had affected his imagination strangely.

“So you’ll know if you see him,” Hardgrave concluded dryly. “A white strip above his left ear. Guess I’ll turn in. You’re leaving before dawn? Here’s luck!” He pressed the boy’s hand, and was gone.

It was a brave company that Johnny assembled at the postoffice dock next day—sixty Caribs, all from Stann Creek. There had been no need that these men go home for luggage. All that they had was on their boats. It was little enough, too. The two most important items were the great long-bladed machetes that hung at their belts and the cooking platforms on the decks of their sailing crafts.

To the mouth of the Rio Hondo they would sail. After that Johnny would give them a tow up the river.

Pant was in great spirits. He had lived much in the jungles of India. There he had met the great yellow tiger and the treacherous black leopard. He had heard of the “man-eater” up the river and was more than eager to hunt out his lair and do him battle. Of course his days belonged to Johnny, but nights were his own, and night is when the big cats prowl.

As for Johnny, as they went gliding up the dark river he thought of many things—of the red lure and of his hopes to win with this new and more trustworthy crew. He thought again of the mysterious brown girl who had appeared in the trail on that memorable night spent alone in camp.

“She may belong to the company of that rascal Daego,” he told himself. “I doubt it, though. Her face was too honest and frank for that. I wonder who she may be, and if she will return.”

He wondered if their camp had been destroyed by their enemies, and thought of Daego’s black boats which Hardgrave had spoken of, and the trouble Daego was in which made him want to move back across the river. He wondered if the trouble was in any way connected with the black boats. He even gave a passing thought to Rip, the burro, who under Pant’s care had learned to prick up his ears with an air of importance and had actually taken on a little flesh.

“Didn’t bring any feed for him,” he thought. “Pant will have to hunt out one of those bread-nut trees and gather some grass from it. Be an interesting experience, mowing grass from the top of the forest. Like cutting a giant’s hair,” he chuckled.

So they moved on up the river. Past the last banana plantation and cocoanut grove, through thin settlements of bushmen, between groves of cohune-nut trees, and on and on, up and up until night fell and the stars came out.

Coming to the mouth of a small stream, they decided to camp for the night. Boats were tied to overhanging mangrove branches, dry wood was gathered and soon fires gleamed out brightly. Mingled with the crackle of the blaze was the merry talk and laughter of these ever cheerful people.

While supper was being prepared, Pant shoved a dug-out from the deck of his power boat and went paddling away up the small stream. He was going on a little trip of exploration all his own. Not that he expected to find anything of real interest. It was too dark for that. He wanted to be alone for a time, and besides, there is a real thrill to be had from poking the nose of your canoe straight away in the night up a stream you have never seen.

As he moved slowly forward into the dark, the silent mystery of the night was now and then broken by the splash of an alligator as he took to the water. Nothing was to be feared from these so long as his canoe remained in upright position.

On and on he glided. The light of cooking fires faded. Laughter died away. Still he glided on. Then, of a sudden, he became conscious of a new sound—a throbbing that, beating faintly against his eardrums, seemed to come from nowhere. At first he thought it was the beating of his own heart and wondered at his increased power to hear in that silence. Soon enough he knew it was not that.

“But what is it?” he asked himself as he held his dripping paddle in mid-air to listen.

Getting no satisfactory answer, he drove his paddle into the water and sent his boat forward at renewed speed. This lasted for ten minutes. Perspiration ran down his cheeks as he paused to listen.

“Yes, yes, there it is, louder!” he murmured. “Much louder. It’s up the river. It’s a gasoline motor—a motor-boat. No, it can’t be.”

Dropping his paddle straight down, he touched bottom at eighteen inches. In such a stream there were sunken logs. No motor-boat could ascend to the spot where the motor was throbbing.

Swinging his boat about, he drove its prow against the shelving bank. Leaping ashore, he bent over, and putting his ear to the ground, listened.

“It can’t be,” he muttered, “and yet it is! It’s a stationary gasoline engine going full swing up that creek. And what’s more”—his thoughts were working rapidly now—“this creek runs up into our property. That engine is on our land. What can they be doing there?”

Creeping back into his canoe he allowed it to drift downstream. He wanted to go up and investigate, but it was too late. What that engine could be doing up there he could not so much as guess.

“But I’ll find out,” he told himself stoutly. “Leave it to me!”

CHAPTER IV
TREE HAY AND A JAGUAR

Aside from slight damage done by a band of wild pigs, who in their search for food had rooted their way into the cook shack, the camp up the Rio Hondo was just as the boys had left it.

“It’s quite evident,” said Pant with a grin, “that Daego, or whoever it was that brought our work here to an end, thought there was time enough to come over and take possession.”

“Didn’t expect us back, that’s sure,” said Johnny.

“But here we are.”

“And here we go to work.”

They went to work with a will. Two days’ time saw a bigger and better camp erected, new roads cut into the jungle and everything in readiness for operation.

It was early in the afternoon of this day that Johnny saw a small dugout, paddled by two Spaniards, moving up the creek.

Surprised at their appearing on these little frequented waters, he paused at the entrance of the trail to see them pass.

They did not pass, but, pulling up to the landing, tied their boat and got out.

Seeing this, Johnny stepped from the shadows.

“Pardon,” said the taller of the two. “We are looking for Johnny Thompson.”

“I am Johnny Thompson,” said Johnny, not a little surprised that any stranger should be looking for him at this lonely spot.

“A message for you.” The man bowed low as he held out a sealed envelope.

With fingers that trembled ever so slightly, Johnny tore this open and read:

To Johnny Thompson.

Sir:

It would give me the greatest of pleasure to have your most entertaining and entirely fascinating presence at a dinner to be served at my camp a few miles above your own, at six this evening. We have had the great good fortune to secure two wild turkeys and your assistance in eating them would be both a service and a pleasure to me.

Your Most Humble Servant and, I trust, Friend,

El Vincia Daego.

For a moment Johnny stared at the note. He wanted to laugh, but did not quite dare. He was tempted to use some very strong language, but refrained from that, too.

“So he came up here ahead of me and is now at his camp,” he thought to himself. “He invites me to a feed of wild turkey. I wonder why?”