Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
To the waiting Knowlton, Pedro, and Tucu it was briefly explained that preliminary negotiations had been concluded and that camp now would be made on the farther side of the creek. Tucu, observing that the Red Bone mass behind was dividing again to let the visitors pass through, gave the word to his men. The column began to move out, marching in reverse order.
Yet when, on the fifth day, Tucu informed them that they now were nearing the principal settlement of the Red Bones, the announcement cheered them as if they were about to enter a civilized city and there meet David Rand safe and sane. Not that any chance of striking his trail had been neglected in the meantime.
What's done has to be done now or never." "Right!" McKay commended. "We'll have to save the women, of course. Question is how?" Lourenço answered at once. "My idea, Capitao, is this: We two will return. With us we will take Tucu. The three of us can handle those guards quietly. We must have Tucu, because the women do not know us and might balk at the last moment.
Then the spur came. Even as Tucu began scanning the shores for a good camp site, he and every other Mayoruna suddenly ceased paddling and threw up his head. Faint and far, a xylophonic call of beaten wooden bars rapped across the jungle, rising and falling in swift, regular cadence a sirenical flow and ebb of sound waves. Over and over it undulated, rapid, incessant, imperative.
But so long as it was made clear that the Raposa must be caught alive, if caught at all, Lourenço did not trouble about what the Mayorunas might surmise. Now, as the end of the long, pathless trail approached, arose a question of which McKay had previously thought but had not spoken how he was to converse with the Red Bone chief. Lourenço asked Tucu whether the Red Bones spoke the Mayoruna tongue.
"By thunder! the man's got pride!" the lieutenant added, in a lower tone. "Almost ready to keel over from lack of food, but stiff as a cigar-store Indian. Darned if I'm not beginning to respect him!" Tucu approached, carrying two big monkey haunches. One he offered to McKay, the other to Rand. The latter's immobility vanished in a flash.
They had built no fire, and now they were almost invisible in the faint moonshine sinister shadows which even now might be meditating murder or worse. Lourenço lounged over to Tucu, who was watching those shadows with a fixed cat stare, and informed him that until morning a man with a gun would be always on guard while the rest slept. The Indian grunted approval.
You go on watch at midnight." "I'm on watch now, inside. They may be back any time. If they don't show up in the next couple of hours I'll send Tucu to find out why. We'll have to get those canoes over here, too. Water leaves no trail." He turned back into the hut, leaving Knowlton figuring chances. To obtain those canoes was a man-sized job.
"Too deep for me," admitted McKay, after a puzzled study of the tube and the trunk. The others nodded agreement. Lourenço confessed to the Indian the blindness of all. Thereupon Tucu bent the sapling far over and released it. As it sprang erect the bark strip slapped the end of the gun. Also, the watchers saw something hitherto unnoticed a thin, flexible vine attached to the top of the thin stump.
All followed without comment. A considerable distance was covered before any further sign of the presence of ambushed death was shown by the savages. Then it came with tragic suddenness. Tucu grunted suddenly, and in one instant shifted his gait from the easy swing of the march to the prowl of a hunting animal. Behind him the line grew tense.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking