CHAPTER VI
THE BLACK TIGER
Under Pinto's direction the hollow trunk was lifted up so that each endrested on a stump. Then a slow fire was kindled under its whole length.Pinto tended this most carefully, so that the heat would spread evenly.Gradually, under the blaze, the green wood spread out. This was the mostcritical point in this forest boat-building, for if there were too muchheat at any one point, a crack might start through the log and all thework of the week go for nothing. As the great log opened out, the Indianmoved constantly up and down its length, checking the blaze here andthere with wet moss where the sides were spreading out too fast. Atseveral different points he fitted in straddlers, with wedges made fromstonewood branches. By skilfully changing the pressure of these andvarying the heat at different points the hollowed log at last took on agraceful curve, with tapered turned-up ends. Green strips of stonewoodwere fitted in for gunwales, and seats and semicircular end-boards putin place. Then the long dugout was allowed to cool off gradually allthrough one night. As it contracted, it locked in place gunwales, seatsand thwarts. Another day was given to fashioning light paddles out ofpalm-wood; and then at last, one week after their shipwreck, theselatter-day Argonauts were once more afloat upon Black River.
There followed long days, in each of which three seasons were perfectlyreproduced. The mornings had all the chill of early spring; by noon camethe blinding heat of midsummer; and the nights, of the same length asthe days, had the frosty tang of autumn. During the morning of each daythey paddled, lying by at noon-time in cool, shaded lagoons where theyslept or fished. At other times they would collect nuts and fruits onthe shore, under the direction of Professor Ditson, or take turns ingoing with Pinto on short hunting-trips, during which all kinds ofstrange game would fall before his deadly blow-gun.
It was Jud who went with him on the first of these hunts. As they cameto the bank of one of the many streams that ran into the Black River,the old trapper caught sight of a strange animal on the bank whichlooked like a great guinea-pig about the size of a sheep. Its wet hidewas all shining black in the sunlight, and even as Jud turned to ask theIndian what it was, there sounded just behind him the fatal pop of theblow-gun, a venomous little arrow buzzed through the air, and a secondlater was sticking deep in the beast's blunt muzzle. Like an enormousmuskrat, the stranger scrambled to the edge of the stream, plunged in,and disappeared in the dark water.
"That was a capybara," Pinto informed Jud.
"Well, you've lost him all right, whatever he was," returned the latter.
"Wait," was all that Pinto would say. A few minutes later, the limp,dead body of the capybara, the largest of all aquatic rodents floated tothe surface. Jud was about to wade into the shallow water and secure itwhen he was stopped by the Mundurucu.
"Never put your hand or foot into strange water," he said. "You may lose'em."
Without explaining himself, he cut a long pole and carefully towed thedead animal to shore. That night the whole party camped on a high, dry,sandy bluff where Pinto and Hen dressed the capybara and roasted partsof it on long green spits of ironwood.
Will sampled the dank, dark meat cautiously.
"Tastes like a woodchuck I once tried to eat," he remarked, after onemouthful. "You can have my share." And he went back to palm-nuts.
From another trip, Pinto brought back a coaita, one of thespider-monkeys which had so affected Will's appetite on the occasion oftheir first meal at Professor Ditson's house. This one had a long, lankbody covered with coarse black hair, while its spectral little face wasset in a mass of white whiskers.
Will ate the rich, sweet meat shudderingly.
"It looks just like a little old man," he protested.
"But it tastes better," observed the hardened Jud, passing his barkplate for another helping.
It was Jud and Will who accompanied Pinto on the third and mosteventful trip of all. The boat had been beached at the slope of a highbank; and, while the others dozed or slept, Pinto and his two companionsstarted through the woods on their hunt for any game which might addsome kind of meat to their menu. A hundred yards from the bank thejungle deepened and darkened. Everywhere the strangler-fig was killingstraight, slim palms and towering silk-cotton and paradise-nut trees. Atfirst, this assassin among the tree-folk runs up its victim's trunk likea vine. As the years go by, it sends out shoots and stems around andaround the tree it has chosen. These join and grow together, forming avast hollow trunk, in the grip of which the other tree dies. Pools ofblack water showed here and there at the foot of the strangled trees,and something sinister seemed to hang over this stretch of jungle.
"Feels kind of creepy here," Jud confided to Will. "Looks just the kindof a place for some of Hen's haunts," he went on.
Even as he spoke, there sounded among the distant trees ominous gruntinggroans, and here and there among the shadows dark shapes could be seenmoving about. The fierce moaning grew louder, mingled with a clickingnoise like castanets.
"Peccaries!" muttered Jud. "I've hunted the little ones down in Mexico.They were liable to bite a piece out of you as big as a tea-cup. I'm infavor of lettin' these big fellows strictly alone."
"Quiet, quiet!" muttered the Indian, slipping behind a tree andmotioning his companions to do likewise. "They go by in a minute, and Itake off the last one with my blow-gun."
Instead of doing this, however, the great herd spread out through thewoods, grunting and groaning and clattering their sharp tusks. As theycame closer and closer, each of the peccaries seemed nearly as large asthe wild boar of European forests, while their lips and lower jaws werepure white. The Mundurucu showed signs of alarm.
"Something has stirred them up," he muttered. "If they see us, theycharge. Better each one choose a tree."
Even as he spoke, the leading peccary, whose gleaming tusks thrust outlike keen knives from each side of his white jowl, glimpsed the littleparty in the shadows. With a deep groan, he lowered his head and chargedat full speed, his tusks clattering as he came, while the white foamshowed like snow against the raised bristles of his back. The whole herdfollowed--a nightmare of fierce heads, gleaming red eyes, and clicking,dagger-like tusks. Against such a rush Jud's automatic was as useless asPinto's blow-gun or Will's throwing-stones. There was only one thing todo, and, with the utmost promptness all three of the party did it. Judwent up the vinelike trunk of a small strangler-fig hand over hand, norever stopped until he was safe astride the branch of a stonewood tree,twenty feet from the ground. Pinto, gripping the rough red bark of a cowtree, walked up it Indian fashion until he was safely seated in a crotchfar above the ground. Will was not so fortunate. Near him was the smoothbark of an assai-palm. Twice he tried to climb it, and twice slippedback. Then, with every muscle tense, he dodged behind it and sprinted,as he had never run before, across a little opening to where a vaststrangler-fig had swallowed a Brazil-nut tree in its octopus grip. Therush of the charging herd was hard on his heels as he reached the tree,and he had just time to swerve around its trunk and grip one of thevinelike tentacles which had not yet become a part of the solid shell ofthe strangler. Even as he swung himself from the ground, the bristlinghead of one of the herd struck against his feet, and he kicked themaloft just in time to avoid the quick double slash of the sharp tusksthat followed.
Up and up he went, while the whole shell-like structure of the figswayed and bent under his weight and dry dust from the dead nut treepowdered down upon him in showers. Finally he reached a safestopping-place, where he could stand with both feet resting in a loopwhich the snakelike fig had made in one of its twisting turns around itsvictim.
For a few minutes the trio in the tree-tops sat and stared in silence atone another and the weaving, champing herd of furious beasts below. Itwas Jud who spoke first.
"It's your move, Captain Pinto," he remarked. "What do we do next?"
"Sit still until they go away," returned the Indian despondently.
"How many arrows have you left?" inquired Will from his tree.
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br /> "Ten."
"I've got sixteen shots in my locker," observed Jud, from his perch;"but there must be nearly a hundred pigs in this herd; an' if these bigfellows are like the chaps I knew in Mexico, the more you kill, the morethose that are left will try to kill you."
"The only thing to do is to sit still," repeated the Mundurucu. "Perhapsthey go 'way before night."
"Perhaps they don't, too," grumbled Jud. "A pig's an obstinate critterat his best, an' a peccary's a pig at his worst!"
As time went on, conversation among the besieged flagged and each onesettled down to endure the wait as best he might. Will amused himself bywatching the birds which passed him among the tree-tops and listening tosome of their strange and beautiful songs. At any time of the year andin any part of the world, a bird-student can always find pleasure in hishobby where unseeing, unhearing people find nothing of interest. To-daythe first bird that caught his eye looked something like a crow, savethat it had a crest of curved, hairy feathers, which at times, on itsperch in a neighboring tree, it would raise and spread out over its headlike a fringed parasol. From its breast swung a pad of feather-coveredflesh, and, as it perched, it would every now and then give a deep lowflute-note, raising its parasol each time in a most comical manner.
"What's that bird, Pinto?" Will inquired, after he had watched itdelightedly for a long time.
"He umbrella-bird," returned the other, indifferently; "no good to eat."For the Mundurucu had a very simple system of ornithology--he dividedall birds into two groups, those that were good to eat and those thatwere not.
The next bird which passed by aroused the interest even of Jud, whocared even less for birds than did the Indian. Through the dim light ofthe sinister forest, above the raging, swinish herd, flitted a bird ofalmost unearthly beauty, a parrot over three feet in length, of a soft,hyacinthine blue except around the eyes, where the bare skin showedwhite. As Will watched it delightedly, he recognized the bird as thehyacinthine macaw, the largest, most beautiful, and one of the rarest ofall the parrot family. Even as he looked, the great bird alighted on aneighboring Brazil-nut tree and immediately showed itself to be asefficient as it was beautiful. Seizing in its great black beak one ofthe tough, thick nut-cases, called "monkey-pots" by the Indians, itproceeded to twist off its top and open up a side, although a man findsdifficulty in doing this even with a hammer and chisel. Drawing out oneBrazil-nut after another, it crushed them, in spite of their hard, thickshells, into a pulp, which it swallowed. Then it flew away, leaving Willstaring regretfully after it.
As noon approached, the vines and the tree-trunks seemed to hold andradiate the heat like boiler-tubes. Gradually it rose and concentrateduntil the forest seemed to throb and pulsate like a furnace. Then acicada began to sound. It began with a low, jarring note, something likethe creaking of our ordinary katydid. This increased slowly in loudnessand volume until at last it ended with an almost unendurablesiren-whistle note which seemed to shake the very leaves of the trees.Again and again and again this performance was repeated, until Will,deafened and stunned by the noise, dizzy with the heat, and cramped andtired of standing on his narrow perch, thought with an almostunutterable longing of the dark, cool river and the shaded boat wherethe rest of the party were even now taking their noontide nap.
Suddenly, when it seemed to Will as if his tortured brain absolutelycould not stand one more repetition of this song, the talented cicada,with one farewell screech that surpassed all previous efforts, lay offfor the day. For a few minutes there was almost complete silence in thedarkened forest. Many of the guardian herd had laid down, wallowing inthe soft mold and fallen leaves, while others, although they staredredly up into the tree-tops, no longer moved around and around in acircle of which the trapped hunters were the center. Suddenly, from thedepths of a near-by tree, a pure, sweet, contralto voice sounded, as ifsome boy were singing to himself. For a moment it rose and fell, andthen followed a few plaintive notes almost like those of a tiny flute.Then a slow melody began, full of mellow notes, only to be broken offabruptly. After a pause, there came a few clicking notes like those madeby a music-box as it runs down, and the performance was over. Althoughthe song came from the dark, glossy leaves of the very next tree, stareas he would, Will could gain no sight of the singer. Twice more the samething happened. Each time he listened with a feeling that this time thetune would be finished and would be such as no mortal ears had heardbefore; but each time the song would die away in futile clicking notes.When at last the silence was again unbroken, Will turned toward theIndian.
"What was it, Pinto?" he asked softly.
"That organ-bird."
"What does it look like?"
"Don't know. No one ever see it."
"How do you know it's a bird?"
"Professor Ditson say so," returned Pinto, conclusively.
"That settles it," broke in Jud, jealously, from his tree. "He never sawit; nobody ever saw it; but the professor calls it an organ-bird. If hesaid it was an angel, I suppose it _would_ be an angel."
"Yes," returned the Indian placidly.
The argument was suddenly ended for Will in a terrible manner. A sharp,burning pain shot through his left shoulder, as if a red-hot coal hadbeen pressed there. As he turned, he saw, trickling down the tree-trunk,long crimson streams, one of which had already reached him, and herecognized, to his horror, a troop of the dreaded fire-ants. Even as helooked, the bites of several others pierced his skin, and the pain ranlike a liquid poison through his veins as each blood-red ant rushedforward and buried its envenomed jaws deep into his flesh. Brushing offwith frantic haste those torturers that had succeeded in reaching him,the boy began to slip down the vine toward the ground, for it was nomore possible to resist this red torrent of poison and agony than itwould be to stand against a creeping fire or a stream of molten lava.
Old Jud heard the involuntary cry, which the sudden pain had wrung fromWill, and looked over, only to see the red columns of ants streamingslowly, inevitably down the tree, driving Will before them to whatseemed certain death. The peccary herd, aroused by his movements, hadgathered around the tree in close-packed ranks, and frothing,clattering, and moaning, waited for him, making a circle of gleamingtusks.
"Go back!" called out Jud. "Go back! You can't possibly get through'em."
"I can't!" called back Will. "I'd rather die fighting than be torturedto death up here."
As he spoke he slid another yard toward the ground. Jud drew in hisbreath in a gasp that was almost a groan, and, unslinging his readyautomatic, began to scramble down to the ground."
"What you do?" called out the Indian, aghast, from his tree.
"I'm a-goin' to stand by that kid," said the old trapper, grimly. "I'llnever go back to the boat alive without him."
"Stay where you are, Jud," shouted Will, desperately, as he gripped thekeen hatchet which he had borrowed from Joe when he started on thisill-omened hunt.
"Come on, boy!" shouted the trapper, unheedingly, as he neared theground. "I'll meet you, an' you fight through them to my tree. The oldman's a-goin' to be right with you."
His words were punctuated by the deadly pop of Pinto's blow-gun.Although the Indian could not attain to Jud's height of self-sacrifice,yet he had made up his mind to do all that he could do to save the boywith the weapon he had. Again and again and again, as fast as he couldlevel, load, and discharge his long blow-pipe, the fatal little arrowssped through the gloom and buried themselves in the thick hides of thepeccaries. Already some of the inner ring were wavering and staggeringunder the effects of the deadly urari poison. The sight of theirstricken comrades, however, only seemed to drive the herd into deeperdepths of dumb, unreasoning madness. They pressed closer and closer tothe tree, trampling their dead and dying comrades unheedingly underfoot,and the chorus of moaning grunts and clicking tusks sounded loud andlouder.
The blood-red stream of fire-ants was half-way down the tree by thistime, and Will was within a scant ten feet of the ground. The ants werevery close as he
lowered himself another yard, then a foot lower, and afoot beyond that, until the tusks of the plunging, leaping peccariesbeneath him nearly touched his shoes. Bracing his feet against the roughtrunk, he drew the little ax from his belt, and prepared to spring asfar out toward Jud's tree as possible, although his heart sank and theflesh of his legs and thighs seemed to curl and chill as he looked outupon the gleaming ring of sharp, slashing tusks among which he mustleap. Once downed by the herd, and he would be ripped to pieces beforehe could regain his feet.
Jud by this time was on the ground, and was just about to shoot, in anattempt to open a passage through the packed herd, when unexpected helpcame from above.
Out of the dark depths of a near-by silk-cotton tree sprang with silentswiftness a great black figure which gleamed in the half-light likewatered silk.
"Look out! Look out! The black tiger!" shouted Pinto, despairingly,from his tree, having shot his last arrow into the frothing circle. Evenas he spoke, the "tiger," as the Indians call the jaguar, landed full onthe back and shoulders of the hindmost of the desperate, raging circle.As he landed, the great cat struck one blow with that terrible fullstroke of a jaguar, which has been known to break the neck of an ox, andthe peccary, with a shrill squeal of terror, went down before the deathwhich haunts every peccary herd. At the squeal, the wild swine swungaway from the tree with an instantaneous rush. A jaguar is to a peccaryherd what the gray wolf is to the musk-ox of the north and the very lifeof each member of the herd depends upon facing their foe. Upon theinstant, every peccary left the trees and hurried toward their dyingcomrade.
Unfortunately for the jaguar, the force of his spring, added to theimpetus of his stroke, carried him too far, and for a moment he whirledover in a half-somersault and was entangled among the vines. Those lostseconds were fatal, in spite of all his strength and swiftness. Even ashe recovered his feet in a lithe whirl and flirted over one shoulder thebody of the dead peccary as a man might toss a rabbit, the death-ringformed around him. Two deep, the maddened swine circled him. With adeep, coughing roar, the tiger dropped his prey and struck with hisarmed paws lightning-like blows that ripped the life out wherever theylanded. By this time, however, the peccaries were beyond all fear ofdeath, and a score of them dashed in upon him. Jud had involuntarilyleveled his automatic at the great brute as it struck the ground, butlowered it with a grim laugh.
"He's fightin' for our lives as well as his own," he called quietly toWill, as the latter reached the ground and slipped unnoticed past theheaving, tossing, fighting circle of peccaries. In another minute theboy had gained the safety of Jud's tree and gripped the old man's handbetween his own.
"Let's stay here," said the old trapper, "an' see it out. We can climbthis tree if they come back, an' you'll never see a fight like thisagain."
Even as he spoke, the circle bent in upon the great cat. With desperateleaps, he tried to spring over its circumference; but each time itwidened out so that always in front and at his back and on both flankswas a fence of sharp, slashing tusks. All around him lay dead peccarieswhich had fallen before his incredibly rapid strokes; but now his dark,gleaming skin was furrowed and slit with long bloody slashes where thetusks of dead and dying boars had gone home. His strength ebbed with hisblood. Once more, with a deep, despairing roar, he struck with bothpaws, killing a peccary at each blow. Then he staggered forward, and ina minute was down!
Time and again his great jaws opened and closed, sinking fierce whitefangs deep through the skull or spine of some peccary, but at last onlya black heaving of the furious wild pigs could be seen. At times thedark, desperate head of the dying tiger thrust its way out, only to fallback, smothered and slashed. Amid a scene of brute rage and fury whicheven Jud, old hunter as he was, had never imagined before, the littleparty slipped shudderingly away and hastened back over the trail alongwhich they had come, nor ever stopped until they had reached the refugeof the montaria. There they found the rest of the party peacefullysleeping through the midday hours under a cool canopy of broad greenpalm-leaves which Hen had thrown together. Professor Ditson was moreinterested in their description of the black tiger than in any of theother details of their adventure.
"It was the melanic type of the jaguar and very rare," he saidregretfully. "It was certainly unfortunate that you couldn't havecollected this one, for there is no specimen, living or dead, in any ofthe zoological gardens or natural-history museums of the world."
"You see, Professor," explained Jud, "we were kind o' busy in keepin'some seventy-five peccaries from collectin' us. What does 'melanic' meanin American?"
"Any animal may develop either a black or a white type," Explained theprofessor. "When black, it is called 'melanic'; when white, 'albino.'You probably have seen black squirrels, muskrats, or skunks. They aresimply color-variations of the ordinary species. So this 'black tiger'was only a jaguar which for some unknown reason happened to have a blackskin. These black examples," he continued, "are neither fiercer norlarger than the ordinary kind, although generally considered so byunscientific observers."
"What about some of those peccaries?" remarked Joe, practically. "Can'twe bring in one or two that Pinto killed for fresh meat?"
"No, sir," returned Jud, emphatically, "I wouldn't go back into thatblack bit of woods for all the fresh peccary pork in South America."
It was Hen Pine who noted that Will had taken no part in the discussion,and that he was flushed and feverish and suffering intensely from theintolerable pain of the fire-ant bites.
"Honey, you come along with ol' Hen," he said soothingly, "an' he'll fixyou up so that you won't feel that fire-poison hurtin' any more."
Followed by Will, he led the way along the river-bank until they came toa small, round-topped tree with intensely green leaves. With hismachete, Hen cut off several of the smaller branches. From the severedends a thick, brilliant red sap oozed.
"It's the dragon's-blood tree," he explained "an' its juice makes thebest balm in the world for burns or stings."
As he spoke he rubbed the thick, gummy liquid gently on the swollen andinflamed welts which the venomous bites of the fire-ants had raised onWill's shoulders and back. Almost instantly the throbbing, rankling painstopped, and there came such a feeling of grateful coolness that Willtold Hen it was almost worth the pain of the bite to feel the relief ofthe cure.
On the way back, Hen discovered another tree which brought the rest ofthe party nearly as much pleasure as the dragon's-blood had given toWill. It had long, glossy leaves, and a straight smooth trunk as largearound as a man's body, though it was only about twenty feet high. Itwas loaded down with what looked like huge plums nearly the size ofmuskmelons. Hen told Will that it was the wild papaw tree. The fruit wasdelicious. When they brought back samples to the rest of the party,there was a stampede to the place and the boat was soon loaded with theluscious fruit.
As they explored the bank farther, Jud noticed that Hen was constantlychewing the dark green leaves of the wild cinnamon, which grewabundantly and had a spicy, pleasant smell like the well-known bark ofthat name. Without saying anything to Hen, the old man picked severaland sampled them. Unfortunately for him, it takes prolonged practice tobe able to chew wild cinnamon with any degree of comfort. As thefragrant fiery juice touched Jud's tongue and gums he gasped, the tearsran from his eyes as if he had swallowed red pepper, and he spat out theburning leaves emphatically.
"You must have a leather-lined mouth," he remarked to the grinningnegro.
A little later, Hen added insult to the injury of the old trapper. Theyhad come to a small tree loaded down with little round, rosy, fruit.
"That what you need, Mars' Jud," Hen assured him.
Thinking that it was perhaps a smaller edition of the papaw tree, Judtrustingly sank his teeth into one of the little spheres, only to findit bitter as gall.
"What do you mean by tellin' me I need anything that tastes like that,"he howled.
"I didn't say for you to _eat_ it," laughed the black giant. "I say youneeded it. That
tree the soap-tree," and Hen pointed to Jud's grimyhands suggestively.
"I guess we all need it," interrupted Will, tactfully, before Jud couldexpress his indignation further.
Picking handfuls of the little fruit, each one of the party dipped hishands into a pool near the river bank. The waxy surface of the rosyballs dissolved in a froth of lather which left their hands as clean andwhite as the best of soap could have done.
As the day waned and the coolness of the late afternoon stole throughthe heat, the montaria was again loosed from the bank. All that night,under the light of another glorious full moon, they traveled fast andfar. At last, just as the sun rose, there sounded a distant boom. Itbecame louder and louder until the air quivered and the dark surface ofthe river showed here and there flecks and blobs of foam. Then, as theyswept around a bend in the black stream, there appeared before them asight of unearthly beauty not seen of white men for twice two hundredyears.