving the Rio Hondo forever.
Two weeks later, with his treasure of red lure safely piled at the waterfront in Belize, Johnny met his millionaire friend, Roderick Grayson, at the dock as a United Fruit steamer’s launch came in. ”

“ The black woman, like an ebony statue, sat beating the drum as she sang:
“Ne-ha aba ne ha aba muta.”
Then a sudden thought struck Johnny. The dancing girl was not black; she was not golden-brown like the Indian, not the brown of the Mexican, either. She was white like himself. A very comely white girl she was, too; red cheeks, tossing curly hair, freckles, slightly turned-up nose—a real girl.
“It’s a dream,” he told himself. “A white girl in the heart of this wilderness? I’m dead. This is Heaven. She’s an angel.” ”

“ From that day on Johnny was known among the Caribs as “Little Hammer.”
Tivoli joined heartily in the laugh and as it subsided, to Johnny’s great surprise and joy, he exclaimed:
“You want men? I got men. All the men you want. How many men, you think? Sixty men? Half work, half watch and fight? What you think? All right?”
At this sudden turn of fortune’s wheel, Johnny’s head was too much in a whirl to permit of much clear thinking. He merely nodded. Then, seized by a sudden inspiration, he invited Tivoli to join him in his feast of roast peccary—an invitation which was promptly accepted. ”

“ As he closed his eyes he could see great trees come crashing down, see little tractors dragging massive logs through the bush, see those logs splash into the water to form a raft to at last go drifting silently down the river. This was to have been his great venture. He was to have tapped a primeval forest of priceless wood. That wood was to have been brought to enrich the world. The richest lady of the land might not disdain to have her boudoir furnished with rich appointments made from this wood. A king or president might be proud to lay his most important documents upon its shiny surface. ”

“ No white man has ever been over—over—” she caught herself to stammer on, “has been—been across this great bush to the beyond. There may be—there must be just one city, one gorgeous city left.” Standing upon the rock, she threw her arms wide as she exclaimed: “There must be! There must!”
Would they go on over that trail to the great beyond? What call could be stronger? What fear could hinder? In vain Johnny told himself he must go back, back to Pant and the red lure, back to fight the treacherous Daego. All in vain. He owed it to this magnificent girl’s father to take her back. ”

“ The sound that awakened Johnny Thompson to dull reality of a hapless yesterday was the braying of a burro. He had remained seated on his bench all night. At first he had not dared to sleep. At last, overcome by fatigue, he had fallen asleep.
[24]
At first, only half awake, he imagined himself in Belize. Burros were common enough there.
“No,” he declared, shaking himself, “I am not in Belize. This is the jungle. There are no burros. I was dreaming.” ”

“ Before dinner he had showed Johnny about.
“This,” he had explained, “is one of my many chicle camps. I import into Honduras every year more than two million pounds of chicle. The price, as you know, is fifty cents a pound. The profit,” he smiled out of one corner of his mouth, “the profit is, well, very large—perhaps half. These men work very cheaply; like slaves they are, almost; always in debt to me. I employ them by the thousands. You have no idea how many. For that matter, neither have I. This Rio Hondo, this Black River, has made me rich, rich and powerful. ”

“ For a half hour he paced the creek trail in deep and troubled thought. Over and over, as a squirrel turns his cage, questions revolved in his mind. What was keeping Johnny? Should he go for him? Had he been attacked, perhaps slain? Who could tell, if he went to Daego’s camp, what would happen? Johnny had left him in charge of the camp. If something should happen to him, should he fail to return, the Caribs would pile into their boats and go drifting down the river. ”

“ Surely one does not engage in the battle for right without placing himself in a place of great peril.
“Ah, well!” he exclaimed, strong-hearted at last, “as someone has said, one may trust God for the outcome. The only question we need to ask, moment by moment, is: ‘This thing I do, is it right?’”
Arrived at the end of the boom, he cut it away and allowed it to drift toward the mouth of the creek where his Caribs awaited it.
At the camp he found great excitement. The same words were on every lip: “The killer has been taken! Pant is a great hunter. He has killed the man-eater with a machete! ”

“ A half hour later, after dragging the dugout to a safe place on the bank, they prepared packs for a land journey. Johnny tried to think what it had been that had caused him to make the decision which must take him deeper into the jungle and farther from his camp. Other than a vague feeling that the girl who had saved his life might yet need his protection, he could discover no motive whatsoever.
“No sense to it,” he told himself, “not a bit in the world. But what’s the fun of always having a reason for things, anyway?” ”

“ They had been known to kill a horse and swim a river with the carcass. The golden balls that now peered at him from the first branch of a great Santa Maria tree were not reassuring.
Redoubling his pace, he hurried on toward camp. Five minutes later, with a sigh of satisfaction, he broke through the brush into a clearing.
[15]
Here he paused in astonishment. The place was silent, more silent than he had known it even in the dead of night. The gleam of coals on the cooking platform and the dim bulk of cabins looming in the dark were the only signs that men lived here. ”

“ Awed by the old man’s tones, Johnny had whispered the word.
“That’s it, Johnny.” The old man had half closed his eyes. “That’s what the owner of that land would like to know. Three times he has sent men in boats up the Rio Hondo. Three times they came back empty handed; that is, the ones that came back at all. Why? Who knows. Who can solve all the mysteries of the tropics? Who can guess the trickery and intrigue that lies hidden in a Spaniard’s mind? The red lure is still there. Men have died for it; but there it stands. The red lure, Johnny. The red lure!” ”

“ There came the disheartening chop-chop of axes and the thud of sledges that told that at any moment the boom might be broken, the battle lost.
Heroic work was going on at every point. Outnumbered almost two to one, the Caribs fought valiantly. With their wild shouts forever on their lips, they seized fresh pikes when one was lost and fought with renewed vigor.
Tivoli, their chief, seemed everywhere at once. His great strength served him well. Here, where a sledge was battering dangerously at a chain, he made a mighty thrust, swinging his pike sidewise at a Spaniard’s head. ”

“ Johnny smiled. “These Mayas have a way of sacrificing folks to their gods. Also I’ve heard that white people are not at all welcome.
“Roderick,” he said suddenly, “what sort of god would you prefer to be sacrificed to—a black one, a green one or one of pure gold?”
Roderick shuddered, but did not reply.
“Surely you are romancing!” exclaimed Jean.
“Indeed I’m not. Never was more in earnest in my life. Men have disappeared into the jungle. Many have never come back. Do you think all have perished of hunger and fever? Not much. I read it all in a book. Besides, Hardgrave has told me.” ”

“ With machetes sheathed, but with axes and sledges at hand, the enemy spread out to advance upon the raft from every side. By this Pant judged that they hoped to scatter his men and to effect a break in the boom that would not only set his logs free, but throw his Caribs into the river, there to fight for their lives against pitching, grinding logs and lurking alligators. ”

“ A great lizard, sleeping in the corner, awoke and darted away; a small bird, whose nest was in the thatch, scolded shrilly. But Johnny heard nothing, saw nothing.
When at last he summoned up strength enough to drag himself to a corner and upon a bed of rotting mats, he murmured again:
“Home! Home! How good to be home!”
In the deserted cabin was dampness, mold and desolation. Only one overwrought by peril and trouble, or made delirious by a burning fever, could have thought of it as home. Home? Here there was neither water, food nor friends. ”