Into the Primitive

CHAPTER V
THE RE-ASCENT OF MAN

“It’s all right, Miss Genevieve,” reassured Winthrope. “Blake has found a safe place for the night, and he wishes us to eat before we leave here.”

“Save lugging the grub,” added Blake. “Get busy, Pat.”

As Winthrope caught up a nut, the girl began to arrange her disordered hair and dress with the deft and graceful movements of a woman thoroughly trained in the art of self-adornment. There was admiration in Blake’s deep eyes as he watched her dainty preening. She was not a beautiful girl–at present she could hardly be termed pretty; yet even in her draggled, muddy dress she retained all the subtle charms of culture which appeal so strongly to a man. Blake was subdued. His feelings even carried him so far as an attempt at formal politeness, when they had finished their meal.

“Now, Miss Leslie,” he began, “it’s little more than half an hour to sundown; so, if you please, if you’re quite ready, we’d best be starting.”

“Is it far?”

“Not so very. But we’ve got to chase through the jungle. Are you sure you’re quite ready?”

“Quite, thank you. But how about Mr. Winthrope’s ankle?”

“He’ll ride as far as the trees. I can’t squeeze through with him, though.”

“I shall walk all the way,” put in Winthrope.

“No, you won’t. Climb aboard,” replied Blake, and catching up his club, he stooped for Winthrope to mount his back. As he rose with his burden, Miss Leslie caught sight of his coat, which still lay in a roll beside the palm trunk.

“How about your coat, Mr. Blake?” she asked. “Should you not put it on?”

“No; I’m loaded now. Have to ask you to look after it. You may need it before morning, anyway. If the dews here are like those in Central America, they are d-darned liable to bring on malarial fever.”

Nothing more was said until they had crossed the open space between the palms and the belt of jungle along the river. At other times Winthrope and Miss Leslie might have been interested in the towering screw-palms, festooned to the top with climbers, and in the huge ferns which they could see beneath the mangroves, in the swampy ground on their left. Now, however, they were far too concerned with the question of how they should penetrate the dense tangle of thorny brush and creepers which rose before them like a green wall. Even Blake hesitated as he released Winthrope, and looked at Miss Leslie’s costume. Her white skirt was of stout duck; but the flimsy material of her waist was ill-suited for rough usage.

“Better put the coat on, unless you want to come out on the other side in full evening dress,” he said. “There’s no use kicking; but I wish you’d happened to have on some sort of a jacket when we got spilled.”

“Is there no path through the thicket?” inquired Winthrope.

“Only the hippo trail, and it don’t go our way. We’ve got to run our own line. Here’s a stick for your game ankle.”

Winthrope took the half-green branch which Blake broke from the nearest tree, and turned to assist Miss Leslie with the coat. The garment was of such coarse cloth that as Winthrope drew the collar close about her throat Miss Leslie could not forego a little grimace of repugnance. The crease between Blake’s eyes deepened, and the girl hastened to utter an explanatory exclamation: “Not so tight, Mr. Winthrope, please! It scratches my neck.”

“You’d find those thorns a whole lot worse,” muttered Blake.

“To be sure; and Miss Leslie fully appreciates your kindness,” interposed Winthrope.

“I do indeed, Mr. Blake! I’m sure I never could go through here without your coat.”

“That’s all right. Got the handkerchief?”

“I put it in one of the pockets.”

“It’ll do to tie up your hair.”

Miss Leslie took the suggestion, knotting the big square of linen over her fluffy brown hair.

Blake waited only for her to draw out the kerchief, before he began to force a way through the jungle. Now and then he beat at the tangled vegetation with his club. Though he held to the line by which he had left the thicket, yet all his efforts failed to open an easy passage for the others. Many of the thorny branches sprang back into place behind him, and as Miss Leslie, who was the first to follow, sought to thrust them aside, the thorns pierced her delicate skin, until her hands were covered with blood. Nor did Winthrope, stumbling and hobbling behind her, fare any better. Twice he tripped headlong into the brush, scratching his arms and face.

Blake took his own punishment as a matter of course, though his tougher and thicker skin made his injuries less painful. He advanced steadily along the line of bent and broken twigs that marked his outward passage, until the thicket opened on a strip of grassy ground beneath a wild fig-tree.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Winthrope, “a banyan!”

“Banyan? Well, if that’s British for a daisy, you’ve hit it,” responded Blake. “Just take a squint up here. How’s that for a roost?”

Winthrope and Miss Leslie stared up dubiously at the edge of a bed of reeds gathered in the hollow of one of the huge flattened branches at its junction with the main trunk of the banyan, twenty feet above them.

“Will not the mosquitoes pester us, here among the trees?” objected Winthrope.

“Storm must have blown ’em away. I haven’t seen any yet.”

“There will be millions after sunset.”

“Maybe; but I bet they keep below our roost”

“But how are we to get up so high?” inquired Miss Leslie.

“I can swarm this drop root, and I’ve a creeper ready for you two,” explained Blake.

Suiting action to words, he climbed up the small trunk of the air root, and swung over into the hollow where he had piled the reeds. Across the broad limb dangled a rope-like creeper, one end of which he had fastened to a branch higher up. He flung down the free end to Winthrope.

“Look lively, Pat,” he called. “The sun’s most gone, and the twilight don’t last all night in these parts. Get the line around Miss Leslie, and do what you can on a boost.”

“I see; but, you know, the vine is too stiff to tie.”

Blake stifled an oath, and jerked the end of the creeper up into his hand. When he threw it down again, it was looped around and fastened in a bowline knot.

“Now, Miss Leslie, get aboard, and we’ll have you up in a jiffy,” he said.

“Are you sure you can lift me?” asked the girl, as Winthrope slipped the loop over her shoulders.

Blake laughed down at them. “Well, I guess yes! Once hoisted a fellow out of a fifty-foot prospect hole–big fat Dutchman at that. You don’t weigh over a hundred and twenty.”

He had stretched out across the broadest part of the branch. As Miss Leslie seated herself in the loop, he reached down and began to haul up on the creeper, hand over hand. Though frightened by the novel manner of ascent, the girl clung tightly to the line above her head, and Blake had no difficulty in raising her until she swung directly beneath him. Here, however, he found himself in a quandary. The girl seemed as helpless as a child, and he was lying flat. How could he lift her above the level of the branch?

“Take hold the other line,” he said. The girl hesitated. “Do you hear? Grab it quick, and pull up hard, if you don’t want a tumble!”

The girl seized the part of the creeper which was fastened above, and drew herself up with convulsive energy. Instantly Blake rose to his knees, and grasping the taut creeper with one hand, reached down with the other, to swing the girl up beside him on the branch.

“All right, Miss Jenny,” he reassured her as he felt her tremble. “Sorry to scare you, but I couldn’t have made it without. Now, if you’ll just hold down my legs, we’ll soon hoist his ludship.”

He had seated her in the broadest part of the shallow hollow, where the branch joined the main trunk of the fig. Heaped with the reeds which he had gathered during the afternoon, it made such a cozy shelter that she at once forgot her dizziness and fright. Nestling among the reeds, she leaned over and pressed down on his ankles with all her strength.

The loose end of the creeper had fallen to the ground when Blake lifted her upon the branch, and Winthrope was already slipping into the loop. Blake ordered him to take it off, and send up the club. As the creeper was again flung down, a black shadow swept over the jungle.

“Hello! Sunset!” called Blake. “Look sharp, there!”

“All ready,” responded Winthrope.

Blake drew in a full breath, and began to hoist. The position was an awkward one, and Winthrope weighed thirty or forty pounds more than Miss Leslie. But as the Englishman came within reach of the descending loop, he grasped it and did what he could to ease Blake’s efforts. A few moments found him as high above the ground as Blake could raise him. Without waiting for orders, he swung himself upon the upper part of the creeper, and climbed the last few feet unaided. Blake grunted with satisfaction as he pulled him in upon the branch.

“You may do, after all,” he said. “At any rate, we’re all aboard for the night; and none too soon. Hear that!”

“What?”

“Lion, I guess–Not that yelping. Listen!”

The brief twilight was already fading into the darkness of a moonless night, and as the three crouched together in their shallow nest, they were soon made audibly aware of the savage nature of their surroundings. With the gathering night the jungle wakened into full life. From all sides came the harsh squawking of birds, the weird cries of monkeys and other small creatures, the crash of heavy animals moving through the jungle, and above all the yelp and howl and roar of beasts of prey.

After some contention with Winthrope, Blake conceded that the roars of his lion might be nothing worse than the snorting of the hippopotami as they came out to browse for the night. In this, however, there was small comfort, since Winthrope presently reasserted his belief in the climbing ability of leopards, and expressed his opinion that, whether or not there were lions in the neighborhood, certain of the barking roars they could hear came from the throats of the spotted climbers. Even Blake’s hair bristled as his imagination pictured one of the great cats creeping upon them in the darkness from the far end of their nest limb, or leaping down out of the upper branches.

The nerves of all three were at their highest tension when a dark form swept past through the air within a yard of their faces. Miss Leslie uttered a stifled scream, and Blake brandished his club. But Winthrope, who had caught a glimpse of the creature’s shape, broke into a nervous laugh.

“It’s only a fruit bat,” he explained. “They feed on the banyan figs, you know.”

In the reaction from this false alarm, both men relaxed, and began to yield to the effects of the tramp across the mud-flats. Arranging the reeds as best they could, they stretched out on either side of Miss Leslie, and fell asleep in the middle of an argument on how the prospective leopard was most likely to attack.

Miss Leslie remained awake for two or three hours longer. Naturally she was more nervous than her companions, and she had been refreshed by her afternoon’s nap. Her nervousness was not entirely due to the wild beasts. Though Blake had taken pains to secure himself and his companions in loops of the creeper, fastened to the branch above, Winthrope moved about so restlessly in his sleep that the girl feared he would roll from the hollow.

At last her limbs became so cramped that she was compelled to change her position. She leaned back upon her elbow, determined to rise again and maintain her watch the moment she was rested. But sleep was close upon her. There was a lull in the louder noises of the jungle. Her eyes closed, and her head sank lower. In a little time it was lying upon Winthrope’s shoulder, and she was fast asleep.

As Blake had asserted, the mosquitoes had either been blown away by the cyclone, or did not fly to such a height. None came to trouble the exhausted sleepers.

CHAPTER VI
MAN AND GENTLEMAN

In this both were mistaken. During the brief false dawn they were puzzled by the odd appearance of the ground. The sudden flood of full daylight found them staring down into a dense white fog.

“So they have that here!” muttered Blake–“fever-fog!”

“Beastly shame!” echoed Winthrope. “I’m sure the creature has gone off.”

This assertion was met by an outburst of snarls and yells that made all start back and crouch down again in their sheltering hollow. As before, Blake was the first to recover.

“Bet you’re right,” he said. “The big one has gone off, and a pack of these African coyotes are having a scrap over the bones.”

“You mean jackals. It sounds like the nasty beasts.”

“If it wasn’t for that fog, I’d go down and get our share of the game.”

“Would it not be very dangerous, Mr. Blake?” asked Miss Leslie. “What a fearful noise!”

“I’ve chased coyotes off a calf with a rope; but that’s not the proposition. You don’t find me fooling around in that sewer gas of a fog. We’ll roost right where we are till the sun does for it. We’ve got enough malaria in us already.”

“Will it be long, Blake?” asked Winthrope.

“Huh? Getting hungry this quick? Wait till you’ve tramped around a week, with nothing to eat but your shoes.”

“Surely, Mr. Blake, it will not be so bad!” protested Miss Leslie.

“Sorry, Miss Jenny; but cocoanut palms don’t blow over every day, and when those nuts are gone, what are we going to do for the next meal?”

“Could we not make bows?” suggested Winthrope. “There seems to be no end of game about.”

“Bows–and arrows without points! Neither of us could hit a barn door, anyway.”

“We could practise.”

“Sure–six weeks’ training on air pudding. I can do better with a handful of stones.”

“Then we should go at once to the cliffs,” said Miss Leslie.

“Now you’re talking–and it’s Pike Peak or bust, for ours. Here’s one night to the good; but we won’t last many more if we don’t get fire. It’s flints we’re after now.”

“Could we not make fire by rubbing sticks?” said Winthrope, recalling his suggestion of the previous morning. “I’ve heard that natives have no trouble–”

“So’ve I, and what’s more, I’ve seen ’em do it. Never could make a go of it myself, though.”

“But if you remember how it is done, we have at least some chance–”

“Give you ten to one odds! No; we’ll scratch around for a flint good and plenty before we waste time that way.”

“The mist is going,” observed Miss Leslie.

“That’s no lie. Now for our coyotes. Where’s my club?”

“They’ve all left,” said Winthrope, peering down. “I can see the ground clearly, and there is not a sign of the beasts.”

“There are the bones–what’s left of them,” added Blake. “It’s a small deer, I suppose. Well, here goes.”

He threw down his club, and dropped the loose end of the creeper after it. As the line straightened, he twisted the upper part around his leg, and was about to slide to the ground, when he remembered Miss Leslie.

“Think you can make it alone?” he asked.

The girl held up her hands, sore and swollen from the lacerations of the thorns. Blake looked at them, frowned, and turned to Winthrope.

“Um! you got it, too, and in the face,” he grunted. “How’s your ankle?”

Winthrope wriggled his foot about, and felt the injured ankle.

“I fancy it is much better,” he answered. “There seems to be no swelling, and there is no pain now.”

“That’s lucky; though it will tune up later. Take a slide, now. We’ve got to hustle our breakfast, and find a way to get over the river.”

“How wide is it?” inquired Winthrope, gazing at his swollen hands.

“About three hundred yards at high tide. May be narrower at ebb.”

“Could you not build a raft?” suggested Miss Leslie.

Blake smiled at her simplicity. “Why not a boat? We’ve got a penknife.”

“Well, then, I can swim.”

“Bully for you! Guess, though, we’ll try something else. The river is chuck full of alligators. What you waiting for, Pat? We haven’t got all day to fool around here.”

Winthrope twisted the creeper about his leg and slid to the ground, doing all he could to favor his hands. He found that he could walk without pain, and at once stepped over beside Blake’s club, glancing nervously around at the jungle.

Blake jerked up the end of the creeper, and passed the loop about Miss Leslie. Before she had time to become frightened, he swung her over and lowered her to the ground lightly as a feather. He followed, hand under hand, and stood for a moment beside her, staring at the dew-dripping foliage of the jungle. Then the remains of the night’s quarry caught his eye, and he walked over to examine them.

“Say, Pat,” he called, “these don’t look like deer bones. I’d say–yes; there’s the feet–it’s a pig.”

“Any tusks?” demanded Winthrope.

Miss Leslie looked away. A heap of bones, however cleanly gnawed, is not a pleasant sight. The skull of the animal seemed to be missing; but Blake stumbled upon it in a tuft of grass, and kicked it out upon the open ground. Every shred of hide and gristle had been gnawed from it by the jackals; yet if there had been any doubt as to the creature’s identity, there was evidence to spare in the savage tusks which projected from the jaws.

“Je-rusalem!” observed Blake; “this old boar must have been something of a scrapper his own self.”

“In India they have been known to kill a tiger. Can you knock out the tusks?”

“What for?”

“Well, you said we had nothing for arrow points–”

“Good boy! We’ll cinch them, and ask questions later.”

A few blows with the club loosened the tusks. Blake handed them over to Winthrope, together with the whiskey flask, and led the way to the half-broken path through the thicket. A free use of his club made the path a little more worthy of the name, and as there was less need of haste than on the previous evening, Winthrope and Miss Leslie came through with only a few fresh scratches. Once on open ground again, they soon gained the fallen palms.

At a word from Blake, Miss Leslie hastened to fetch nuts for Winthrope to husk and open. Blake, who had plucked three leaves from a fan palm near the edge of the jungle, began to split long shreds from one of the huge leaves of a cocoanut palm. This gave him a quantity of coarse, stiff fibre, part of which he twisted in a cord and used to tie one of the leaves of the fan palm over his head.

“How’s that for a bonnet?” he demanded.

The improvised head-gear bore so grotesque a resemblance to a recent type of picture hat that Winthrope could not repress a derisive laugh. Miss Leslie, however, examined the hat and gave her opinion without a sign of amusement. “I think it is splendid, Mr. Blake. If we must go out in the sun again, it is just the thing to protect one.”

“Yes. Here’s two more I’ve fixed for you. Ready yet, Winthrope?”

The Englishman nodded, and the three sat down to their third feast of cocoanuts. They were hungry enough at the start, and Blake added no little keenness even to his own appetite by a grim joke on the slender prospects of the next meal, to the effect that, if in the meantime not eaten themselves, they might possibly find their next meal within a week.

“But if we must move, could we not take some of the nuts with us?” suggested Winthrope.

Blake pondered over this as he ate, and when, fully satisfied, he helped himself up with his club, he motioned the others to remain seated.

“There are your hats and the strings,” he said, “but you won’t need them now. I’m going to take a prospect along the river; and while I’m gone, you can make a try at stringing nuts on some of this leaf fibre.”

“But, Mr. Blake, do you think it’s quite safe?” asked Miss Leslie, and she glanced from him to the jungle.

“Safe?” he repeated. “Well, nothing ate you yesterday, if that’s anything to go by. It’s all I know about it.”

He did not wait for further protests. Swinging his club on his shoulder, he started for the break in the jungle which marked the hippopotamus path. The others looked at each other, and Miss Leslie sighed.

“If only he were a gentleman!” she complained.

Winthrope turned abruptly to the cocoanuts.

CHAPTER VII
AROUND THE HEADLAND

“Not on this side, at least. Come on! We don’t want to miss the ebb.”

Blake’s impatience discouraged further inquiries. He had turned as he spoke, and the others followed him, walking close together. The pace was sharp for Winthrope, and his ankle soon began to twinge. He was compelled to accept Miss Leslie’s invitation to take her arm. With her help, he managed to keep within a few yards of Blake.

Instead of plunging into the mangrove wood, which here was undergrown with a thicket of giant ferns, Blake skirted around in the open until they came to the seashore. The tide was at its lowest, and he waved his club towards a long sand spit which curved out around the seaward edge of the mangroves. Whether this was part of the river’s bar, or had been heaped up by the cyclone would have been beyond Winthrope’s knowledge, had the question occurred to him. It was enough for him that the sand was smooth and hard as a race track.

Presently the party came to the end of the spit, where the river water rippled over the sand with the last feeble out-suck of the ebb. On their right they had a sweeping view of the river, around the flank of the mangrove screen. Blake halted at the edge of the water, and half turned.

“Close up,” he said. “It’s shallow enough; but do you see those logs over on the mud-bank? Those are alligators.”

“Mercy!–and you expect me to wade among such creatures?” cried Miss Leslie.

“I went almost across an hour ago, and they didn’t bother me any. Come on! There’s wind in that cloud out seaward. Inside half an hour the surf’ll be rolling up on this bar like all Niagara.”

“If we must, we must, Miss Genevieve,” urged Winthrope. “Step behind me, and gather up your skirts. It’s best to keep one’s clothes dry in the tropics.”

The girl blushed, and retained his arm.

“I prefer to help you,” she replied.

“Come on!” called Blake, and he splashed out into the water.

The others followed within arm’s-length, nervously conscious of the rows of motionless reptiles on the mud-flat, not a hundred yards distant.

In the centre of the bar, where the water was a trifle over knee-deep, some large creature came darting down-stream beneath the surface, and passed with a violent swirl between Blake and his companions. At Miss Leslie’s scream, Blake whirled about and jabbed with his club at the supposed alligator.

“Where’s the brute? Has he got you?” he shouted.

“No, no; he went by!” gasped Winthrope. “There he is!”

A long bony snout, fringed on either side by a row of lateral teeth, was flung up into view.

“Sawfish!” said Blake, and he waded on across the bar, without further comment.

Miss Leslie had been on the point of fainting. The tone of Blake’s voice revived her instantly.

There were no more scares. A few minutes later they waded out upon a stretch of clean sand on the south side of the river. Before them the beach lay in a flattened curve, which at the far end hooked sharply to the left, and appeared to terminate at the foot of the towering limestone cliffs of the headland. A mile or more inland the river jungle edged in close to the cliffs; but from there to the beach the forest was separated from the wall of rock by a little sandy plain, covered with creeping plants and small palms. The greatest width of the open space was hardly more than a quarter of a mile.

Blake paused for a moment at high-tide mark, and Winthrope instantly squatted down to nurse his ankle.

“I say, Blake,” he said, “can’t you find me some kind of a crutch? It is only a few yards around to those trees.”

“Good Lord! you haven’t been fool enough to overstrain that ankle– Yes, you have. Dammit! why couldn’t you tell me before?”

“It did not feel so painful in the water.”

“I helped the best I could,” interposed Miss Leslie. “I think if you could get Mr. Winthrope a crutch–”

“Crutch!” growled Blake. “How long do you think it would take me to wade through the mud? And look at that cloud! We’re in for a squall. Here!”

He handed the girl the smaller string of cocoanuts, flung the other up the beach, and stooped for Winthrope to mount his back. He then started off along the beach at a sharp trot. Miss Leslie followed as best she could, the heavy cocoanuts swinging about with every step and bruising her tender body.

The wind was coming faster than Blake had calculated. Before they had run two hundred paces, they heard the roar of rain-lashed water, and the squall struck them with a force that almost overthrew the girl. With the wind came torrents of rain that drove through their thickest garments and drenched them to the skin within the first half-minute.

Blake slackened his pace to a walk, and plodded sullenly along beneath the driving down-pour. He kept to the lower edge of the beach, where the sand was firmest, for the force of the falling deluge beat down the waves and held in check the breakers which the wind sought to roll up the beach.

The rain storm was at its height when they reached the foot of the cliffs. The gray rock towered above them, thirty or forty feet high. Blake deposited Winthrope upon a wet ledge, and straightened up to scan the headland. Here and there ledges ran more than half-way up the rocky wall; in other places the crest was notched by deep clefts; but nowhere within sight did either offer a continuous path to the summit. Blake grunted with disgust.

“It’d take a fire ladder to get up this side,” he said. “We’ll have to try the other, if we can get around the point. I’m going on ahead. You can follow, after Pat has rested his ankle. Keep a sharp eye out for anything in the flint line–quartz or agate. That means fire. Another thing, when this rain blows over, don’t let your clothes dry on you. I’ve got my hands full enough, without having to nurse you through malarial fever. Don’t forget the cocoanuts, and if I don’t show up by noon, save me some.”

He stooped to drink from a pool in the rock which was overflowing with the cool, pure rainwater, and started off at his sharpest pace. Winthrope and Miss Leslie, seated side by side in dripping misery, watched him swing away through the rain, without energy enough to call out a parting word.

Beneath the cliff the sand beach was succeeded by a talus of rocky debris which in places sloped up from the water ten or fifteen feet. The lower part of the slope consisted of boulders and water-worn stones, over which the surf, reinforced by the rising tide, was beginning to break with an angry roar.

Blake picked his way quickly over the smaller stones near the top of the slope, now and then bending to snatch up a fragment that seemed to differ from the others. Finding nothing but limestone, he soon turned his attention solely to the passage around the headland. Here he had expected to find the surf much heavier. But the shore was protected by a double line of reefs, so close in that the channel between did not show a whitecap. This was fortunate, since in places the talus here sank down almost to the level of low tide. Even a moderate surf would have rendered farther progress impracticable.

Another hundred paces brought Blake to the second corner of the cliff, which jutted out in a little point. He clambered around it, and stopped to survey the coast beyond. Within the last few minutes the squall had blown over, and the rain began to moderate its down-pour. The sun, bursting through the clouds, told that the storm was almost past, and its flood of direct light cleared the view.

Along the south side of the cliff the sea extended in twice as far as on the north. From the end of the talus the coast trended off four or five miles to the south-southwest in a shallow bight, whose southern extremity was bounded by a second limestone headland. This ridge ran inland parallel to the first, and from a point some little distance back from the shore was covered with a growth of leafless trees.

Between the two ridges lay a plain, open along the shore, but a short distance inland covered with a jungle of tall yellow grass, above which, here and there, rose the tops of scrubby, leafless trees and the graceful crests of slender-shafted palms. Blake’s attention was drawn to the latter by that feeling of artificiality which their exotic appearance so often wakens in the mind of the Northern-bred man even after long residence in the tropics. But in a moment he turned away, with a growl. “More of those darned feather-dusters!” He was not looking for palms.

The last ragged bit of cloud, with its showery accompaniment, drifted past before the breeze which followed the squall, and the end of the storm was proclaimed by a deafening chorus of squawks and screams along the higher ledges of the cliff. Staring upward, Blake for the first time observed that the face of the cliff swarmed with seafowl.

“That’s luck!” he muttered. “Guess I haven’t forgot how to rob nests. Bet our fine lady’ll shy at sucking them raw! All the same, she’ll have to, if I don’t run across other rock than this, poor girl!”

He advanced again along the talus, and did not stop until he reached the sand beach. There he halted to make a careful examination, not only of the loose debris, but of the solid rock above. Finding no sign of flint or quartz, he growled out a curse, and backed off along the beach, to get a view of the cliff top. From a point a little beyond him, outward to the extremity of the headland, he could see that the upper ledges and the crest of the cliff, as well, were fairly crowded with seafowl and their nests. His smile of satisfaction broadened when he glanced inland and saw, less than half a mile distant, a wooded cleft which apparently ran up to the summit of the ridge. From a point near the top a gigantic baobab tree towered up against the skyline like a Brobdingnagian cabbage.

“Say, we may have a run for our money, after all,” he murmured. “Shade, and no end of grub, and, by the green of those trees, a spring–limestone water at that. Next thing, I’ll find a flint!”

He slapped his leg, and both sound and feeling reminded him that his clothes were drenched.

“Guess we’ll wait about that flint,” he said, and he made for a clump of thorn scrub a little way inland.

As the tall grass did not grow here within a mile of the shore, there was nothing to obstruct him. The creeping plants which during the rainy season had matted over the sandy soil were now leafless and withered by the heat of the dry season. Even the thorn scrub was half bare of leaves.

Blake walked around the clump to the shadiest side, and began to strip. In quick succession, one garment after another was flung across a branch where the sun would strike it. Last of all, the shoes were emptied of rainwater and set out to dry. Without a pause, he then gave himself a quick, light rub-down, just sufficient to invigorate the skin without starting the perspiration.

Physically the man was magnificent. His muscles were wiry and compact, rather than bulky, and as he moved, they played beneath his white skin with the smoothness and ease of a tiger’s.

After the rub-down, he squatted on his heels, and spent some time trying to bend his palm-leaf hat back into shape. When he had placed this also out in the sun, he found himself beginning to yawn. The dry, sultry air had made him drowsy. A touch with his bare foot showed him that the sand beneath the thorn bush had already absorbed the rain and offered a dry surface. He glanced around, drew his club nearer, and stretched himself out for a nap.

CHAPTER VIII
THE CLUB AGE

In marked contrast to this scene, the plain was apparently lifeless. When Blake rose, a small brown lizard darted away across the sand. Otherwise there was neither sight nor sound of a living creature. Blake pondered this as he gathered his clothes into the shade and began to dress.

“Looks like the siesta is the all-round style in this God-forsaken hole,” he grumbled. “Haven’t seen so much as a rabbit, nor even one land bird. May be a drought–no; must be the dry season– Whee, these things are hot! I’m thirsty as a shark. Now, where’s that softy and her Ladyship? ’Fraid she’s in for a tough time!”

He drew on his shoes with a jerk, growled at their stiffness, and club in hand, stepped clear of the brush to look for his companions. The first glance along the foot of the cliff showed him Winthrope lying under the shade of the overhanging ledges, a few yards beyond the sand beach. Of Miss Leslie there was no sign. Half alarmed by this, Blake started for the beach with his swinging stride. Winthrope was awake, and on Blake’s approach, sat up to greet him.

“Hello!” he called. “Where have you been all this time?”

“’Sleep. Where’s Miss Leslie?”

“She’s around the point.”

Blake grinned mockingly. “Indeed! But I fawncy she won’t be for long.”

He would have passed on, but Winthrope stepped before him.

“Don’t go out there, Blake,” he protested. “I–ah–think it would be better if I went.”

“Why?” demanded Blake.

Winthrope hesitated; but an impatient movement by Blake forced an answer: “Well, you remember, this morning, telling us to dry our clothes.”

“Yes; I remember,” said Blake. “So you want to serve as lady’s valet?”

Winthrope’s plump face turned a sickly yellow.

“I–ah–valet?–What do you mean, sir? I protest–I do not understand you!” he stammered. But in the midst, catching sight of Blake’s bewildered stare, he suddenly flushed crimson, and burst out in unrestrained anger: “You–you bounder–you beastly cad! Any man with an ounce of decency–”

Blake uttered a jeering laugh– “Wow! Hark, how the British lion r-r-ro-ars when his tail’s twisted!”

“You beastly cad!” repeated the Englishman, now purple with rage.

Blake’s unpleasant pleasantry gave place to a scowl. His jaw thrust out like a bulldog’s, and he bent towards Winthrope with a menacing look. For a moment the Englishman faced him, sustained by his anger. But there was a steely light in Blake’s eyes that he could not withstand. Winthrope’s defiant stare wavered and fell. He shrank back, the color fast ebbing from his cheeks.

“Ugh!” growled Blake. “Guess you won’t blat any more about cads! You damned hypocrite! Maybe I’m not on to how you’ve been hanging around Miss Leslie just because she’s an heiress. Anything is fair enough for you swells. But let a fellow so much as open his mouth about your exalted set, and it’s perfectly dreadful, you know!”

He paused for a reply. Winthrope only drew back a step farther, and eyed him with a furtive, sidelong glance. This brought Blake back to his mocking jeer. “You’ll learn, Pat, me b’y. There’s lots of things’ll show up different to you before we get through this picnic. For one thing, I’m boss here–president, congress, and supreme court. Understand?”

“By what right, may I ask?” murmured Winthrope.

“Right!” answered Blake. “That hasn’t anything to do with the question–it’s might. Back in civilized parts, your little crowd has the drop on my big crowd, and runs things to suit themselves. But here we’ve sort of reverted to primitive society. This happens to be the Club Age, and I’m the Man with the Big Stick. See?”

“I myself sympathize with the lower classes, Mr. Blake. Above all, I think it barbarous the way they punish one who is forced by circumstances to appropriate part of the ill-gotten gains of the rich upstarts. But do you believe, Mr. Blake, that brute strength–”

“You bet! Now shut up. Where’re the cocoanuts?”

Winthrope picked up two nuts and handed them over.

“There were only five,” he explained.

“All right. I’m no captain of industry.”

“Ah, true; you said we had reverted to barbarism,” rejoined Winthrope, venturing an attempt at sarcasm.

“Lucky for you!” retorted Blake. “But where’s Miss Leslie all this time? Her clothes must have dried hours ago.”

“They did. We had luncheon together just this side of the point.”

“Oh, you did! Then why shouldn’t I go for her?”

“I–I–there was a shaded pool around the point, and she thought a dip in the salt water would refresh her. She went not more than half an hour ago.”

“So that’s it. Well, while I eat, you go and call her–and say, you keep this side the point. I’m looking out for Miss Leslie now.”

Winthrope hurried away, clenching his fists and almost weeping with impotent rage. Truly, matters were now very different from what they had been aboard ship. Fortunately he had not gone a dozen steps before Miss Leslie appeared around the corner of the cliff. He was scrambling along over the loose stones of the slope without the slightest consideration for his ankle. The girl, more thoughtful, waved to him to wait for her where he was.

As she approached, Blake’s frown gave place to a look that made his face positively pleasant. He had already drained the cocoanuts; now he proceeded to smash the shells into small bits, that he might eat the meat, and at the same time keep his gaze on the girl. The cliff foot being well shaded by the towering wall of rock, she had taken off his coat, and was carrying it on her arm; so that there was nothing to mar the effect of her dainty openwork waist, with its elbow sleeves and graceful collar and the filmy veil of lace over the shoulders and bosom. Her skirt had been washed clean by the rain, and she had managed to stretch it into shape before drying.

Refreshed by a nap in the forenoon and by her salt-water dip, she showed more vivacity than at any time that Winthrope could remember during their acquaintance. Her suffering during and since the storm had left its mark in the dark circles beneath her hazel eyes, but this in no wise lessened their brightness; while the elasticity of her step showed that she had quite recovered her well-bred ease and grace of movement.

She bowed and smiled to the two men impartially. “Good-afternoon, gentlemen.”

“Same to you, Miss Leslie!” responded Blake, staring at her with frank admiration. “You look fresh as a daisy.”

Genial and sincere as was his tone, the familiarity jarred on her sensitive ear. She colored as she turned from him.

“Is there anything new, Mr. Winthrope?” she asked.

“I’m afraid not, Miss Genevieve. Like ourselves, Blake took a nap.”

“Yes; but Blake first took a squint at the scenery. Just see if you’ve got everything, and fix your hats. We’ll be in the sun for half a mile or so. Better get on the coat, Miss Leslie. It’s hotter than yesterday.”

“Permit me,” said Winthrope.

Blake watched while the Englishman held the coat for the girl and rather fussily raised the collar about her neck and turned back the sleeves, which extended beyond the tips of her fingers. The American’s face was stolid; but his glance took in every little look and act of his companions. He was not altogether unversed in the ways of good society, and it seemed to him that the Englishman was somewhat over-assiduous in his attentions.

“All ready, Blake,” remarked Winthrope, finally, with a last lingering touch.

“’Bout time!” grunted Blake. “You’re fussy as a tailor. Got the flask and cigarette case and the knife?”

“All safe, sir–er–all safe, Blake.”

“Then you two follow me slow enough not to worry that ankle. I don’t want any more of the pack-mule in mine.”

“Where are we going, Mr. Blake?” exclaimed Miss Leslie. “You will not leave us again!”

“It’s only a half-mile, Miss Jenny. There’s a break in the ridge. I’m going on ahead to find if it’s hard to climb.”

“But why should we climb?”

“Food, for one thing. You see, this end of the cliff is covered with sea-birds. Another thing, I expect to strike a spring.”

“Oh, I hope you do! The water in the rain pools is already warm.”

“They’ll be dry in a day or two. Say, Winthrope, you might fetch some of those stones–size of a ball. I used to be a fancy pitcher when I was a kid, and we might scare up a rabbit or something.”

“I play cricket myself. But these stones–”

“Better’n a gun, when you haven’t got the gun. Come on. We’ll go in a bunch, after all, in case I need stones.”

With due consideration for Winthrope’s ankle,–not for Winthrope,–Blake set so slow a pace that the half-mile’s walk consumed over half an hour. But his smouldering irritation was soon quenched when they drew near the green thicket at the foot of the cleft. In the almost deathlike stillness of mid-afternoon, the sound of trickling water came to their ears, clear and musical.

“A spring!” shouted Blake. “I guessed right. Look at those green plants and grass; there’s the channel where it runs out in the sand and dries up.”

The others followed him eagerly as he pushed in among the trees. They saw no running water, for the tiny rill that trickled down the ledges was matted over with vines. But at the foot of the slope lay a pool, some ten yards across, and overshadowed by the surrounding trees. There was no underbrush, and the ground was trampled bare as a floor.

“By Jove,” said Winthrope; “see the tracks! There must have been a drove of sheep about.”

“Deer, you mean,” replied Blake, bending to examine the deeper prints at the edge of the pool. “These ain’t sheep tracks. A lot of them are larger.”

“Could you not uncover the brook?” asked Miss Leslie. “If animals have been drinking here, one would prefer cleaner water.”

“Sure,” assented Blake. “If you’re game for a climb, and can wait a few minutes, we’ll get it out of the spring itself. We’ve got to go up anyway, to get at our poultry yard.”

“Here’s a place that looks like a path,” called Winthrope, who had circled about the edge of the pool to the farther side.

Blake ran around beside him, and stared at the tunnel-like passage which wound up the limestone ledges beneath the over-arching thickets.

“Odd place, is it not?” observed Winthrope. “Looks like a fox run, only larger, you know.”

“Too low for deer, though–and their hoofs would have cut up the moss and ferns more. Let’s get a close look.”

As he spoke, Blake stooped and climbed a few yards up the trail to an overhanging ledge, four or five feet high. Where the trail ran up over this break in the slope the stone was bare of all vegetation. Blake laid his club on the top of the ledge, and was about to vault after it, when, directly beneath his nose, he saw the print of a great catlike paw, outlined in dried mud. At the same instant a deep growl came rumbling down the “fox run.” Without waiting for a second warning, Blake drew his club to him, and crept back down the trail. His stealthy movements and furtive backward glances filled his companions with vague terror. He himself was hardly less alarmed.

“Get out of the trees–into the open!” he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper, and as they crept away, white with dread of the unknown danger, he followed at their heels, looking backward, his club raised in readiness to strike.

Once clear of the trees, Winthrope caught Miss Leslie by the hand, and broke into a run. In their terror, they paid no heed to Blake’s command to stop. They had darted off so unexpectedly that he did not overtake them short of a hundred yards.

“Hold on!” he said, gripping Winthrope roughly by the shoulder. “It’s safe enough here, and you’ll knock out that blamed ankle.”

“What is it? What did you see?” gasped Miss Leslie.

“Footprint,” mumbled Blake, ashamed of his fright.

“A lion’s?” cried Winthrope.

“Not so large–’bout the size of a puma’s. Must be a leopard’s den up there. I heard a growl, and thought it about time to clear out.”

“By Jove, we’d better withdraw around the point!”

“Withdraw your aunty! There’s no leopard going to tackle us out here in open ground this time of day. The sneaking tomcat! If only I had a match, I’d show him how we smoke rat holes.”

“Mr. Winthrope spoke of rubbing sticks to make fire,” suggested Miss Leslie.

“Make sweat, you mean. But we may as well try it now, if we’re going to at all. The sun’s hot enough to fry eggs. We’ll go back to a shady place, and pick up sticks on the way.”

Though there was shade under the cliff within some six hundred feet, they had to go some distance to the nearest dry wood–a dead thorp-bush. Here they gathered a quantity of branches, even Miss Leslie volunteering to carry a load.

All was thrown down in a heap near the cliff, and Blake squatted beside it, penknife in hand. Having selected the dryest of the larger sticks, he bored a hole in one side and dropped in a pinch of powdered bark. Laying the stick in the full glare of the sun, he thrust a twig into the hole, and began to twirl it between his palms. This movement he kept up for several minutes; but whether he was unable to twirl the twig fast enough, or whether the right kind of wood or tinder was lacking, all his efforts failed to produce a spark.

Unwilling to accept the failure, Winthrope insisted upon trying in turn, and pride held him to the task until he was drenched with sweat. The result was the same.

“Told you so,” jeered Blake from where he. lay in the shade. “We’d stand more chance cracking stones together.”

“But what shall we do now?” asked Miss Leslie. “I am becoming very tired of cocoanuts, and there seems to be nothing else around here. Indeed, I think this is all such a waste of time. If we had walked straight along the shore this morning we might have reached a town.”

“We might, Miss Jenny, and then, again, we mightn’t. I happened to overhaul the captain’s chart–Quilimane, Mozambique–that’s all for hundreds of miles. Towns on this coast are about as thick as hens’-teeth.”

“How about native villages?” demanded Winthrope.

“Oh, yes; maybe I’m fool enough to go into a wild nigger town without a gun. Maybe I didn’t talk with fellows down on the Rand.”

“But what shall we do?” repeated Miss Leslie, with a little frightened catch in her voice. She was at last beginning to realize what this rude break in her sheltered, pampered life might mean. “What shall we do? It’s–it’s absurd to think of having to stay in this horrid country for weeks or perhaps months–unless some ship comes for us!”

“Look here, Miss Leslie,” answered Blake, sharply yet not unkindly; “suppose you just sit back and use your thinker a bit. If you’re your daddy’s daughter, you’ve got brains somewhere down under the boarding-school stuff.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“Now, don’t get huffy, please! It’s a question of think, not of putting on airs. Here we are, worse off than the people of the Stone Age. They had fire and flint axes; we’ve got nothing but our think tanks, and as to lions and leopards and that sort of thing, it strikes me we’ve got about as many on hand as they had.”

“Then you and Mr. Winthrope should immediately arm yourselves.”

“How?–But we’ll leave that till later. What else?”

The girl gazed at the surrounding objects, her forehead wrinkled in the effort at concentration. “We must have water. Think how we suffered yesterday! Then there is shelter from wild beasts, and food, and–”

“All right here under our hands, if we had fire. Understand?”

“I understand about the water. You would frighten the leopard away with the fire; and if it would do that, it would also keep away the other animals at night. But as for food, unless we return for cocoanuts–”

“Don’t give it up! Keep your thinker going on the side, while Pat tells us our next move. Now that he’s got the fire sticks out of his head–”

“I say, Blake, I wish you would drop that name. It is no harder to say Winthrope.”

“You’re off, there,” rejoined Blake. “But look here, I’ll make it Win, if you figure out what we ought to do next.”

“Really, Blake, that would not be half bad. They–er–they called me Win at Harrow.”

“That so? My English chum went to Harrow–Jimmy Scarbridge.”

“Lord James!–your chum?”

“He started in like you, sort of top-lofty. But he chummed all right–after I took out a lot of his British starch with a good walloping.”

“Oh, really now, Blake, you can’t expect any one with brains to believe that, you know!”

“No; I don’t know, you know,–and I don’t know if you’ve got any brains, you know. Here’s your chance to show us. What’s our next move?”

“Really, now, I have had no experience in this sort of thing–don’t interrupt, please! It seems to me that our first concern is shelter for the night. If we should return to your tree nest, we should also be near the cocoa palms.”

“That’s one side. Here’s the other. Bar to wade across–sharks and alligators; then swampy ground–malaria, mosquitoes, thorn jungle. Guess the hands of both of you are still sore enough, by their look.”

“If only I had a pot of cold cream!” sighed Miss Leslie.

“If only I had a hunk of jerked beef!” echoed Blake.

“I say, why couldn’t we chance it for the night around on the seaward face of the cliff?” asked Winthrope. “I noticed a place where the ledges overhang–almost a cave. Do you think it probable that any wild beast would venture so close to the sea?”

“Can’t say. Didn’t see any tracks; so we’ll chance it for to-night. Next!”

“By morning I believe my ankle will be in such shape that I could go back for the string of cocoanuts which we dropped on the beach.”

“I’ll go myself, to-day, else we’ll have no supper. Now we’re getting down to bedrock. If those nuts haven’t been washed away by the tide, we’re fixed for to-night; and for two meals, such as they are. But what next? Even the rain pools will be dried up by another day or so.”

“Are not sea-birds good to eat?” inquired Miss Leslie.

“Some.”

“Then, if only we could climb the cliff–might there not be another place?”

“No; I’ve looked at both sides. What’s more, that spotted tomcat has got a monopoly on our water supply. The river may be fresh at low tide; but we’ve got nothing to boil water in, and such bayou stuff is just concentrated malaria.”

“Then we must find water elsewhere,” responded Miss Leslie. “Might we not succeed if we went on to the other ridge?”

“That’s the ticket! You’ve got a headpiece, Miss Jenny! It’s too late to start now. But first thing to-morrow I’ll take a run down that way, while you two lay around camp and see if you can twist some sort of fish-line out of cocoanut fibre. By braiding your hair, Miss Jenny, you can spare us your hair-pins for hooks.”

“But, Mr. Blake, I’m afraid–I’d rather you’d take us with you. With that dreadful creature so near–”

“Well, I don’t know. Let’s see your feet?”

Miss Leslie glanced at him, and thrust a slender foot from beneath her skirt.

“Um-m–stocking torn; but those slippers are tougher than I thought. Most of the way will be good walking, along the beach. We’ll leave the fishing to Pat–er–beg pardon–Win! With his ankle–”

“By Jove, Blake, I’ll chance the ankle. Don’t leave me behind. I give you my word, you’ll not have to lug me.”

“Oh, of course, Mr. Winthrope must go with us!”

“’Fraid to go alone, eh?” demanded Blake, frowning.

His tone startled and offended her; yet all he saw was a politely quizzical lifting of her brows.

“Why should I be afraid, Mr. Blake?” she asked.

Blake stared at her moodily. But when she met his gaze with a confiding smile, he flushed and looked away.

“All right,” he muttered; “well move camp together. But don’t expect me to pack his ludship, if we draw a blank and have to trek back without food or water.”