Jan of the Jungle (15 page)

They located the waterfall about a half mile away. Looking upward, the doctor, with a grin of triumph, saw Jan's tree house.

"Wait here and keep out of sight," ordered the doctor, "while I go forward to investigate. If the man or the ape shows up, shoot for an arm or leg."

He handed the captain several extra hypo cartridges and walked over beneath Jan's tree. Beneath it he found many nutshells, the dried remains of orange, pineapple and banana skins, and a number of gnawed bones. The appearance of these remains convinced him that neither Jan nor the ape had been in the tree for several months.

He accordingly laid his rifle on the grass, and climbed the tree. Perspiring in every pore and breathing heavily, he presently reached the lowest limb and drew himself up on it.

A single glance into the interior of the but convinced him that it had not been used for some time. With great curiosity, he examined Jan's collection of native weapons, ornaments, clothing and hides. Careful woodsman that he was, he looked also for evidence that would convince him beyond any doubt that this was Jan's but. With the aid of his flash light he found it, clinging to the bark of the tree trunk-chimpanzee hair, auburn hair, and the hair rubbed from the jaguar skin garments with which Borno had clothed both of them.

He was about to leave when he noticed something else-a piece of notebook paper projecting from beneath a badly cured jaguar skin. Quickly lifting the pelt, he saw many more pieces of paper and a stubby, much-chewed pencil. The papers were covered with pencil drawings, crude but showing marks of talent, and with much childish printing, all in capital letters. In it he found many names and descriptions of animals, both prehistoric and existing, evidently copied from natural histories. He also found the sentence written over and over: "Jan likes Ramona."

Pocketing one of the papers and replacing the skin over the others, the doctor, quite satisfied with his discoveries, climbed down the tree once more. Picking up his rifle, he walked over to where Santos awaited him.

"I've found his lair," he said. "Some day, if he is alive, he is sure to return to it. We'll build a blind, here at the edge of the jungle, and post a good marksman in it night and day, with a rifle and plenty of hypo cartridges. While we're waiting for the lad to return we can be building our cell and our permanent camp."

"You are sure this ees the right place?"

"Positive. Look here." The doctor extracted the folded note paper from his pocket and handed it to Santos.

"Sol What ees this? A beeg home-backed lizard weeth teeth on his back and horns on his tail. 'Stegosaurus,' eet say onderneath."

"A prehistoric reptile," said the doctor. "Jan must have copied it from one of Ramona's books."

"Mil demonios! You theenk he steal her book? Eet say here, too, 'Jan likes Ramona.' Carramba! I geeve him a real bullet if I catch him fool around her!"

"If you give him anything but a hypo bullet before I'm through with him, it will be just too bad for you," warned the doctor, snatching the paper from his hand. "When I have finished with him you can chop him in little pieces, for all I care, but not before. Sabe?"

"Si, senior, I onderstand. But after that he better look out, I tal' you."

Darkness came on with the suddenness common to the tropics just as they got to camp, so nothing more could be done that day.

Early the next morning the doctor left minute instructions with Santos for the construction of the jail cell and permanent camp, and took two Indians with him to build the blind near the tree-hut.

Having finished the blind; the doctor left the two Indians on guard there, promising to send two more that night to relieve them. Each was armed with a rifle containing a hypo cartridge, and ordered to shoot only for the arm or leg.

A week later the permanent camp was completed. There was a cabin for the doctor and Santos, in one end of which a small room was partitioned off by means of stout wooden bars. This, the doctor called his cancel, or jail, and it was here that he intended to imprison Jan until he should be ready to take part in the terrible climax to his revenge which he head planned and toward which end his life, since the birth of the boy, had been devoted with a fervor worthy of a better cause.

There was also a bunk house and cook shack for the Indians.

But while all this was taking place, Santos was doing a certain amount of planning in the furtherance of his own ends. It was not necessary, he thought, to capture Jan in order to entice Ramona away from the hacienda. This could easily be done by sending her a short note imitating Jan's writing.

Without broaching his plan to the doctor, whom he knew would frown on it because it might interfere with his own scheme, Santos took two of his Indians into his confidence, offering each an immense sum of money for his part in the crime. Soon it would be necessary to send some one back to the hacienda for supplies, and when this time came he meant to detail his two accomplices for the work.

AT THE THUNDEROUS roar of the beast just above their heads, about to spring, Jan and Koh both leaped forward as if propelled by a powerful springboard, and ran as fast as they could. There was the thud of an immense body on the spot they had just vacated, followed by the gallop of huge pads and the rattle of long claws on the stones.

They had not gone far when Jan knew, by the increasing proximity of the sounds from behind, that the great beast was rapidly gaining on them. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder, and recognized it instantly from a picture he had seen in Ramona's book-a giant cave bear.

Knowing that further flight was useless, and that unarmed as he was he would be quickly pulled down and devoured, he decided to stake everything on the chance that he might be able to outwit this terrible enemy. Suddenly halting in his tracks, he turned and faced his pursuer.

The bear instantly came to a sliding halt, alert for a trap or ambush. When it appeared to have satisfied itself that no hunters lurked nearby, and that it was confronted only by a single unarmed man-for Koh had continued his running, not knowing that Jan had stopped-it reared up on its hind legs, head and shoulders taller than a tall man, and advanced, roaring thunderously.

Jan raised the carcass of the little eohippus over his head, then hurled it straight at the oncoming beast. It just grazed one furry ear and alighted some ten feet behind the bear. But in the instant of its passing the monster had got a whiff of its favorite food, the elusive but toothsome little dawn horse.

Suddenly dropping to all fours, the bear turned arid started toward the carcass. Jan took advantage of this by adding to the distance between himself and the monster. The beast heard him and swung about again, undecided whether to take the game already killed or pursue that which was still alive.

But the bear was not the only carnivore in the vicinity that had scented freshly killed eohippus. A slinking, dog-like beast came trotting down the trail, sniffing hungrily, and keeping a wary eye on the bear. The latter did not hear it until it loosened a small stone. Then it swung about with a snail.

The presence of the new brute, which Jan recognized as a hyaenodon, decided the issue. With a fierce roar of rage, the bear sprang for the intruder just as it was about to seize the prize. The hyaenodon leaped back out of reach of the great, flailing claws, and squatted on its haunches. It could not hope to get a full meal now, but it would wait with doglike patience until the bear had finished, hoping that the lordly beast might leave a few edible scraps.

Jan did not wait to see more, but hurried on after his companion. He found Koh coming toward him a few hundred feet down the trail.

"I missed you," said the prince, "and so came back, fearing the bear had caught you."

"There is still danger," said Jan. "I gave it the eohippus, but that will only be a mouthful for such a big brute. Come on."

They set off at a stiff trot, which either of the youths was capable of keeping up for hours. Presently Koh stopped and caught his companion's arm.

"Look!" he cried, excitedly. "A boat!"

The sun was dropping behind the tree-clothed river bluffs as they hurried down the bank to examine their prize: It was only a crude dugout canoe with one paddle and a barbed, three-pronged fishing spear lying in the bottom. But to these two it was as welcome as the most luxurious and palatial yacht.

"Get in the other end," said Koh. "I'll push off."

Jan did as he was bidden. He had had no experience with canoes except as a passenger, and bowed to his friend's superior knowledge and skill.

Koh lifted the anchor, a stone with a rope around it, into the boat. Then he pushed off, scrambled aboard, and seized the paddle.

He had not taken two strokes when there came an angry shout from the river bank. A bearded, sun-bronzed white man, naked save for breech-clout and sandals, ran down to the water's edge and launched a long spear at them. It flew high, but Jan stood up and caught it.

"Come back, thieves!" shouted the man on the bank. "Come back, cowards, and I will kill you with my bare hands!"

Koh was using the paddle with considerable dexterity.

"Too bad to take his boat," he said. "Evidently he is a fisherman, and this is his means of livelihood." He shouted over his shoulder to the raging man on the bank. "We'll leave your boat on the island for you-straight across. Come over the bridge and get it."

In reply, the man hurled after them a choice collection of Satmuan curses. Then the darkness descended suddenly, and he faded from view.

Koh was an expert with the paddle, and it did not take him long to reach the opposite shore. The prow grounded among some rushes, and Jan, leaping out, dragged it up until more than half of the boat was out of the water. He retained the spear which the bearded man had cast at him, and Koh followed with the fishing spear.

For some time they splashed through a grassy marsh. Presently they struck higher ground, and entered a thick, dark wood. Here were many strange smells and sounds. Great beasts crashed through, the scents of which were totally unfamiliar to Jan. Weird cries, shrieks, bellows and roars resounded in the darkness, unlike anything he had ever heard in his own jungle. These made him cautious, so he progressed but slowly.

Koh had never been in the jungle at night before, and though he was a brave youth his nerves were constantly on edge at each new noise. He was following Jan, holding onto the butt of his spear, so they would not become separated in the inky darkness.

There were mighty, flesh-eating killers abroad in the jungle. No mistake about that. From time, to time they heard the plaintive death cries of helpless creatures dragged down by carnivores, and the struggles' of others.

With immense relief they emerged from the jungle about midnight. The moon had risen, and they saw through a ten-foot barricade of heavy posts, set about four inches apart, a rolling plain covered with short grass. Busily cropping this grass with their parrot-like beaks, singly and in scattered groups, were several hundred of the terrible, three-horned mounts of the Satmuans.

One triceratops grazing near them evidently heard them or caught their scent, for it lowered its immense head and charged belligerently, clear up to the paling. There it stopped, snorting and pawing the earth.

"It looks as if we will have to go around this pasture," said Koh. "I'd rather go back into that dark jungle than climb in there with those brutes."

"If they are so fierce, how is it that the soldiers and hunters can ride them?" asked Jan.

"They learn to know their masters and their masters' people," replied Koh. "They are fighting beasts, you know, ridden by fighting men, and to them all strangers are enemies. Unless restrained by their riders, they will attack any strangers they meet. These beasts are quite docile among Satmuans, but they attack strangers, and will even attack other beasts of their own kind belonging to strangers."

As they circled the pasture near the paling, the immense brute inside kept pace with their progress. But presently tiring of this, or perhaps convinced that they were not going to enter, it left them with a contemptuous snort, to return to its feeding.

At last Jan and Kob drew near to a long row of low sheds, near which were a number of small, round buildings with lights shining from their windows.

"The stables," said Koh, "and the houses of the keepers."

They circled once more, this time through a grove of orange trees planted in straight rows. This brought them up against the northwest wall of the city-a wall fifty feet high, smooth and unscalable. At intervals of five hundred feet along this wall were guard towers, in each of which was a sentinel.

"Well, here we are," whispered Koh, "This is as far as I can guide you. I don't know of any way we can get into the city except as prisoners."

"There must be some way," said Jan. "Let us look."

They circled to the left, keeping to the shadow of the wall so they would not be seen from above, until they were scarcely a quarter of a mile from the great, arched north gate. 'This Koh assured Jan, had been closed for the night, and would be guarded by not less than fifty men.

AS THEY STOOD there talking, Jan took hold of a thick creeper which bad grown up the side of the wall, and pulled it to throw it out of his way. To his surprise, it clung to the wall. He pulled harder, but it would not budge. Then he stepped away from the wall and looked upward. Half a dozen creepers like this one had climbed side by side, almost to the summit.

"Come!" he whispered to Kob. "Here is a way into the city."

Tearing off a branch of the vine, he made both ends fast to the hunting spear and slung it over his back that he might have the use of both hands. Koh did likewise with the fishing spear. Then Jan sprang up the vine with ape-like agility, and the prince, after waiting until they were about twenty feet apart in order that their combined, weight would not be on the same tendrils at the same time, followed.

When he reached the top of the wall, Jan moved with extreme caution. His position was about halfway between two sentry towers. The sentry on his left was standing in front of the tower, leaning on his longbow and looking out toward the bridge. At first he could not see the one on his right, but he presently made out his huddled form leaning against the tower, asleep.