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  ‘Wild goats,’ cried Roger. ‘There’s some milk for Nosey.’

  The goats stood quite still, eyeing the boat.

  ‘They can’t be wild,’ said Hal. ‘If they were they would run.’

  ‘But there’s no village around.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s farther back in the woods.’

  ‘Well, anyhow,’ suggested Roger, ‘on that beach would be a good place for lunch.’

  The suggestion seemed good and they ran the canoe ashore and took out a few provisions. From the beach they could not see the goats since a high bank came between.

  After eating they lay half dozing on the beach. Hal and his father did not notice when Roger took a bottle from the kit and climbed the bank.

  Some fifteen minutes later they were brought to their feet by a piercing yell and the whiz of an arrow. Roger came tumbling down the bank clutching a bottle of milk.

  ‘Quick! They’re shooting at me.’

  The three were in the canoe in a flash and paddling into midstream. The strong current came to their rescue. Another arrow whirred after them but fell short. In a moment they were around a bend and breathed more freely.

  But their relief was short-lived. They saw a log canoe in a cove. They had not gone five hundred feet past it when three Indians ran to the boat, leaped in, and came in hot pursuit.

  Mischievous Roger had some belated regrets. The three Hunts bent to their paddles as if their lives depended upon it ~- as they quite possibly did.

  They were three against three. But the Indians were familiar with the river and knew the best channels. And they had had more experience in paddling a log canoe.

  The Hunts held the lead for a mile, then were slowed up by a scraping over a hidden sand bar. The other canoe was fairly flying over the water. The Indians made a living thing out of it.

  One of them laid down his paddle and took up a bow. It was seven feet long. He stood up in the boat to bend it and string the long, evil-looking arrow.

  Twang — whiz. The arrow embedded itself in the gunwale of the Hunt canoe and the feather on the end of it whirred like a rattlesnake’s tail.

  Dad was not one to forget his job as a collector,

  even at a bad moment like this. He pulled out the arrow and placed it safely inside the boat.

  ‘Some museum will like that.’

  Dad tried a show of friendship. He lifted both hands and smiled. But Roger’s theft had rather spoiled the friendship technique. The Indians responded with angry shouts and another arrow. This one caught John Hunt in his upraised right arm. A contortion of pain passed over his face.

  That was enough for Hal. He lifted his Savage repeating rifle, loaded with high-power, flat-shooting .300 cartridges, famous for their ‘smashing power’.

  All right, now was the time for them to smash.

  ‘Don’t kill them,’ warned his father.

  ‘I won’t.’ He levelled his gun at the canoe to strike it just below the water line. The powerful rifle ripped the jungle silence with its roar. The canoe and its howling occupants were hidden by a shower of spray. When it cleared, the canoe was sinking and the Indians were splashing their way towards shore.

  ‘Can I help you, dad?’

  ‘No. You and Roger keep paddling. But first pass the salt.’

  Hal gave his father a startled look. Had the old man gone crazy?

  ‘Yes, I mean it, give me that can of salt.’

  Hunt had pulled out the arrow and laid it beside the other. He noticed that the tip was covered with a black gum. That was curare poison. He knew it, because he carried some of it in his own kit — it was useful to the hunter.

  He pulled up his sleeve. The arrow wound was slight. But the poison was enough to cause death in a few minutes. Animals and Indians who did not consume salt succumbed to it quickly. Salt-eating foreigners might succeed in throwing off its effect.

  Hunt slashed the wound larger with the point of his hunting knife. Then he briskly rubbed salt into it. He filled his mouth with salt and washed it down with a little water.

  ‘Sorry to leave all the work to you,’ he said as he stretched himself out in the bottom of the boat.

  Would you like to lie up on shore?’ ‘No, no. Keep going. I’ll be all right.’ Curare breaks the connection between the nerves and the muscles. It leaves the muscles limp. And that is why this deadly invention of the Amazon Indians is now being used to good purpose in European and American hospitals in cases where the tension of the muscles must be relaxed. But it is easy to go too far. Whether Hunt had taken in enough of the poison to relax him for ever, even he did not know.

  The muscles in the head and neck were the first to be affected. He could not move his head. The numbness spread down over his chest to the between-rib muscles and the diaphragm which take care of respiration. As they became faint, he had trouble in breathing. He would rather just stop. He kept manfully at it, knowing it was his only chance to hang on to life.

  The boys did not realize the seriousness of the situation. It was just as well, since there was nothing they could do. Their best service was to put distance between them and an angry Indian village.

  Chapter 9

  The Chase

  Boom-boom-boom-boom, came an ominous sound through the forest.

  ‘Drums!’ Hal exclaimed ‘Those Indians must really be annoyed.’

  He glanced back anxiously but there was no canoe in sight — as yet. He and Roger made the water churn with their paddles. The current helped, but unfortunately it would help their pursuers too.

  Nosey made a whinnying sound like that of a pony.

  ‘Just be patient, little river horse,’ Roger said. ‘No time for you now.’

  He pushed the bottle of fresh goat’s milk into a shady spot, sopped his handkerchief in the river, and threw it over the bottle to keep it cool.

  Hal did not forget his map, but no sketching and noting were ever done so swiftly. He begrudged every moment away from his paddle.

  There was another sound now, the roar of a rapid. Ahead, green and white waves leaped in the sunlight. They were beautiful, but black rocks showed their sullen faces beneath them.

  There was no time to get out and look the situation over. No time to pick and choose channels. The boat flew at the rapid as if it would conquer it by mere speed.

  The current dipped and became a green toboggan. It hissed like a snake and there was something snakelike in the way it glided swiftly down and wound between the rocks.

  There was a louder roar and Roger, in the bow, froze as he saw what lay ahead. If Hal at stern paddle could manoeuvre the boat through this he was even better than Roger thought him.

  The slope ended in a dive between two great boulders. If the flying arrow of a boat were steered just a trifle to the right or left there would be a resounding crash and nothing but splinters left on the Pastaza.

  Roger poised his paddle to be ready to stave off if necessary. But would the paddle break if it struck the rock at this speed, or would it pull out of his hand or run into his chest and throw him out of the boat?

  Luckily he did not have to find out. The canoe made a clean cut between the boulders and then smacked into the waves at the base of the incline. It was tossed up as lightly as if it had been a feather instead of a hollowed log, then came down to smash its way through the backlashers.

  The noise of the torrent was like the thunder of a train going over a bridge and the spray was blinding. What looked like a white curtain blocked their path. They tore a hole in it and found themselves in small choppy waves like afterthoughts, and then in smooth, swift water fanning out into a quiet pool.

  If ever there was a time when they would have liked to stop and rest and think, it was then. But they kept their paddles racing because, as the thunder of the rapids died away, they could once more hear the drums.

  ‘Good work,’ said dad weakly from the bottom of the boat.

  Hal looked back. ‘I hope the Indians take time to carry around that.’ Then he
made a sudden exclamation and dug in his paddle. ‘There they come.’

  A canoe was poised at the top of the slide. With a whoop that sounded painfully like a war whoop the Indians sent their craft down the chute, skillfully dodged the rocks, then disappeared in the churning foam.

  The boys yelled with delight as they saw the boat come out of the lather upside down. Three dark bobbing objects marked the Indians. This was something to see, and dad tried to raise his head, but it was no go.

  Why had the Indians been capsized? Certainly they were skillful canoeists. Hal meditated that the cargo had helped to ballast his own boat through the rough water. And his father’s weight low down along the bottom had contributed to success.

  Another canoe now appeared at the top of the rapid. This one made the descent safely. Still

  another canoe followed. It rode on its beam for a tantalizing moment but righted itself in time.

  It was some satisfaction that both canoes turned back to rescue the swimmers and their boat. Hal and Roger made full use of this intermission. The dugout slid around a curve into a long, straight stretch that seemed to end in a mountain. As they came closer a slit appeared. The river vanished between two vertical cliffs.

  Here was a new problem. Hal was aware that a river usually narrows and speeds up in a gorge. There are not likely to be beaches or banks and the chances of making a landing in case of danger are very slim. Once in a gorge you can’t get out of it except at the other end.

  The right thing to do would be to stop and reconnoitre. He glanced back. The Indians had collected their forces and were charging down the river, three canoes abreast.

  Hal steered for the mouth of the canyon. It was narrow and dark and the river slicked into it at high speed.

  The Indians were only a hundred yards away now and coming full tilt. But there seemed to be confusion in their ranks. They were yelling in great excitement. They began to shoot but the arrows fell short. Just as the Hunts’ boat entered the canyon’s jaws, the pursuing canoes suddenly wheeled out of the current to the shelving shore.

  Roger yelped with joy. ‘They’re afraid to come on.

  But an icy chill went down Hal’s spine. It was not because of the cold shadow cast by the cliffs. If the Indians did not dare follow there must be something pretty bad ahead.

  He strained his ears for the sounds of rapids. The stillness got on Hal’s nerves. The river slid along rapidly without a ripple or murmur. The cliffs were only thirty feet apart and rose sheer from the water. Their black forbidding faces were about two hundred feet high. Overhead was a narrow ribbon of blue sky that seemed very far away as if it belonged to another world.

  ‘Ho-ho-fao!’ yelled Roger, who wanted to hear the echoes. Hal jumped nervously. The sound was battered back and forth between the cliffs, rising and quickening until it became a devilish rattle and then wailed away in a mournful whine down the canyon.

  ‘Shut up!’ said Hal irritably.

  The canyon twisted and squirmed. At each turn Hal looked for trouble but there was none. The river was free of rocks, deep and oily smooth and in a tremendous hurry. Another turn. Now a breath of sound drifted up the canyon, but before he could decide whether it was made by water or wind it was gone. He looked up to see if the trees that lined the canyon’s edge were blowing. They were stone still. Far above, several dozen scarlet a great crimson V flew across the blue ribbon. Perhaps they had made the sound.

  Looking up to that sunlit blue was like looking out through the bars of a jail into a free world. This gorge was like a prison. Hal instinctively dug in his paddle and hurried the canoe along towards whatever danger there might be ahead. He was impatient to get it done with.

  He shivered. The equator was nearby and yet it was cold between these black, sunless walls. He felt strangely alone and helpless. His father appeared to be asleep. Roger had no feeling of responsibility. He was trying to feed Nosey from the bottle of goat’s milk. The little tapir slobbered noisily and each slobber came back from the walls like a handclap. The youngster’s whimper was turned by the cliffs into a faint, cackling laugh.

  Hal admitted to himself that he was having a bad case of the jitters. He wished that they had stayed out of this hellhole. It would have been better to fight the Indians.

  But he knew this was not true. If they had killed some Indians the only result would have been to bring hundreds more upon their necks.

  Again a sound drifted up the canyon, and as the canoe swept around a curve Hal hoped to see the gorge open out. Instead, it seemed to be closing in. The crests of the cliffs came closer together and large trees locked their branches across the chasm. Presently the rock ceiling was complete overhead. They were in a tunnel. Roger could not see to feed Nosey and looked up, bewildered.

  The darkness deepened. Now Hal could not see the paddle in his hand. The black water and black walls were all one. It was useless to steer; the current must do the steering. If there happened to be a great rock in the middle of the current — well, it was just too bad.

  No wonder the Indians had not followed. Hal had read of streams that disappear underground to become subterranean rivers. He remembered a story under the title, The River of No Return. It was not a comforting thought.

  ‘Holy smokes! What’s that?’ cried Roger.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Something flying around us.’

  The air was pulsating with the beat of wings. ‘Must be bats.’ Hal said. They were on every side. There must be hundreds of them. Hal pulled his head lower to avoid them although he knew that the radar-like equipment of the bat enables it to fly in pitch darkness without striking anything — unless it wants to.

  Unless it wants to. Suppose these were some of the vampire bats that were so common in the American tropics and that liked nothing better than to pierce the skin of a warmblooded animal, such as man, and lap up blood. But he tried to tell himself that they would not attack anything in swift motion.

  Now the cavern was filled with the fine squeaking of the bats. But under their high soprano there was developing a deep baritone.

  That was the sound of water. It grew into a thunder, but it was still distant. Could there be an underground waterfall? Would they be carried blindly over it and dashed to pieces on unseen

  rocks?

  Hal had been taught to believe that he was master of his fate. But now he and his companions were being whirled along to an unknown destiny and there was not one thing he could do about it.

  The river seemed to make a sudden turn and the canoe scraped against a wall. Hal clutched at the wall and his hand ploughed through bats clinging to its surface. The current pulled the boat away and it hurried on.

  But now there was a faint gleam of light, enough to make out the wheeling and swooping of the bats. With the growing light, there grew also the thunder of water ahead.

  Hal’s spirits leaped. ‘We’re getting out of it!’ He did not mind the increasing thunder. Anything was better than that black rat-trap.

  There were some cracks in the ceiling now. It was good to get a glimpse of blue sky — it seemed an age since he had seen it last.

  Another curve, and both boys whooped as the roof burst asunder and the cliffs fell away into rocky slopes. The light was blinding. The fresh air smacked them hard in the face and it was mil of a powdery spray. The river was churning up into white waves.

  Roger peered ahead. ‘Where does it go?’ The river seemed to meet the sky and end right there. The boat was only a few dozen yards from this end and running like a racehorse. There was no chance of making the shore.

  ‘Waterfall!’ shouted Hal, but the din was so great that he could not be heard. Roger glanced back to see that his brother was paddling furiously, and he did the same. Their only chance was to shoot the canoe over the brink so fast that it would come down on its keel rather than on its nose. Even so, they were in for a smashed canoe if there happened to be rocks below.

  Roger yelled like a demon. This was fun, as long as it las
ted. Hal thought only of the sleeping or unconscious form in the bottom of the boat. This was a mean spot for a sick man.

  The canoe shot out into space. Hal, at the last moment, reversed his stroke and backed water strongly to hold the bow up. Then came a falling sensation. They seemed to fall and fall, and could hardly believe it later when they saw that the drop was only about ten feet. But that much of a fall is plenty in a canoe!

  The prayer that the canoe would not split on a rock was answered — it soused into deep water, still right side up. Hal relaxed, Roger relaxed. That was their mistake. A strong side eddy with choppy waves upset the boat in a twinkling.

  Even as it went over Hal leaped to get hold of his father. Gripping him, he went down and then came up to battle with the current, which was making a determined effort to smash them on the rocks.

  Roger, swimming like an eel, struggled to right the boat and bring it to shore. The white tops of waves tumbled down upon his head time and again but he always came up to give a yell of defiance and to yank the boat closer to shore.

  When he reached it he found Hal and his father laid out on the bank like corpses awaiting burial. Hal was done in. The nervous reaction from the weird ride through the tunnel and the plunge over the fall had left him cold and shaking. The impact of the water had roused John Hunt and his eyes were open but he was too weak to move.

  The kit, lashed into the canoe, had made the trip safely. Roger unlashed it and put it out on the rocks to dry.

  Then he suddenly thought of Nosey. Where was the little tapir? The end of its leash was still tied to the thwart. Roger followed the leash down to the river’s edge and into a pool behind a big rock.

  There was Nosey, having the time of his life. He rolled and dived and snorted like a baby sea lion. Roger let him enjoy himself.

  Among the rocks were the battered hulks of two dugout canoe. There was nothing to show whether the canoeists had been Indians, or other adventurers whose attempt to explore the Pastaza had ended at this point.

  John Hunt also saw the wrecks.

  ‘Hal,’ he said weakly, ‘you took that fall like a veteran. And incidentally, thanks for pulling me out.’