Four Young Explorers Part 14

"Clingman and Wales, jump on the raft with the boathooks, and crowd the stuff over to the starboard side," said the captain when he had found the place he wanted.

He stopped the boat, and then went ahead, to enable the men to get upon the ma.s.s, after they had thrown a couple of boards upon it to stand on.

Backing her again, he hugged the starboard side of the stream, and drew the raft abreast of the place, and close to it, where it was to be left.

The men on it hooked into the screw-pines, and hauled it into the opening. Pulling vines from the trees, they moored it where it was. As soon as the two men came aboard the boat, the captain went ahead again.

"You did that job handsomely, Captain Scott," said Louis. "I thought the only way we could get through was by cutting a pa.s.sage for the boat."

"That would have taken too long," replied Scott, as he called Clinch to the wheel. "Mind your eye! for the river is very crooked up here. Look out for the swing as she goes around the bends."

The boat had not gone a great distance when she came to a considerable expanse of territory which had been swept over by fire. The party did not think that the green bushes would burn; but they had burned so that nothing was left of them but the blackened stems, and there was no room for an argument.

"When the fire gets started, it scorches and dries the bushes till they will burn," Louis explained. "But what are we coming to now?" he asked, looking ahead where the country seemed to be level, and covered with a sheet of water, in which the screw-pines were abundant.

"That must be one of your lakes, Louis," added the captain.

"If it is mine, I will sell it to you," replied he.

"I don't want to buy; but I am not so sure that we can get through as shoal a place as that seems to be, for it is only the spreading out of the river. The greater the expanse, the less the depth. How is that, Achang?"

"Plenty water; float the boat," answered the Bornean. "Little Padang Lake. Plenty panda.n.u.s."

"What are panda.n.u.ses?" asked Scott.

"The plural of the word is pandanaceae; and they are the same thing as the screw-pines, and sometimes are found thirty feet high. There is one; and you can see roots starting out of the stem, and heading downward.

The leaves are very useful to the natives. We shall get tied in a hard knot if we follow the twists of this stream much farther."

Presently the boat came to the lake. The captain was considerably exercised about the depth of water; and as they entered the lake, which was not very different from the overflowed region they had visited that day, he ordered the wheelman to stop her.

"There must be some sort of a channel through this pond," said he, looking about him. "There is a bigger lake than this one farther up.

There are mountains in sight in the distance, and the water from them must find an outlet to the sea."

"I have no doubt you are right; and probably there is a channel through this lake, for its water must get to the sea, unless it dries up on the way," added Louis.

"It will be easier to find this channel near the river than it will when we are half-way across the lake;" and the captain sent two men with Morris in the sampan to search for it.

The water was tolerably clear; and they went to the mouth of the outlet, sounding all the time with the boathooks. They found the channel at this point, and then followed it up beyond the steamer. Morris shouted that the sampan was in the channel, and the Blanchita moved into it. The searching-party returned to the steamer. Morris was the mate; and, with the two men who had gone with him, he was directed to keep the run of the deeper water.

In another half-hour they came to the forest again, though the trees were growing in the shallow lake. Achang was hard at work all the time, taking all the pains with his operation which Louis had required of him; but his occupation did not prevent him from looking about him, and he soon made a discovery.

"Mias! Mias!" he shouted, pointing to a tall tree a few rods from the boat. "Mias fast asleep!"

All the party looked in the direction indicated, and saw the orang. He was lying on his back in the crotch of the tree, holding on with both hands to the branches. He must have been a heavy sleeper or the puffing of the engine would have aroused him. But Louis would not fire at him, as Scott suggested. He had a bigger orang than the one in the tree, and he did not want another. As he would not fire, Felix refused to do so, and the mias was left to finish his nap.

A little later in the day the boat came to Padang Lake; but they were disappointed when they found it was filled with screw-pines, though they could see open water, in one direction quite a large sheet of it.

Following the channel, they reached the open s.p.a.ce. The boat had hardly pa.s.sed the limit of the screw-pines before Clingman shouted, "Fis.h.!.+"

The captain rang the gong, the boat stopped, and fishlines were in demand. The flesh of the orang was used for bait; and in a few minutes Morris hauled up a fish so large that it taxed all his strength and skill to get him into the boat.

CHAPTER XIII

THE CAPTAIN'S ASTOUNDING PROPOSITION

All the cabin party had their lines out, but not another fish was caught. The place where they fished seemed to be a hole, and the water was deep and clear. Perhaps Morris's struggle with the big fish had scared the others away, for not another could be seen. The day was done, and it was growing dark. It was decided to anchor where they were, and spend the night there; and they hoped the fish would be in biting condition the next morning.

Achang called the fish the gourami, or something like that; but beyond this nothing was known about him. Louis, who was generally posted, could tell his companions nothing about it. But Pitts had cut it up, and it was fried for supper. The flesh was hard, and the flavor excellent.

There was enough of it for all hands, and the supper amounted to a feast. A heavy thunder-shower made the evening very gloomy; but the canvas roof and curtains of the Blanchita fully protected the party from the rain, which fell in sheets for full two hours.

The next morning when the party turned out, the weather was as pleasant as they could desire, and the air was cleared and freshened by the shower. The first thing they did was to throw over their lines; for they could see the fish through the clear water of the lake. In about as many minutes they had hooked four fish, though not one of them was so large as the one Morris had caught the evening before. But at that point they ceased to bite, and not another nibble was had. Either the fish did not like the looks of the boat, handsome as she was, which would have been very bad taste on their part, or the struggles of those which had been hauled in frightened them away. Very likely the fish could have explained the reason for their sudden disappearance; but they did not, and it remained a mystery.

They had an ice-chest on board, and Mr. Eng had replenished it at Simujan. Pitts dressed the fish, and put them in the refrigerator. For breakfast they had fresh pork, and it was much better than that they had had before. They had learned to drink coffee without milk, for it was not often that it could be procured away from the larger towns.

"I say, fellows, don't you think there can be too much of a good thing?"

asked Captain Scott at the head of the table.

"Of course there can be too much of a good thing; for a fellow might eat ice-cream till his throat was frozen," replied Felix.

"Almost anything becomes a bad thing when you have too much of it,"

added Louis. "But I think we could have stood about four more of those nice fish. What is the moral of all this, Captain?"

"With me the moral is that I have had hunting enough for the present,"

replied Scott. "I should like a little more variety in our daily life."

"I don't think I should care to go hunting more than one day in a week, or, at most, two," replied Louis. "We have had it right along for a week; and, as you suggest, that's too much of a good thing."

"But it was you, Louis, who went in for three weeks of it," added the captain.

"Simply because I thought it would take the Guardian-Mother and the Blanche about that time to visit Siam and French Cochin-China."

"I suppose if we had made our trip up these rivers in a sampan, we should not have got so far inland in another week," added Morris.

"I don't think we should have come up here at all if the Blanchita had not been available," said Louis. "But we are close to the mountains now, and I am in favor of a tramp on sh.o.r.e."

"All right; and after breakfast we will get under way, for I must attend to the navigation," replied Scott; "and I suppose Felipe has steam enough by this time."

They left the table, and Scott went to the wheel. To save time and trouble, the men took their meals in the after cabin, and the engineer had the head of the table. Both Louis and Felix had run the engine of the Maud a portion of the time on her memorable voyage from Funchal to Gibraltar, and the former was sent to the engine-room. The boat went ahead; and after pa.s.sing through a section of panda.n.u.s, they came to an open lake, which they judged to be five miles long.

The water was shallow, though deep enough for the steamer. The captain opened the binnacle, and headed the Blanchita to the north. It was a very quiet time, and the boat went along at her usual speed. In little less than half an hour she reached the head of the lake; but there was no convenient landing-place for a craft of her draught, and she was anch.o.r.ed at a considerable distance from the sh.o.r.e. Achang and two of the seamen were directed to attend the "Big Four," and they were landed in the sampan.

Each of the cabin party took his fowling-piece, while Achang had a rifle, and each of the sailors carried one, the latter to be used by the young men if they were wanted. They had walked but a short distance before they came to a steep precipice about twenty feet high, at which a notched log had been placed by some former visitors, as they supposed; but as soon as they had mounted it, they came upon a Dyak long-house, which might have been better called a short-house, for it contained but six doors, and therefore the tax upon the village need not have caused any grumbling.

The dwelling was not now a novelty, neither were the Dyak men and maidens; for the latter were not as pretty as several they had seen on the river. They were very hospitable, and invited the party to enter the house, which they did; but there was little to interest them there.

Achang talked with them, and the head man said they caught plenty of fish in the lake, and they snared pigs, deer, monkeys, and other game.

He engaged a couple of guides for the mountains.