Part 4 (1/2)
”All I want about food,” grunted Joe, ”is enough.”
That night the whole party slept side by side in hammocks swung in a screened veranda in the second story.
During the night, Jud, who was always a light sleeper, was awakened by a curious, rustling, crackling sound which seemed to come from the storeroom, which opened into the sleeping-porch. After listening awhile he reached over and aroused Professor Ditson, who was sleeping soundly next to him.
”Some one's stealin' your grub,” he whispered.
The professor stepped lightly out of his hammock, followed by Jud and the boys, who had been waked up by the whispering. Opening the door noiselessly, the scientist peered in. After a long look, Professor Ditson turned around to find Jud gripping his revolver and ready for the worst.
”You can put up your gun,” the scientist growled. ”Bullets don't mean anything to thieves like these, and he flashed a light on a strange sight. On a long table stood native baskets full of ca.s.sava, that curious grainlike substance obtained from the root of the poisonous manihot and which takes the place of wheat in South America. The floor was covered with moving columns of ants, large and small, which had streamed up the legs of the table and into the baskets. Some of them were over an inch long, while others were smaller than the grains they were carrying. The noise which had aroused Jud had been made by their cutting off the dry leaves with which the baskets were lined, to use in lining their underground nest. Professor Ditson told them that nothing could stop an ant-army. Once on the march, they would not turn back for fire or water and would furiously attack anything that tried to check them. ”A remarkably efficient insect,” concluded the professor, ”for it bites with one end and stings with the other.”
”This is what I call a nice quiet night!” murmured Jud, as he went back to his hammock. ”Sea-devils, snakes, lizards--and now it's ants. I wonder what next?”
”Next,” however, was daylight, blazing with the startling suddenness of the tropics, where there is no dawn-light. With the light, the tumult of the night ceased, and in place of the insect din came a medley of bird-notes. When Jud opened his eyes Professor Ditson's hammock was empty, for the scientist usually got up long before daylight, and through the open door strutted a long-legged, wide-winged bird, nearly three feet tall, with a s.h.i.+mmering blue breast and throat. Without hesitating, she walked over to Jud's hammock and, spread her wings with a deep murmuring note, made a low bow.
”Good morning to you,” responded Jud, much pleased with his visitor.
The bird bowed and murmured again and allowed him to pat her beautiful head as she bent forward. Then she went to the next hammock and the next and the next, until she had awakened all of the sleepers, whereupon, with deep bows and courtesies and murmurings, she sidled out of the room.
”Now, that,” said Jud, as he rolled out of the hammock and began to look for his shoes, ”is an alarm-clock worth having!”
Pinto, the Mundurucu, who appeared at this moment with a pail of spring water, told them that the bird was a tame female trumpeter which he had picked up as a queer, frightened little creature, all legs and neck, but which had become one of the best-loved of all of his many pets. Each morning the tame, beautiful bird would wander through the house, waking up every sleeper at sunrise. When Pinto took trips through the forest the bird always went with him, traveling on his back in a large-meshed fiber bag; and when he made camp it would parade around for a while, bowing and talking, and then fly up into the nearest tree, where it would spend the night. Tente, as it was named, was always gentle except when it met a dog. No matter how large or fierce the latter might be, Tente would fly at it, making a loud, rumbling noise, which always made the dog turn tail and run for its life.
As Pinto started to fill the pitchers, Will, the bird expert of the party, began to ask him about some of the songs which were sounding all around the house. One bird which squalled and mewed interested him.
”That bird chestnut cuckoo,” said Pinto. ”It have the soul of a cat.”
And as Will listened he could well believe it. A little farther off, another bird called constantly, ”Crispen, Crispen, Crispen.”
”One time,” narrated the Indian, ”a girl and her little brother Crispen go walking in the woods. He very little boy and he wander away and get lost, and all day and all night and all next day she go through the woods calling, 'Crispen! Crispen! Crispen!' until at last she changed into a little bird. And still she flies through the woods and calls 'Crispen!'”
At this point, Jud finally found his missing shoes and started to put one on, but stopped at a shout from the Mundurucu.
”Shake it out!” warned Pinto. ”No one ever puts on shoes in this country without shaking out.”
Jud did as he was told. With the first shoe he drew a blank. Out of the second one, however, rattled down on the floor a centipede fully six inches long, which Pinto skillfully crushed with the heavy water-pitcher. Jud gasped and sank back into his hammock.
”Boys,” he said solemnly, ”I doubt if I last out this trip!”
CHAPTER III
THE VAMPIRES
After breakfast, Professor Amandus Ditson called the party together for a conference in a wide, cool veranda on the ground floor.
”I should like to outline to you my plan of our expedition,” he announced precisely.
Jud gave an angry grunt. The old adventurer, who had been a hero among prospectors and trappers in the Far North, was accustomed to be consulted in any expedition of which he was a member.