Balata (The Argosy Library) by Fred MacIsaac

Author:Fred MacIsaac [MacIsaac, Fred]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Action and Adventure
Publisher: Altus Press
Published: 2015-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XVI

A SAVAGE MIGRATION

THE river was indescribably beautiful in the first breath of the morning, but Pete Holcomb was not in the least appreciative. By his calculations he had been afloat at least three hours and must have been carried fifteen or eighteen miles below the camp, which meant that it would delay the progress of the expedition a whole day since it would take six or eight hours to row back up to the present camp site. He assumed, of course, that at least one boat would descend after him carrying extra boatmen.

He was carried at least another mile downstream before he had persuaded the montería into comparatively still water close to shore, and he drifted slowly another mile before he spied ahead a spot where he dared to land. Retarding his progress by grasping overhanging branches of trees, he edged the clumsy craft to the bank, fastened a line to a rower’s bench, and leaped ashore with the rope which he made fast to the trunk of a small tree.

Pete had taken it for granted that the rescue party would be on his heels in a few minutes, but as time passed and there was neither sight nor sound of a montería he remembered the obsession of the natives against traveling on the river in the darkness, and realized the problem that pursuit presented.

It did not occur to him that the shots fired in the montería would convince his friends that he had been killed by the murderer of the sentry. To him it seemed as if the death grapple in the boat had lasted for hours before the revolver came into play. Dexter had seen him leap into the montería, and Gorman and Dexter would surely come after him.

He came to the conclusion that they must have waited until dawn before setting out, which meant that it would be at least an hour or an hour and a half before they put in an appearance. He went back on board his vessel and began to rummage in the luggage compartment in search of food. But he found to his disgust that this boat was loaded only with trade goods.

He settled himself as comfortably as possible in the stern, leaning back upon a sack of cotton cloth. He threw a wary eye upon the branches over his head lest there be a serpent swinging from a tree limb or a hornets’ nest suspended within close proximity.

Picking up a roll of mosquito netting lying at hand, he covered himself as well as possible, for legs and arms as well as face were bare, fixed his eyes on the bend in the river around which Les and Louise and Dexter would soon put in an appearance, and waited with reasonable patience.

He had had little sleep the night before, and he was suffering reaction from his experiences. Of course he had acted like a fool in jumping on the boat and he would come in for some criticism from his friends

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