Chapter IV: Part 4

“Catch him, Sadok!” warned the curator as his own hand dove for the first-aid in his hip pocket. Dwight leaned against Sadok’s strong shoulder, while the curator opened his shirt and examined the wound hastily. Two long gashes in his chest bled rather freely, but nothing serious had been cut.

“Lucky for you, son! He’d have ripped you open just as nice! Lots of new-chums have been killed that way!” said the curator, cheerfully.

“Lie down awhile; you’ll feel better presently,” he ordered, for Dwight was white as a sheet. “But, congratulations, boy, first of all, on your getting back to us! I had not time to say so, you know, in the excitement of this ruction,” he apologized. “We’ll have to hunt in pairs in the future. Where have you been, Dwight, and why did you stay out all night?”

“It was worth it!” smiled the boy, feebly, and he dug into his coat pocket and brought out the six-shafted bird of paradise, carefully swathed in his handkerchief.

The curator undid the fastenings; then a whoop of joy escaped him.

“Boy!” he beamed, reaching forward to shake Dwight’s hand again. “It sure _was_ worth it! Man, it’s the big prize of the expedition--so far!”

He and Sadok then fired shots and called until they brought Nicky and Baderoon out of the jungle. Nicky came up on the run.

“Where’s Dwight? What’s happened?” he cried, anxiously; then, catching sight of Dwight: “You--old--hatrack!” he burbled, flinging himself affectionately on his chum. “Say, the whole camp was worrying about you and firing guns, last night! Get lost in the jungle?”

“Nope. He got--this!” cut in the curator, holding up the flaming glories of the paradise bird for Nicky to admire. “And then--a cassowary tried to scrape an acquaintance with him, so to speak!” He laughed, pointing out the huge bird lying in the grass, with Sadok working over his skin.

“And, b’lieve me, your li’l’ old dart got there just in time!” chirped Dwight from the grass. “Shake, Sadok!”

“Make a stretcher out of a couple of coats and two poles, boys!” ordered the curator, energetically, as Sadok finished the cassowary skin with a grunt of satisfaction. “We four’ll tote him to camp. How about Camp Cassowary for a name for this stop, hey, boys?”

VIII

PYGMY LAND

“This is not an expedition--it’s getting to be a hospital!” exclaimed the curator, whimsically, as Dwight was tucked away under his own tent fly. “Baderoon’s arm is still game, and Dwight will be at least three days getting healed up--yet. Did you ever see such glorious country to move about in, or such wonderful weather?”

Nicky agreed with him. He had collected in British Guiana and the West Indies, yet this was the first time he had been free of the eternal green maze of the deep jungle. Up here, high on the mountain flanks, it was hot and dry, and the vegetation was more like the open African veldt. Across the creek, to the east, and down into the lowlands, swept the damp jungle; back of camp, to the west, rose the mountain sides, inviting them irresistibly to climb up and see what might be seen from their tops.

Dwight’s adventure with the cassowary had upset their plans badly. There was no telling how soon he could move, for wounds in the tropics have an aggravating way of infecting and becoming obstinate about healing. The curator chafed over the delay, scarce daring to hope that the dry, breezy climate of the mountains would bring a swift closing of the scratches of the cassowary’s claw. He considered, meanwhile, the advisability of setting out with Nicky on a scouting tour, leaving Sadok and Baderoon to guard the camp. He finally decided to risk a day’s absence.

“Dwight,” said he, coming over to the boy’s tent after making up his mind, “Nicky and I are going to climb this mountain back of us, and do some mapping and exploring from its top. We’ll be gone all day, and possibly the night, too. It’s taking a chance, to break up our party this way, I know, but half our time has already gone by since the proa left, and we must be up and doing. I’m leaving you the most deadly weapon I’ve got.” He pulled out a bright, shiny, nickel bomb from a flap case on his belt. It seemed very light and fragile to Dwight as he handled it.

“I call it the ‘explorer’s bomb,’” said the curator. “It’s filled with H. E. explosive. To arm it you bend this little copper projection over until it breaks off and you hear a hiss. Then throw it for all you’re worth and run! If a war party comes up, and they won’t keep their distance or act hostile, throw it among them, and then you and the others bolt for cover.” He unbelted the bomb’s carrying case, and Dwight replaced the missile in it gingerly. “You won’t have to use it, I’m sure,” said the curator, confidently. “Between the _lakatoi_ and the canoe fight we’ve got a reputation for being best left alone, in this region, I’m thinking.”

He and Nicky set off early next morning. They went straight up the mountain side through the thick and thorny jungle. The geological formation was of comparatively recent lava rock, and the regular slope signified that an old extinct volcano crater formed its top, no doubt long since filled up and overgrown. As they climbed steadily higher, and wider and wider vistas of the country came to view, this impression was confirmed. High up on the slopes a regular talus of broken lava rock from some former eruption barred their way. The bowlders were of all sizes and their crevices and sunny flats held many a snake, so that Nicky, as “snakeologist” of the expedition, felt constrained to cut a snake stick and go after them.

The curator lit his pipe and sat down to spy out the country, meanwhile, with his glasses. Presently Nicky passed him, carrying a long stick of lignum-vitæ with a length of string tied to its top. Just under it he had nailed a staple with the string looped through it. Nicky stalked along, jumping from rock to rock, his eyes intent below him. Presently he made a quick jab with the stick, pulled tight on the string, and then bore aloft a squirming red-and-black serpent, vainly winding itself around the end of the stick, while its head struck futilely at the empty air.

“_Elaterus wallacei_--deadly poisonous,” announced Nicky, scientifically, holding up the creature for the curator to admire. “Isn’t he a beauty?”

“Handsome!” agreed the curator, laughingly. “Not _quite_ so near, Nick--and I hope you’ve got tight hold of that string!”

“Sure! Watch me make a specimen of him!” said the enthusiast, picking up a small club. He held the end of the snake stick down on a rock, where a few judgmatical raps reduced his captive to a scientific curiosity.

Nicky dropped him in a small canvas bag which was pretty sure to have a few lizards and frogs and turtles in it, also, at any given time of day, and they set out upward again. A wide belt of century plants barred their way as they climbed higher. They grew in rank profusion, the great green leaves crossing in every direction, six feet high, and all armed with a dagger point at the tip and saw teeth along the blades. A man’s eyes would be worth nothing if he once got himself well into them.

A detour of about a mile brought them around the century plants, and then came lava escarpments, steep and difficult to climb. Up them they swarmed, and found themselves on a gradually rising, arid table-land with sparse vegetation growing all about, and magnificent views out in every direction.

Working southward, they finally came out on a bald knob that the curator had noted from the camp below and had determined to reach. Here the view was superb, wonderful--when you came to consider that all you looked at below was new and unmapped country. The curator’s pocket aneroid gave their height at a little over six thousand feet. Far over to the east could be made out the dim outlines of Geelvink Bay, with the limitless Pacific behind it. Below them, to the west, the slopes ran down sharply to the mangrove swamps that lined the shores fronting on the Banda Sea, with the long point of Cape Debelle jutting out as if on a small relief map directly below them. Beyond it, far over the sea, a bank of clouds on the horizon told them of Aru, a hundred miles away.

But it was to the south that their eyes turned with the most inquiring interest. Here the ranges rose higher and higher, under heavy banks of clouds, until, on the extreme horizon, the sun glinted on a white, snowy sea of mountains, jagged with peaks and caps, with Carstensz (17,000 feet) just visible as a tiny jutting point of white. Two hundred years ago Jan Carstensz, navigating along these shores, caught a glimpse of the Snow Mountains from the decks of his vessel and reported them in the ship’s log. It was such a rare glimpse, behind the eternal veil of clouds that shrouds the interior of New Guinea, that no one believed him. From that day to this, a lifting of the jungle clouds hanging low over the mountains, and the white man present to see them, have never come at the same time, so that even the existence of the high fellows in the interior has been regarded as a wild tale of Jan Carstensz. It was not for more than two centuries later, in 1911, that Jan Lorentz, another intrepid Hollander, with a party of twenty Dyaks, made a dash through the pygmy country and ascended the first one of the Snow Mountains, naming it Mt. Wilhelmina in honor of the Dutch queen.

From their own knob another wonderful feature of the country could also be seen, extending southward in a long flat perspective--the Great Precipice. For two hundred miles this precipice extends like a rampart, dividing the mountains from the flat jungle. It rises sometimes to a sheer height of ten thousand feet, undoubtedly the grandest precipice in the world. Sloping up to it, they could make out the jungle-clad talus, and beyond that the lowlands of the river country, widening out more and more as the coast land flowed southward. Dozens of rivers, they knew, cut through this jungle, out of sight in the green sea of foliage, and here was the scene of the English expedition, their party arriving full of hope and confidence, only to be baffled by the precipice and the swift floods of the rivers from getting farther than the foothills of the Snow Mountains. Here they had discovered the race of pygmies, and had visited one of their villages, collected implements of war and domestic usage, and, most valuable of all, a list of some fourteen words in their tongue, now carefully preserved for future use in the curator’s notebook.

“Nicky,” said the curator, after a long and careful examination of a spot on the jungly hills to the south of them, “I wish you would take a look at that scar over yonder, where a sort of ravine seems to run down the second mountain to the south of us. My eyes may be deceiving me, but--” He handed over the glasses.

Nicky looked eagerly, with his fresh young eyes glued to the binoculars.

“Huts! Little huts, ’way up in the tree tops! I’m sure of it!” he cried, after a careful scrutiny.

“I knew it!” said the curator, quietly. “Those huts up in the tree tops are where the unmarried girls of the pygmy tribes sleep. That marks it as a pygmy village. See if you can’t make out larger huts on the ground.”

Nicky studied the jungle awhile, with intense concentration. “I see them,” he cried, handing the curator the glasses. “The small huts are built up in bare pandanus trees, and under the palms and bamboos around them I can see a brown shape like a bear’s back--that’s a thatched hut.”

Baldwin agreed with him, after a look for himself. Together they planned a route to reach the village in about two days’ march.

“Say, Mr. Baldwin, that war party of the Outanatas was on its way for a fight with _them_, when they came upon us--that’s my hunch!” declared Nicky, with sudden conviction.

“No doubt! There’s probably more or less of an old trail, if we look for it. And now for some plane-table surveys, Nicky.”

The curator unfolded a large blank sheet among the rear pages of his notebook, and on it drew a rough map of the country, with Nicky to help with comment and suggestion. Then out of his mess kit he took a flat, round brass box, which turned out to be a compass with folding sight bars. With this compass, bearing sights were taken of all the prominent peaks and hills in sight, and the map was then corrected to agree with the bearings.

Then the curator indicated a tall banyan tree growing on the end of a spur of the mountain opposite to them to the south.

“See that tree, Nick?” he asked. “We’ll climb up there to-morrow, and take all these bearings again from that point. Where they intersect these we have taken from here will be the true positions of all these interior peaks and valleys on our maps. That’s the way we make an accurate plane-table survey.”

“How about the distance from here to the banyan tree as a base line?” objected Nicky. “How’ll we lay that out on the map? We don’t know it.”

“We’ll measure it, son. We’ll lay off a base line down in those open swales where the cassowary got his Dwight, so to speak, and we’ll sight this knob and the banyan tree, both, from below. With a known base, and the two triangles erected on it by bearing angles, it’s a cinch to calculate the distance from this knob to the banyan.”

They descended the mountain to camp, finding Dwight up and about and puttering around his camp, an occupation he dearly loved. Baderoon was loafing to his heart’s content, and Sadok had succeeded in adding a rare black cockatoo to the collections. That evening Nicky and the curator went into the open and measured off a base line. From both ends of it their mountain knob and the banyan tree on the next mountain to the south could be sighted. The compass was set up on a stake, and the bearings of both points carefully taken from each end of the base line. It was dark when they got through.

After the camp had fed for the night, the curator came over to Nicky’s fly and squatted there, with his notebook spread out. He first laid off their base line in a small number of the blue-line squares on a page of the notebook. From the ends of this he drew the angles they had taken with the compass. They formed two thin, wedge-shaped triangles, slanting away from the base line in opposite directions. Counting the blue squares between the outer points of these two triangles gave the distance between the knob and the banyan tree compared with the base line, from which it was easy to figure the actual distance. Laying this out on his map, they were ready for the climb next day.

It did not seem possible to Nicky that they could climb up a new mountain, clear up to that banyan tree, without a series of hair-raising adventures, but, strange to say, it was done! The boy began to study out this phenomenon, finally, so unusual did it seem, and he found the secret of it lay in the curator’s method. He was after a plane-table survey, now, and so he let all the wild creatures alone--and they let him alone! Cassowaries and brush turkeys ran off, squawking cackles through the swales of saw grass, but the curator heeded them not. Wallabys leapt for cover, and were let go free. They passed a high pandanus with a tree kangaroo crawling in its top, but no Nicky was detailed to go up after him. Snakes of high and low degree, fascinating in the extreme to Nicky, went squirming on their ways unchased. Even a cuscus of a new kind was passed by unmolested. Nicky perceived that trouble would not hunt you, if you did not seek it, in the New Guinea jungle. In a surprisingly short time they were at the foot of the banyan tree and truing up all the points on the map with intersecting lines drawn from their position.

“Besides which, we have added a lot of stuff to the north which I can correct with coast surveys,” concluded the curator as he folded the pocket notebook. “I reckon this map will admit me to the Royal Geographic and entitle me to a whole alphabet tacked on after my name--much that I care!” he laughed. “The thing for us to do now is to push on and visit the pygmies, and then for Cinnabar Mountain! Sorry this survey did not show it up. Must be farther on to the south.”

Next day camp was broken and the whole party was on the move. Baderoon was entirely well, now, and Dwight so far healed that he and Sadok had overturned nearly every rock near camp the day before, adding hundreds of new beetles to his collection. They followed at first the old war trail of the Outanatas, and then, as it deviated away, took the route planned out by Nicky and the curator through the mountains from the knob. That night the tents were pitched on the edge of a warm, dry field of yellow grass, with coco palms and wild, small-fruited bananas crowding out into the clearing. A little stream, flowing into their old friend the creek, gave their roots the necessary water, and made a rill to camp besides. It all reminded Nicky and Dwight of some of their earlier Florida camps with the curator, and they felt entirely at home.

At dawn each man cooked him a breakfast, rolled up his pack, and by sunup they were on the trail again. From across the valley, a look-see by Nicky up on the hillside disclosed the pygmy village, now not half a day’s march away, and they went along cautiously, guns and pistols ready and the curator’s air gun loaded with a short-range shell, for they might come on a party of them unexpectedly and no one could foresee the outcome. About a mile from the village they halted, and chose an easily defended position on the mountain side. There they waited for some of the pygmies to come that way. There was a well-defined trail just below them, and they judged that it was often used. In perhaps an hour voices came along it through the jungle. A small party, of four warriors and a dog, were walking single file along the path, and at sight of the curator they all stopped with guttural exclamations of alarm.

It seemed to Dwight that he had never looked upon such villainous-looking little men. They were about four feet six inches high, the tallest not four feet nine; brownish black in color; and, instead of the Papuan mop of frizzled hair, their heads were nearly bald, with black chin and side whiskers, in a sort of thick mane from ear to ear. They carried bows at least a foot longer than they were tall, spears, and a net bag slung over the shoulder. Each man had also a small sack containing his fire sticks and other belongings slung about his neck. In place of the usual loin cloth, or just plain nudity, each wore a long, yellow half gourd, hung from a string around his middle and secured by a thong through the crotch.

Dwight thrilled to realize that he was looking upon the original aborigines of New Guinea. Like the Negritos of the Philippines, and our own cave men forbears, they were short, strong little men, with well-developed muscles and stout legs, and they were in a high state of hunting-tribe civilization, as shown by the decency of the gourd, the absence of barbaric ornament, and the efficient hunter’s equipment that each man carried. They did not seem particularly afraid, but stood staring at the white party, arrows on bow, ready for any eventuality.

The curator grinned and, pointing at the mangy-looking dog, “_Wiwi!_” he pronounced.

The four started with astonishment, to hear a word in their own tongue spoken by this strange-looking white man.

Then, pointing at the most clownish-looking one of the four, “_Amare-ta?_” (“His?”) he asked, smiling genially.

The man was evidently the butt and good fellow of the crowd, for the shot about it being _his_ dog went home. A black-whiskered old pirate, who was evidently their leader, cracked a smile and nodded his head. Then they began to chatter among themselves, excitedly. Evidently they had heard of the English expedition from their own tribes to the south. The English had treated them well, experienced as they are in handling natives.

“_Kami oro-ta?_” (“Your houses?”) asked the curator, next. “Gosh! boys, I only know fourteen words of their language, but I’m working them for all they are worth!” he exclaimed in an aside to their own party.

The pygmies grinned and nodded again, dropping their arrow points in a more friendly manner. He was winning them fast.

“_Kema-u-uteri!_” said the old fellow, vigorously, pointing toward the village.

“He means they’re going to give us a pig and some coconuts,” explained the curator to his own party. “They want us to come up to the village. I guess not! We’ll stay right here and see what next.”

He nodded his thanks for their offer; then, “_Area-ta ku!_” (“My boat!”) he said to the pygmies, waving his hand toward the lagoon down in the valleys. “_Uta doro-ta!_” he added, pointing to their camp site, the words telling them that his fire would be made there.

The four nodded and grinned as the curator signified politely that they were welcome to visit him. Then they started up the trail, with many a backward glance of curiosity.

“Now, then, boys, it’s up to us to barricade this camp and make it as strong for defense as we can, until we see how everything turns out,” said the curator, energetically, after they had gone.

The site was admirably chosen. A huge prone bole lay across the front of it, overlooking the trail, and it only needed stones cleared away and piled on the flanks to make a veritable fort of it, with their rear protected by the rocky ledges of the mountain. They cleared out the inclosure and then started their fire. Presently yells and shouts and an excited babel of voices came floating across the valley from the village. Through the glasses they could see men, women, and children crowding around the four hunters, and then there was an immense amount of running around and preparations of some sort going on in the village.

“The four were not on the war path, for they carried no bamboo knives for head hunting,” ruminated the curator. “Tapiros, I suppose. Get a lot of wood for a big fire,” he ordered. “We want plenty of light if they come around to-night, so we can see what we are doing.”

The noise in the village redoubled, and, as night came down and the tents and hammocks were slung, it seemed that every man, woman, and child in it was coming to visit them in a mob. A singing chorus of the wild little hill men came marching toward them through the jungle paths.

“That’s bad!” exclaimed the curator, anxiously. “If there was only some way we could show our power, without hurting them! We can’t let a mob get to close quarters with us.”

“I think I’ve got a scheme, sir,” ventured Nicky. “There are a few flashlights in my vest-pocket camera. Suppose I run out and explode one in the path, about thirty yards off?”

“Well--get it ready, anyhow,” hesitated the curator. “They don’t seem to be hostile. Dwight and Sadok will cover you, while I will step out in front of the log and try to act like a peaceable human being.”

The pygmies came on in a crowd through the dark, torches here and there shining through the bush. They did not seem to be sending out flanking parties, which was reassuring, and the main body came on down the trail. Nicky dashed out, lit the fuse of his flash, and had just gotten back to the tree when it went off. A blinding glare lit up the scene. It showed at least a hundred pygmies diving frantically for cover. The whites noted with relief that the men were decorated with flowers and carried no arms. A party bearing a pig trussed up on a pole had suddenly set down their burden and decamped.

“They’re friendly!” cried the curator, relievedly. “I’d give a million dollars for the word ‘friend’ in Tapiro!” Instead, he put his hand over his heart and bowed his thanks for the pig, like any after-dinner orator. Sadok threw a pile of grass on the fire and its flames lit up the scene. The moment hung in the balance.

“Sing, boys!--something plaintive!--for God’s sake, sing!” barked the curator, hastily.

On such sudden notice Nicky could think of nothing but the old campfire ditty, “Sweet Adeline.” He poured it out, at the top of his voice, the others chiming in on the refrain. All over the world, in lonely campfires from the Arctic to the Equator, that plaintive song has unburdened the hearts of hunters and explorers, as a wolf bays the moon. It did not fail them now. Where words lacked, music got across. That remote something in the plaintive chimes of “Adeline” that satisfies the white hunter had reached over into the souls of this tribe of the most ancient of all hunters. One or two old men came out, quaking, from their hiding places, the leader of the original four one of them.

“_Yow-nata-u; kema-kema!_” he quavered, indicating the pig.

“Thanks!” called out the curator, desperately. “Go get him, Sadok and Baderoon. We’ve got to do the polite. I never knew music to fail with savages yet!”

They went down and carried the pig up ceremoniously, while the curator kept on bowing his thanks. “Set it down in front of our tree. I’ve got another idea,” he said, as they brought the pig up. “Put another of your flashes in front of the pig, Nicky, and touch it off.”

Nicky lit the fuse, and the curator stood over the pig, making what he hoped were sufficiently impressive incantations over it. Presently the flash went off, lighting up the whole jungle with its lurid glare. In the intense darkness that followed, the pig was whisked over the log out of sight. By the time sight returned to the eyes of the little hill men it had disappeared.

“That ought to hold ’em for a bit!” said the curator, out of the corner of his mouth. “They call me _Yow-nata_, ‘sun maker,’ so a miracle or two won’t do any harm. Got any more ideas, boys?”

“Yes, I’ve got a good one!” came back Dwight. “Let’s have your flasher, sir, and yours, Nicky. They’re both powerful. Now, then, have you got anything to give them, sir?”

“Sure! I’ve been saving a small bag of beads for some such affair as this,” said the curator, producing them from a pocket.

“All right. You walk out there with them, and I’ll do my stunt,” chuckled Dwight.

“Thank the Lord, ‘bead’ is one of the words the English got,” said the curator, starting down to the trail.

“_Upou_ [beads] _kema!_ [give]” he called out, holding out a handful of them and waving it about. The old men crept forward warily. As they came close to the curator, Dwight, with the flashers held on both sides of his eyes, flashed them on. The effect was weird in the extreme. It looked as if he had two fiery eyes, and the rays lit up the curator and made the glass beads in his palm flash like jewels. There was an instant dive by the hill men into the brush again.

“_Amare upou kema! Amare upou kema!_ [I give you beads! I give you beads!] Come out, you little devils!” he called, reassuringly, while Dwight kept the rays turned on him steadily.

It took a lot of coaxing, but finally the same old fellow ventured forth again, trying the effect of the light on himself gingerly. He jumped back as Dwight turned his face and swept the jungle, heads popping out of sight like chipmunks as his “eyes” lit up the jungle. Then the old man ventured out again as the rays returned to the curator. Foot by foot he drew near, with many a questioning glance, and finally the curator was able to drop a pile of beads in his hand. He grunted with pleasure, and Baldwin signed for the other to approach. He gave a small pile to each, and then walked back to the log.

“Switch ’em off, Dwight. You did fine!” he exclaimed. “Now we’ll go about our affairs and let ’em watch us for the present. You keep guard, and if any of them venture too near, just turn those eyes on them and we’ve got ’em on the run.”

The tents were put up and candles and lanterns lit, the pygmies watching every move from the jungle depths. The curator spent his time trying to talk to the old men, who had gathered in the trail below their log breastwork, and he finally attempted a few words in the hated Papuan tongue. To his surprise they knew considerable of that, too, and Baderoon was at once called to interpret. Between them a feast was arranged next day in the village, and the information conveyed that the white man would prefer that the tribe go back to their village, now, as it was time for sleep.

At this the older men gave an order (there did not seem to be any central head chief) and they all drifted slowly back, their voices coming faintly out of the jungle, all talking excitedly.

“And now, boys, we’ll call it a day!” said the curator. “Looks as if they were going to be friendly. Sadok, you stand watch until those stars there”--indicating the Southern Cross--“come over that mountain. Then call me.”

The camp turned in, leaving Sadok on guard by the fire.

IX

THE FIGHT AT THE CRATER

“Fill your canteens, boys!” ordered the curator, as they finished breakfast next morning, “and stow all this pig meat we can carry, for our aim will be to get through with this feast of the pygmies as soon as we can and then push on south. Every man pack his kit for marching order.”

Sadok had butchered the pig during his night watch, and he and Baderoon each had a ham ready for slinging. The camp reveled in fresh pork chops, and then cut slices of the forequarters for carrying in their pemmican sacks.

Then they set out for the pygmy village, weapons still ready in case of any treachery. All of the men of the tribe were gathered around a great fire, and a huge feast of roast brush turkey, sago-palm bread, and yams was set out, all ready to eat, but not a woman or a child was in sight.

“That’s all right,” reassured the curator, as the others looked around questioningly. “The English offered the pygmies any amount of bribes for a single photograph of a woman, but they had all been moved up on the mountain and no amount of persuasion could get them to call one down. It means nothing hostile to us.”

They seated themselves in the circle. The pygmy men carried no arms, but they could see weapons stacked against the trees near by, among them the thin, flat blades of the sinister bamboo knives used in head hunting. The feast went on merrily, the curator working out a system of learning pygmy words by pointing at objects and making the question sign. Speaking mixed Papuan and pygmy, a considerable conversation was being carried on. He managed to convey the idea that birds and insects were exchangeable for more of the beads, and then, finally, after a good deal of groping--

“Him want you-fellah stop prenty much time here,” explained Baderoon out of the tangle of words and signs.

The curator shook his head and pointed southward, smiling. Instantly an angry look shot across the faces of the older men. They shook their heads vigorously, and some halting Papuan dialect followed.

“Him say taboo. Prenty debbil-debbil mountain thataway,” translated Baderoon. “No good. Prenty hantus. Must go back!” He pointed north.

The curator smiled. “Yes, we will--not! We might go back and circle around them, fellows--but, no, they’ll have scouts spying on us until we get out of the country, and it’ll be a jungle fight all the way to try to get past them to the south. No; we’ll have it out with them now!”

“Tell them,” he said, sternly, “that the _Yow-nata_ is not afraid of any devil-devil, nor taboo, nor hantus.”

An angry buzz greeted Baderoon’s translation. The little black-bearded men shook their heads violently, and some of them began to look around for their weapons. There were at least forty in the party.

“Looks like a close-up!” muttered the curator, fumbling for his explosive bomb. “We’ll retreat in good order to the south, boys, if it comes to a fight. Perhaps if I show ’em this bomb it’ll take their minds off it for the present. Good to have it handy, anyhow.”

All eyes were fixed on the shining bauble as he drew it forth. The effect, however, was somewhat different than he had intended. A fierce cupidity shone in the eyes of the old fellow of the trail--here was a bead that transcended all other beads in glory!

“_Kema! Kema!_” (“Give! Give!”) he grunted, avidly, holding out his hand for it.

The curator shook his head. “_Yow-yowri!_” (“Bewitched!”) he said, pointing to the sun. It flashed like a little sun in his hand, but, far from being made afraid by its mysterious reflections, the desire for its possession gleamed fairly murderous out of the pygmies’ eyes. A dozen hands reached out for it. Suddenly a black hand like a monkey’s paw shot under the curator’s arm and the bauble was snatched from his hand. The whites jumped to their feet, gathering in a close knot.

“This won’t do! Back off, boys, and get a little distance from them!” barked the curator. They drew off, Sadok’s shield and sumpitan spear covering their immediate retreat. But the pygmies were paying no attention to them. They fought like wild men for the bomb, snatching it from hand to hand, clawing and biting at one another with primal savagery. In the midst of the snatching and grabbing a sharp hiss came to their ears. They had broken off its primer in the struggle!

“Run, fellows, run!” yelled the curator. They did not stop to look back. They heard the thing go off among the pygmies with a thunder that shook the ground under them, as up the hill they tore, past the tree houses and up the stony slopes of the mountain. Below them they could see a great sandy crater in the center of the village, the huts all slanting askew, while warriors were running to the coconut trees, arming themselves hurriedly. A short distance up the hill the curator turned and fired the air pistol with a long-range shell. The deafening crash of its explosion rang through the jungle over the village, and they saw little black men thrown violently about, like black tumble-bugs, with its concussion. They waited no longer, but toiled up the hill as fast as they could climb. Shouts below and calls in the jungle came to their ears. There was plenty of fight left in the little hill men, and they knew that the mountain was being surrounded and that a jungle fight of the most difficult character lay ahead of them.

For a time they climbed steadily. The vegetation was thin and one could see for some distance, so that the native archers could not get up close as in the deep jungle. With Sadok and Baderoon as outliers, they headed for the top. The mountain was another extinct volcanic cone, and the same outcroppings of lava rock, the same belts of century plants and aloes, were met as on the mountain back of Cassowary Camp.

Next came bare patches of huge volcanic rocks. They could look out, here, over the sea of jungle-covered mountains, and from the curve of the sides of their own they judged that it was a perfect cone, a volcano of somewhat recent activity. Sadok came running in, and in his hand was a long cane arrow. The point was blood-red, and at first they thought he had been hit, but his actions did not indicate it.

“Littly black man close!” he breathed, heavily. “Shoot’m arrow.”

The curator took the missile and examined its head carefully. It was made of a blood-red, six-sided crystal, thinned to a point and lustrous and polished.

“Cinnabar, boys!” he exclaimed. “This tribe know all about Red Mountain. That’s why they wouldn’t let us go south, and it’s why the southern tribe at Wamberibi would not let the English go north, too! I bet we see it when we reach this cone top!”

They pressed on swiftly, the vegetation now scattered and consisting only of the most arid and gnarly species, all plentifully provided with thorns.

“Look, _Orang-kaya_!” called Baderoon, hastily, pointing back down the mountain.

Five small hill men were climbing after them on the slopes.

“Never mind them. Put out for the top, boys,” shouted the curator, running after them. “We’ve got to get there and dig in before any flanking parties cut us off.”

They raced up over the lava-strewn slopes. The top of the mountain was a bare cone, with a deep, narrow crater, perhaps fifty feet in bore, extending down into it. A faint odor of sulphur came up from its dark depths. Around the lip was fine lava dust and small rocks. For at least fifty yards down the slopes there was no cover of any sort.

“You and Sadok stand off those beggars, Dwight. Dig in on the rim of the crater and pick ’em off. Here’s where we make our stand for the present,” ordered the curator, as he and the rest of the party ran around the crater to the south. They pawed shallow pits in the detritus and lay down, watching the slopes below. No pygmies had come in sight yet, but there was much that was interesting to study. Out of the jungle clearing on the opposite mountain, beyond them to the south, rose the smoke of a huge signal fire, and their glasses could make out huts in the trees near it. To the east, the long wall of the Great Precipice stretched southward, halving one side of the mountain ranges, with the green of the lowland jungle swarming up to its base. Near its brink was a small clearing and yet another pygmy village. It was their country, all right!

But to the southeast rose a sight that held them all breathless. The geological formation in the interior was dark and stratified, of basic instead of volcanic rock, and the ragged edges of thin coal seams could be picked out running through the jungle along bare escarpments. Before them rose sheer a truncated cone of a mountain, separated from the interior formations by a deep gap. Its whole upper half was bare of jungle, and across it, in a horizontal belt, ran a vein of deep pink, at least four hundred feet from top to bottom!

“Red Mountain!” gasped the curator, as he and Nicky stared speechless at the fabulous wealth spread out before their eyes. “Pure cinnabar--and Lord knows how many million tons of it! It makes that Mexican deposit look like a thirty-cent Mex. dollar when you want to buy a tin of white man’s tobacco with it! Well, while we’ve got time, the most important thing in the world to do now is to locate that mountain on the map.”

The crack of Dwight’s automatic came to their ears as the curator got out his notebook and the mess kit with his surveyor’s compass packed in one of its pans. Dwight and Sadok were already at work, they could hear, and as they opened out the map page a long cane arrow came singing over their shoulders and soared on down the slope.

“Gee! They must be getting close up on that side! Make it snappy, sir!” said Nicky, drawing his revolver and laying it on a rock beside him.

“We’ll add about three miles to the base line, from the banyan tree to this cone,” said the curator, imperturbably, drawing it in with his pencil. Then he sighted Red Mountain most carefully through the compass bars. “Distance, about seven miles in an air line, I should judge. What do you think, Nick?”

Baderoon, to their right, gave a grunt and shot his stout bow. The arrow soared down the slope and into a thick aloe clump on the edge of the jungle. A little black man rose out of it and fell over backward.

“Good shot, Baderoon!” commented Nicky, admiringly. There was no better archer, or fighter, either, than their Papuan “black boy!” Nicky squinted across at Red Mountain, shimmering in the distance.

“Seven, or nearly eight miles, I should say,” he pronounced, judgmatically.

An arrow sprung from a rock about seventy yards down the slope as he spoke. It came nosing up to them and fell just in front.

Nicky sighted the spot with his Officer’s Model. “Here’s where I scintillate!” he laughed. “This old six-gun’s at her best at long range. Save your shells, Mr. Baldwin. I’ll get that bird!”

Another arrow soared overhead, coming from the west. Then the curator gave a low exclamation.

“Look, Nick! There goes another signal fire, far to the south. We’ll have all pygmy land around us in another day!”

The revolver barked at that instant, and a puff of dust flew out from the side of the rock behind which a hill man lay concealed.

“Scared him to death, anyhow!” joked Nicky, turning to look at the new fire.

“We’re surrounded, all right, except on the east, and we can’t hold off a whole army of them,” said the curator. “We’ve got two impossible things to do, as I see it--get in to Red Mountain and bring off some specimens and then make our escape from the country.”

“Fat chance!” grunted Nicky, cheerfully, firing his revolver again.

The curator studied the prospect to the east, for there lay their only hope of escape. The terrific geological fault that had made the Great Precipice was nearly buried on that side by the outpourings from their volcano when it had been active, but the lava swept down to the precipice edge in a frightful slope, where it ended abruptly. Blue distance beyond it told of a considerable drop; how much could not be conjectured.

The arrows were coming more thickly, now. It seemed that at least twenty of the little hill men lay concealed in among the bowlders below them, and the occasional pop of Dwight’s automatic told that more of them had come up on his side also. Only to the east was there a free passage, but no man could live on that slope. Nicky and Baderoon were both busy, and once in a while they would get one of the pygmies, exposing himself recklessly in some crawl to a nearer point of vantage. The curator borrowed Nicky’s alcohol cook kit and went down below the rim of the crater to a little rocky ledge inside on the brink of its deep bore. Here he set about making a mulligan for the party, for it was now long past high noon. He shook his half-empty canteen after filling the soup tin.

“Water running low!” he muttered, uneasily. “We’ve got to get out of this to-night! It’s up to me to do a scout down to the precipice brink this afternoon, sometime.”

A perfect fusillade of shots, and a yell for help from Dwight’s side, caused him to jump to his feet hastily and rush for that side of the crater. Putting his head cautiously over the brink, he instantly whipped out his air gun, for a long black line of pygmies was charging up the slope, each man behind his shield, the yellow blades of their bamboo knives sticking up over their shoulders. Sadok’s sumpitan was powerless against them, and Dwight was frantically shoving a fresh clip into the butt of his automatic. Then a shell from the air gun whistled on its way, and its explosion burst in a riving crash over the center of the black line. Dwight opened fire and those on the right flank began to fall back, while Sadok, no longer able to contain himself, dashed down the slope at the survivors of the left flank. He flung himself at them with whirling parang as bamboo knives flashed out, and in another instant he was in the center of a whirlwind of flashing knives. The parang-ihlang sheared through their shields like paper, for Sadok was a star swordsman. Five to one, he was getting the best of them, when the white flash of a keen bamboo knife cut him across the shoulder and he fell, guarding himself with the parang in his left hand.

Dwight’s bullets flew like hail, while the curator dashed down the slope, armed only with Sadok’s abandoned sumpitan spear. In a second he found himself facing the shields of the two pygmy survivors, who circled him with ready knives. They were as light as feathers, but so keen that a single cut would sever off a head, the curator knew; also that he was a mere dub with that spear! Standing over Sadok, he stood them off with the spear point, while the little black men danced and feinted around him, watching their chance. He had counted on Dwight following him, but a quick patter of shots from the crater came to his ears, telling that they were busy at something urgent up there, too. Then Sadok staggered to his feet.

“Shoot, _Orang_!” he gasped, hoarsely. In a flash the curator divined his meaning. The sumpitan held a dart! He raised it suddenly to his lips and blew the missile full into the face of the pygmy opposite him. The other dashed in, to be met by the flash of Sadok’s parang, which sheared the bamboo knife aimed at the curator like a straw. Defenseless, he turned and ran for the jungle, while the other pygmy fell in a limp heap before him.

With Sadok leaning heavily on him, weak from loss of blood, the curator crawled slowly up the slope. Another arrow came singing out of the jungle and sailed close over their heads. With a curse of rage, he turned and shelled the spot with his air gun. A crackle of fire followed the detonation. The dry thicket seemed to leap into red flame, set afire by the shell, and clouds of white smoke swept up the slope after them. Meanwhile a heavy sputtering of pistol shots came from over the crater brim. Acting on a sudden impulse, the curator bore off to the east and dropped Sadok behind some bowlders near the rim of the precipice. Then he crawled down carefully from rock to rock, looking up anxiously over his shoulder at the summit, for they were evidently hard pressed up there. The yawning abyss fell away below him as he came to the edge and looked over. Below was the green jungle of no-man’s land, the vegetation creeping up the lava talus part way, where it was finally stopped by lack of moisture and soil. From the brink to the nearest point below was at least a hundred feet of sheer fall, and from there on down the slope was the limit angle of repose. Without a long rope there was no escape that way.

“Well,” said the curator to himself, after an examination, “of the two impossibilities, we’ll have to give up Red Mountain and try this! Eight miles through pygmy land, with them buzzing like hornets about us--good Lord!” he groaned. “Our report will have to go as it stands.”

A yell came from Dwight, up in the crater.

“Where are you, Mr. Baldwin?” it called. “We stood ’em off! Close call! Hurry up! they’re getting ready for another rush.”

“Bring everything and come on down here!” he yelled back. “Now’s your chance.”

Presently Dwight, Nicky, and Baderoon came creeping over the brink on the north side. They slid down the slope on their backs and flung themselves among the first large bowlders. The jungle to the north was now a crackling mass of fire, driven on by the west monsoon, while a fog of smoke covered that side. Behind it lay the pygmies, unable to pass, and they were safe for the present from that quarter. But how soon a rush would be made from the west and south they could not tell. The curator crept back and brought Sadok from where he lay hidden in the bowlders. Bandaging the gash on his right shoulder as swiftly as he could, he got their party together on the precipice brink and each man contributed whatever he had that would go toward making a rope. The boys’ two tent ropes, the curator’s hammock rope, and Sadok’s turban cloth were knotted together hastily. Then came the curator’s hammock and the two tent flies. Tying the upper end to a gnarly ironwood bush that grew near the brink, they let it all down over the cliff, where the lower end dangled far below, still some twenty feet above the slope.

“Won’t do!” said the curator, grimly, hauling it up again. “A man’s got to land there on his feet or he’ll never escape pitching on down that steep slope. Quick, now, all your belts, boys!” They were added on and the rope lowered again. Shouts and yells came from the summit. At least forty of the little men were up there, singing and dancing with victory around the crater.

“Well, I’m off!” said Nicky, who was the most fearless climber of them all. He shook hands abruptly and swung over the brink.

X

CINNABAR MOUNTAIN

A chorus of shouts arose from the pygmies as they discovered the little knot of whites clustered on the precipice brink. Brandishing their weapons, they climbed on down, shooting as they ran. The curator stopped them with a shell that shook the mountain side like an earthquake and sent a shower of stones rolling down upon their own position. A yell came up from below. Nicky had arrived on the slope and was stamping a shelf in the lava stones, sending showers of them rolling on down below him. Dwight grabbed the rope and went down after him, leaving his automatic with the curator. The hill men were now sneaking down toward them, exposing themselves only occasionally to the sumpitan and pistol.

“Good-by, _Orang-kaya_!” said Baderoon, fumbling next at the rope. “Me prenty ’fraid--but me go!” He swung himself over and dropped down swiftly.

“You next, Sadok. Can you manage it?” said the curator, anxiously. The Dyak smiled grimly; wounds, weakness, physical disability, were nothing when the spirit commanded. His fearless face showed that his mind could overrule the frailties of his body.

“Me do!” he grunted, and down over the cliff he went, his wounded right arm forced to do its part. The curator turned and faced the pygmies.

“Fine little men!” he grinned. “Some day you will be swept away like chaff--but here’s one explorer who can appreciate you! Good-by!”

He swung over and dropped down the rope, hand over hand. The men of that old, old race, centuries before the first Papuan came to these shores, were still in his mind as he descended. He regretted that he could not have lived with them peacefully and studied their natures more thoroughly. The ancient civilization of the hunting tribes was theirs, and with it a mental quality that had kept them inviolate among their hills in spite of a ring of hostile Papuan savages below them, far superior in stature and numbers to all their tribes put together. Like most of the real aborigines of the world, they would well repay study.

When he arrived at the foot of the rope the rest of the party had tramped quite a trail along the foot of the cliff. Stones that now showered over from above told them that it was essential to get to the jungle as quickly as possible, and the shortest way was obviously along the cliff base and over the turn of the volcanic cone poured down here by former eruptions.