Part 9 (1/2)

”So you bribed Luiz to kill me, to make sure of meeting Nara first.”

”No, no, Senhor. I only wanted Luiz to delay your safari, as Pepito and Urubu will tell you.”

THE RIVER OF DEATH 115.

Serbot gestured to the pair, and Pepito smiled broadly while Urubu showed his usual ugly grin.

”I wanted to talk to Nara,” continued Serbot earnestly, ”because I had heard that he was willing to sell his gold mine to the highest bidder. That is, if he really has a gold mine. Perhaps you could tell me that?”

”I wouldn't know,” returned Mr. Brewster. ”As you say, I am only interested in rubber. And it's time that I was starting off to look for some.”

With that parting, Mr. Brewster motioned his companions back toward the main trail. They had only gone a dozen paces, when Mr. Brewster under toned: ”Take turns glancing back to see what that crowd is doing. I don't trust any of them, particularly Urubu.”

Biff took the first look and reported that Urubu, like Serbot and Pepito, was leaning on his gun while the trio apparently discussed what to do next. Soon Kamuka reported the same thing. Then Mr. Whitman looked back and announced that the group was now out of sight.

Mr. Brewster called for a quicker pace, and when they reached the main trail, they moved even faster- so fast in fact, that Biff and Kamuka had to jog along to keep up with the three men.

”We came back to look for you at dawn,” Biff's father told the boys, ”so our bearers will be packed and waiting for us when we reach our last night's campsite. If Serbot pushes his crew to overtake us, 116 .

they will be worn out, while we'll be starting fresh.”

Mr. Whitman was feeling the heat, for he removed his white helmet to mop his forehead.

”More likely,” he said, ”Serbot will try to overtake Nara by going up the bank of the Rio Negro. That makes all this hurry useless.”

”No, we still must keep ahead of Serbot,” Mr. Brewster insisted. ”If Serbot has guessed where Nara is going, he will move up the Rio Del Muerte while we are coming down it.”

The bearers were waiting when they reached the campsite, and fell promptly into line. There was little difficulty in spurring them on. The mere mention that the Macus were behind them was enough. During the next few days, the bearers toiled steadily along the inland trail. Apparently, there was nothing that they feared more than the Macus.

Nothing, at least, until the safari reached a deep but narrow stream that the bearers promptly identified as Rio Del Muerte. Then they broke into a babble of Indian talk that only Jacome was able to translate.

”They say they leave us here,” declared Jacome. ”It is death, they say, to go down this river.”

Mr. Brewster studied the narrow trail that flanked the riverbank and dwindled off into the thick green of the jungle.

”Tell them that if they go back the way they came, they may meet the Macus.”

Jacome translated Mr. Brewster's comment. The THE RIVER OF DEATH 117.

bearers chattered back excitedly, and Jacome announced: ”They say they would rather meet Macu than stay near Rio Del Muerte. They say they go home now.”

While Jacome spoke, the bearers picked up their few belongings and started on their homeward trek. Biff and Kamuka noted that they did not even stop to fill their water bags from the stream that they seemed to dread so much.

”What do you make of it, Kamuka?” Biff asked.

”I do not know,” Kamuka replied. ”I cannot even understand the things they say to Jacome, except that they are afraid to go downriver.”

However, the expedition was far from being stranded. The pack bags that the native bearers had abandoned contained three rubber boats, complete with aluminum seats and paddles. Biff and Kamuka helped pump them full of air, so that they took on a squatty, roundish shape.

Then, after a survey of the rubber flotilla, Mr. Brewster decided to take Biff and Kamuka with him in one boat, while Mr. Whitman and Jacome manned the second, each carrying whatever equipment it could bear. The third boat was converted into a raft and loaded with all the remaining packs. Biff's father took it in tow, letting Hal Whitman pace the trip downstream.

To Biff, this was a fine change after the long, sweaty hours on the trail when he and Kamuka had 118 .

helped relieve the bearers. They were floating through a maze of jungle green that at times actually-arched into a tunnel above them.

Though heavily loaded, the boats moved easily, more swiftly as the jungle banks narrowed and the river itself deepened. Whitman was waving back cheerily as they skimmed off the mileage. Suddenly they saw him rise and wag his paddle frantically as he shouted: ”Stay back-stay back-”

His words were drowned by a mighty roar as they turned the bend and saw what Whitman had already viewed. No wonder the natives called this the Rio Del Muerte, the River of Death! Just ahead, a curved crest of foam showed where the stream took a sudden drop in the form of a mammoth waterfall-a sheer plunge to doom on the rocks a hundred feet below!

CHAPTER XIV.

The Devil's Gateway ”PADDLE hard on the right, boys-with all your might!”

Mr. Brewster shouted the order above the river's tumult, and all three bent to the task. They brought their boat broadside to the approaching brink and drove it toward the left bank of the stream, which here was scarcely a hundred feet wide.

It was a gruelling race against death. There was no escaping the powerful current that seemed to draw them with a suction pull. Yet the jungle bank was coming closer with every stroke.

They were almost there now, but Biff, in the bow, had no chance to catch the first projecting tree, as the boat was swept past it. He worked madly with the paddle instead, for here the bank was eaten away by the current, and there was nothing to grab.

It seemed certain now that the boat would be carried over the falls, when suddenly it began to swirl 120 .

about, and another few strokes brought them into the last big clump of overhanging brush.

Biff and Kamuka managed to grab hold and cling there, while Mr. Brewster worked the boat into the bank itself. Then new disaster loomed in the shape of the pack boat which had been following them on its towline. As the other boat spun past, its line went taut before Mr. Brewster could cut it.

Biff's shoulders seemed to wrench half from their sockets, and he felt the bush pull loose from the soil. Then the tug ended as the other boat came full about, giving them a soft thump. Churned into this new position, it bulked in between the bank and their own craft, almost wedging them loose and out into the stream.

Mr. Brewster made a quick leap across the baggage and up on to the high bank, carrying the slack line which he hitched over a tree bough. That secured both boats, while the boys clambered ash.o.r.e.

In cutting away the bank, the current had created an eddy which accounted for the final swirl that had carried both boats to safety. Yet only a dozen feet away, the tangled jungle growth actually quivered on the fringe of the falls that dropped in one huge deluge into the dizzy depths below.

It was from there that they first looked for Whitman's boat, expecting to see it bobbing somewhere in the rocky gorge a hundred feet below. The rising mist obscured the bottom of the falls where the terrific THE DEVIL'S GATEWAY 121.

torrent would by now have battered the bodies of Mr. Whitman and Jacome into a pulp.

Or so they thought, until Mr. Brewster stepped closer to the overhanging bushes and gained a full view of the crescent-shaped brink. He beckoned to the boys and exclaimed: ”Look there!”

Caught between two low rocks, Whitman's boat was jammed on the brink, its two occupants still alive, temporarily at least. Heavily loaded, wide of beam and flexible because of its inflated sides, the rubber boat had snagged where almost any other craft would have cracked up and gone over the crest.

Other low rocks jutted at close intervals along the foamy brim. Biff noticed them when he saw Mr. Whitman rise in the boat to point them out to Jacome.

”Those rocks are like steppingstones, Dad!” exclaimed Biff. ”If we throw a line to them, maybe we can haul them ash.o.r.e-”

An interruption came as the boat wabbled on its precarious perch, due to Mr. Whitman's s.h.i.+ft of weight. It settled back again, as Whitman plopped down into the stern. From the sh.o.r.e, Biff's father gestured for Whitman to stay down and received a nod in reply. Turning to Biff, Mr. Brewster declared: ”Throwing them a line won't help. If they missed their footing, they would be swept away in spite of it. We'll have to carry it across to the other bank and moor it there.”