rather than bow to Yankee rule. He settled in Santarem with other Virginia families, took a wife from one of them, and had many children. All died but his youngest son—even his wife got the fever and died. Marcellus and his youngest son left the settlement then and went to live a little way up the Rio Pallida Mors. And so it is with that son that the story centers, even though he married an American señorita from Santarem.”

“And they had a son, huh?” Hal asked interested.

“Yes, Señor Hal. But of him I know little—the grandson. It is as I said Old Marcellus’ son who is interest—yes? Ten years ago he disappeared mysteriously. His wife died heartbroken a little later and left behind the girl Felice, a fair flower in the jungle wilderness, and the grandson who must now be twenty-five. Felice, like the good girl she is, stays with her grandfather who is now getting very old.”

“And I suppose they’re as poor as the dickens, huh?” Hal queried. “They’re starving to death I bet, and yet I suppose they’re keeping up the old tradition. Pride, and all that. They ought to know the war is forgotten. Peace and good will ought to be their motto and bring them back to the U. S.”

“Too true, Señor Hal,” the captain agreed, “but they do not stay for that, I do not think. They stay because of an uncertainty and that is the sad part of the story. I did not tell you how the Señor Marcellus, Junior, died ten years ago.”

“Ah, I thought this wouldn’t end without Hal getting the pièce de résistance out of the story,” Denis Keen chuckled.

“Well, I notice you’re listening intently yourself,” said Hal good-naturedly. “Go on, Captain.”

“To be sure,” said the captain amiably. “It takes but a moment to tell you that Señor Marcellus was looking for gold up the Rio Pallida Mors (Pale Death)—most people call it Dead River, Señors. One day he started out prepared for his long journey to his lode and he stopped a moment to tell his wife to promise him that, if some day he did not come back, they would not rest until they found his body. He had what you call a presentiment—no? But his wife she promised and the children promised, also his father. So he went and as he feared he did not return.”

“And they never found him?”

“No, Señor Hal. Neither did they find where his lode had gone. To this day they have found neither him nor the mine. And so they look always for his body. The Indians they say he has come back from death in the form of a jaguar and every moonlight night he shrieks along the banks of the river, crying for his children or his father to come and find his body in the rushing waters of Pallida Mors.”

“A tragic story, Captain,” said Denis Keen. “They must be an unhappy group up there, being reminded of their father’s sad ending every time there’s a moon.”

“Something spooky about him being reincarnated in jaguar form, huh? Gosh, they don’t believe that part of it, this Pemberton family, do they, Captain?” Hal asked.

“Ah, no. They cannot even believe he is really dead, Señors—they say they won’t believe it till they find his body. And so they wait and the jaguar shrieks on moonlight nights. But Santarem is long in the distance, Señors—the story is ended.”

“Not for the Pembertons, I guess,” said Hal sympathetically. “Gosh blame it, I’d like to help those poor people find that man so’s they could get away and live like civilized people.”

“I think,” said his uncle, after the captain had left them quite alone, “that you have enough on your hands right now. What with your worries about Pizella, my future worries about tracing these munitions to Renan, I think we have sufficient for two human minds.”

“Aw, we could tackle this Pemberton business afterward, couldn’t we, Unk? Even if we just stopped to pay them a friendly visit. Gol darn it, I should think they’d be tickled silly to talk to a couple of sympathetic Americans after living in the wilderness and surrounded by savages all their....”

“I take it this Pallida Mors will have you for a visit, come sunshine or storm, eh, Hal?”

“And how! A nice little surprise visit to the Pembertons,” Hal mused delightedly.

Destiny thought differently about it evidently, for Hal was the one to be surprised, not the Pembertons.

CHAPTER VI
A FAMILIAR FOLLOWER

They departed from the main stream and proceeded up the black waters of the Rio Negro just after sunrise. Manaos, with its modern buildings, crowded streets and electric lights, was indeed a “city lost in the jungle,” for a half mile beyond the city limits, the jungle, primeval and inviolable, lay like a vast green canvas under the sparkling sunlight.

“No one in the city knows what is in that forest twenty miles away,” Señor Goncalves informed Hal and his uncle as they drew into the wharf. “Manaos does not care to know, Señors, for she prefers to be a little New York and forget the naked savages that roam the forests.”

“Believe me, I wouldn’t forget the naked savages if I was a Manaosan,” said Hal earnestly. “I’d take hikes into the jungle and see what was doing.”

“That is understood, Hal,” laughed his uncle. “But there are few Manaosans, if any, that are cursed with your snoopiness. Life apparently means much to them and they are far too wise to risk that precious gift just to find out what the wild, naked savage is doing in his own jungle. You don’t mean to tell me that you are adding the suburbs of Manaos to your already overcrowded itinerary!”

“Listen, Unk, I’m going to see all there is to see and you can’t blame me. Gol darn it, this is my first trip to Brazil and the Amazon, and I’ve only got a few months to see it in. Boy, it’s the chance of a lifetime maybe, so why miss anything?”

The dapper Brazilian twisted his trim little moustache and laughed.

“Ah, Señor Hal he has the right idea, Señor Keen,” he said. “He goes in for—what you call it—sport? Ah, but that is well. So I shall show him places—no? There are the movies to go to—even you shall see this afternoon a fine aviation field where is a great friend of mine, José Rodriguez. He is what you Americans call the Ace—yes?”

“Gosh,” Hal said, “I’d think it was immense to meet a Brazilian Ace. Think he’d like to take us up for a spin around?”

“Ah, that is just what I was going to suggest, Señor Hal. He is very kind, José. Perhaps you would like him to take you for the spin over the Manaos jungle, eh?”

“Great—immense!” Hal enthused. “You do think of things, Goncalves—I’ll say that for you! So we start this afternoon, huh?”

“To be sure, Señor Hal.”

It was something to look forward to and Hal did all of that while the amiable Señor escorted his uncle to Manaos’ best hotel. The trials of registering and selecting comfortable rooms always bored him and he preferred returning to the hostelry when all those formalities were over with.

Consequently, Hal strolled through the busy little city after having breakfast at a quaint coffee house. Up one street and down another, he ambled along with a grace that attracted attention wherever he went. Clad in white polo shirt, immaculate flannels and sport shoes, his splendid, towering physique and crown of red-gold hair stood out in bold relief against