Into the Primitive Part 8

"The air feels like dawn," whispered Winthrope. "We'll soon be able to see the brute."

"And he us," rejoined Blake.

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 a.s.sertion 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 sc.r.a.p 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 pa.s.sed 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 gra.s.s, 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 ident.i.ty, 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 sc.r.a.pper his own self."

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

"What for?"