01 Amazon Adventure (8 page)

‘Little, but oh my!’ came from Roger.

If they could ever get this thing home, how many thousands of people would look at it with the same wonder and awe with which they were gazing at it now! Here was a creature barely known to science — at least the Hunts did not know of a zoo or animal collection in the world that now possessed a specimen. But could they get it back alive?’

Hal had a distressing thought.

‘How are we going to feed it?’

1 was wondering about that myself,’ his father admitted. It has to have about half a cup of fresh blood every day.’

They looked at each other, puzzled. Then Hal turned his gaze upon Roger.

‘Not me!’ cried Roger. He was really ready to believe that he was about to be offered up, a living sacrifice, to science. With an iodined hole in his toe and another in his rear, he felt that he had done enough for the advancement of knowledge.

‘We won’t call upon you,’ his father assured him.

‘Except in case of emergency,’ Hal qualified. ‘And if you don’t want that to happen you’d better unlimber your .22 and get at least one warmblooded animal per day for Vamp.’

The idea cheered Roger considerably. He loved to use his gun and only wanted a good excuse. This was it. He could hardly wait until morning.

Vamp spent the rest of the night in the net. In the morning, she — for in spite of her lack of feminine beauty she was identified as a member of the fair sex — was transferred to a cage that Hal had made from strips of bamboo.

Roger, who usually could think of nothing in the morning except eating, was off before breakfast into the wood with his Mossberg. It was a 15-shot automatic equipped with a scope. It was loaded with high-speed Long Rifle cartridges. Although the gun was light and its calibre was only .22, he had killed a big puma with it in Colorado.

Now he secretly hoped to get a shot at a tigre. But after an hour of stalking, all he came upon was a ratlike capyvara, and a little one at that. The capyvara, when full grown, is three feet long and the world’s largest rodent.

This one was no bigger than a wharf rat. He almost scorned to bother with it. But, thinking of Vamp, and his own breakfast, he let fly.

The result was rather astonishing. The little capyvara seemed to emit a roar that shook the forest as it fell over dead. Roger was paralysed with surprise. Then there was a flash of black and yellow in the bushes behind the capyvara and the disappointed tigre that had been stalking it bounded away through the brush.

When Roger saw the size, power and grace of the big animal he changed his mind about wanting to meet it with a .22.

Thankful that he had not wounded it and brought it tumbling out upon him, he took up the little rodent and walked back to camp, with frequent glances behind him.

Breakfast was served to Vamp inside her cage which was shrouded in cloth in order to make it as dark as the caverns that had been her home during daylight hours.

After a time Hal peeked in but the cautious Vamp was still hanging upside down at the top of her cage.

The three explorers had their own breakfast. Then Hal took another look. The bat was poised like a great spider over the rodent and was feeding greedily but, disturbed by the light, immediately retreated again to the top of the cage.

In that flash, Hal had seen enough. It was true. The vampire was not a bloodsucker as most scientists supposed it to be. Its mouth had not touched the wound. He had seen its long, bluish-pink tongue darting out and in at the rate of about four times a second. The movement was so rapid that a continuous column of fluid spanned the gap from wound to mouth. It was the technique of a cat or dog, but at high speed.

And to think that this operation could be carried on so gently that a sleeping victim was not wakened, and one wide awake scarcely knew what was going on!

Late in that day’s journey another prize was added to the animal-collector’s bag. Like the vampire, it was small in size but large in value. But it was quite unlike the bat in appearance. It was as lovely as the other creature was ugly.

Camp was being made for the night when Hal spied the little creature in a branch of a tree. It was only two or three inches long, except for the tail, and could not weigh more than four ounces. It was covered with soft, golden hair except around the eyes and mouth. There the skin was white and the little fellow looked as if he had kissed a flour barrel and were wearing a large pair of white spectacles. ‘It’s a pigmy marmoset,’ Hal called to his father. John Hunt had already been made comfortable in his hammock. He was gradually recovering from the effect of the curare.

‘Get it with the blowpipe,’ he advised Hal. Roger ran to the boat and got a blowgun that had been presented to them by the Jivaro chief. He

brought also a quiver full of darts and a small bottle of curare.

Hal dipped the point of a dart into the curare so that it picked up only the slightest touch of the poison. Then he fitted the dart in the near end of the seven-foot-long bamboo tube. The butt end of the dart was wrapped in the cotton from the kapok tree, making a ball just the right size to fit snugly in the bore of the gun.

Hal raised the blowpipe, put his lips to the mouthpiece, and blew hard.

Fortunately the pigmy, as curious as most monkeys, was sitting very still, taking a keen interest in the proceedings. It made a perfect target. Even so, Hal expected to miss, for he was not adept with the blowpipe — but the dart struck the little fellow in the side.

He chattered excitedly, pulled it out, and threw it away. He started to climb through the tree. But the poison acted fast. He paused, tottered a little, and then fell. He did not check himself with his tail, for the marmoset is not prehensile.

Hal picked him out of the grass. Roger knew his role in this little drama and had the salt ready. Some of it was rubbed into the wound.

‘He’s just numbed a little,’ Hal said.

The marmoset began to stir in Hal’s hands. Its eyes opened. At first dull, they gradually brightened. The golden plume of a tail began to switch about and some tentative remarks came from the funny white lips under the white-ringed eyes.

Roger was delighted. ‘Feeling better, Specs?’ And it was so that the little fellow got his name.

‘I think we’ll find Specs a very interesting companion,’ John Hunt said. ‘Perhaps sometimes a little too interesting. The marmoset is one of the liveliest, most alert, and most curious of all the monkeys. Of course most of the varieties are larger than this one. The pigmy marmoset is the smallest monkey in the world. That’s a point of distinction that should make it interesting to any collector. Do you know, Hal, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a new variety of the pigmy. If he is, they may give him your name, added to his own. Then he’ll be Hapale pygmaeus hunti.’

‘Well, to us.’ said Hal, ‘he’ll just be Specs Hunt.’

Specs Hunt came to realize very quickly that he was a member of the Hunt family, and demanded all the privileges pertaining thereto. He was a gentle little fellow, made chirps like a bird, but leaps like an acrobat, and was all over everything all the time. He did not seem to have a streak of the meanness that sometimes characterizes a monkey. He was mischievous in a merry way, but handled himself with such squirrel-like lightness that he rarely upset or broke anything.

His greatest delight was to play with Charlie’s long black hair. He would leap out of it at Nosey, the tapir, and land upon his back. But when Nosey tumbled overboard for a bath, taking Specs with him, Specs was loud in disapproval and would clamber back into the boat and make straight for Roger whom he had adopted as his special guardian.

He would climb inside Roger’s shirt and lie there wet and cool against his skin until he dried.

It was going to be hard to part with Specs.

‘The Amazon!’ cried Hal, as the canoe swept around a curve and pointed its nose out into a far greater river, broad, swirling, and full of brown humps like lions’ heads with manes flowing — mounds of water that hinted the power and speed of the current.

For five days they had followed the mysterious dotted line. When a new map was made that line would be solid. Hal completed his pencilled map by marking the juncture with the Amazon. Then he put the map carefully away in a waterproof bottle and placed the bottle in the waterproof medicine box. That map was one of the expedition’s most cherished possessions.

The Amazon, greatest river on earth! Roger and his father were as excited as Hal. The other passengers seemed to share the excitement, or it may have been that they were only disturbed by the rolling and pitching of the little canoe.

The tapir whinnied, the marmoset chirped, and even the sleepy vampire in her dark cage squeaked in alarm. Only Charlie took the whole thing calmly. Hanging from his thwart, the mummified hero did not even deign to open his eyes. He merely nodded gravely.

‘Is this really the Amazon?’ Roger wanted to know.

‘Yes and no,’ said his father. ‘But mostly yes. Look on your American Geographical map. You’ll notice that the entire river from here to the Adantic is called the Amazon. But in addition to that, each part of the river has a special name. Some people call this section the Mararion, and the next section the Solimoes. But it’s all the Amazon.’

‘How soon do we build the raft?’ inquired Roger eagerly.

The canoe had been the best vessel for shooting the rapids of the Pastaza, but no animals of any size could be collected and carried in a canoe. Besides, on these great waters, a canoe was none too safe. It had been decided that upon reaching the Amazon they would build a raft to transport their animals and themselves downstream.

Roger had even suggested the name for it. Noah’s Ark.

‘The sooner the better.’ Hunt said. ‘But we can’t land here — the current is too strong. Let’s watch for a cove.’

The wind blew fresh from the far shore, a mile away. If it had not been for the current, they might have imagined themselves on a lake instead of a river. On the port side the near shore was a riot of flowering trees. Near the bank, waterfowl

bobbed up and down in the ripples and went up in a cloud as the boat approached.

Roger reached for the shotgun. But the careening of the boat reminded him to be prudent.

Birds of all kinds, colours and calls adorned the forest. This was evidently a bird paradise. But the most astonishing bird was the jabiru stork, as tall as a man. which walked along the shore with the stately step of a king.

They rounded a point where the wild lashing of water sent the marmoset scurrying into Roger’s shirt; then they slid into a calm bay. There was no current here except a lazy eddy that circled backwards around the curved shore. There was a gentle beach of pure sand, again reminding them of a lake shore. Behind this a gigantic ceiba tree threw its branches out to cover almost an acre of ground and beneath its shade nothing else dared to grow except light grass, forming a broad level park.

It was an ideal camping place for raft building. Nothing could be better for building purposes than the trunks of giant bamboo that grew in clumps near the shore, and lianas that would serve as cables to bind the craft together. It took them two days to build a raft. On both days they saw other rafts pass far out in the river and felt assured that they were on the right track. The Indians had found the raft to be the most practicable vessel for this particular stretch of the Amazon.

‘But every raft has a house on it,’ exclaimed Roger. ‘Let’s put a house on ours.’

Accordingly a thatch hut with bamboo frame, reed walls and roof of palm leaves was constructed on the raft. Home sweet home afloat!

Now that there was a vessel large enough to accommodate them, two big animals joined the floating menagerie. One was a giant iguana, six feet long.

The huge tropical lizard was lying on a low branch when Roger discovered it. For once, Roger had been walking quietly, because he had been stalking a bird. Therefore, although he was only a dozen feet from the iguana, it was not disturbed.

In fact Roger was the more amazed of the two. He was used to seeing lizards a few inches or even a foot long, but this was unbelievable. It looked exactly like some pictures he had seen of prehistoric monsters.

It was green with brown stripes around its tail. It had a row of spikes down its back and another row of spikes under its chin. Its feet were like hands with long, thin, clawing fingers.

Roger slipped back to camp. 1 think I saw something,’ he whispered.

‘You think you saw it?’

‘Well, I may be crazy,’ admitted Roger, ‘but it looked like an alligator up a tree.’

‘Alligators don’t climb trees,’ his brother said scornfully.

‘All right, come and see for yourself.’

The three Hunts crept cautiously through the brush. The creature was still there, apparently half asleep.

‘An iguana!’ exclaimed Hunt. ‘Remember, you had an iguana steak at the Jivaro village. It’s much prized by the Indians as food. They have an odd way of catching it. Let’s try it. Get some noosing cord.’

‘I have some in my pocket,’ said Hal.

‘Good. Make a noose and have it ready to slip over his head.’

‘But we can’t just walk up to him and noose him,

can we:

‘No. We have to sing to him first. And pet him.’

The boys looked at their father suspiciously. He must be joking.

That’s the way the Indians do it,’ insisted Hunt. ‘The iguana is very susceptible to music, and likes to be stroked.’ He picked up a stick. ‘Here, Hal, stroke him with the end of this. And you sing, Roger.’

Roger was no singer and he began to make a sound that it was hard to believe would charm either man or beast. Hal stroked the rough skin, standing as far away as possible.

The iguana moved slightly, opened its eyes wider, and turned its head to examine the visitors. Its jaws opened in what was perhaps just a lazy yawn but Roger was so startled by the array of sharp teeth that he stopped singing.

They can give you a mean bite,’ Hunt said. ‘But he won’t bite if we handle him gently. Sing, Roger, sing.’ So Roger sang and Hal stroked.