"A hundred miles in a week!" groaned Ned. "Say, Tom, if you had your aeroplane we"d be there in an hour."
"Yes, but we haven"t it. However, we"re in no great rush."
"But we must not lose time," said Professor b.u.mper. "I shall consider your offer," he added to Val Jacinto.
"Very good, Senor. I am sure you will be pleased with the humble service I may offer you, and my charges will be small. Adios," and he bowed himself away.
"What do you think of him?" asked Ned, as they went up to their rooms in the hotel, or rather one large room, containing several beds.
"He"s a pretty slick article," said Mr. Damon. "Bless my check-book!
but he spotted us at once, in spite of our secrecy."
"I guess these guide purveyors are trained for that sort of thing,"
observed the scientist. "I know my friends have often spoken of having had the same experience. However, I shall ask my friend, who is in business here, about this Val Jacinto, and if I find him all right we may engage him."
Inquiries next morning brought the information, from the head of a rubber exporting firm with whom the professor was acquainted, that the Spaniard was regularly engaged in transporting parties into the interior, and was considered efficient, careful and as honest as possible, considering the men he engaged as workers.
"So we have decided to engage you," Professor b.u.mper informed Val Jacinto the afternoon following the meeting.
"I am more than pleased, Senor. I shall take you into the wilds of Honduras. At your service!" and he bowed low.
"Humph! I don"t just like the way our friend Val says that," observed Tom to Ned a little later. "I"d have been better pleased if he had said he"d guide us into the wilds and out again."
If Tom could have seen the crafty smile on the face of the Spaniard as the man left the hotel, the young inventor might have felt even less confidence in the guide.
CHAPTER X
IN THE WILDS
"All aboard! Step lively now! This boat makes no stops this side of Boston!" cried Ned Newton gaily, as he got into one of the several tree canoes provided for the transportation of the party up the Chamelecon river, for the first stage of their journey into the wilds of Honduras.
"All aboard! This reminds me of my old camping days, Tom."
It brought those days back, in a measure, to Tom also. For there were a number of canoes filled with the goods of the party, while the members themselves occupied a larger one with their personal baggage.
Strong, half-naked Indian paddlers were in charge of the canoes which were of st.u.r.dy construction and light draft, since the river, like most tropical streams, was of uncertain depths, choked here and there with sand bars or tropical growths.
Finding that Val Jacinto was regularly engaged in the business of taking explorers and mine prospectors into the interior, Professor b.u.mper had engaged the man. He seemed to be efficient. At the promised time he had the canoes and paddlers on hand and the goods safely stowed away while one big craft was fitted up as comfortably as possible for the men of the party.
As Ned remarked, it did look like a camping party, for in the canoes were tents, cooking utensils and, most important, mosquito canopies of heavy netting.
The insect pests of Honduras, as in all tropical countries, are annoying and dangerous. Therefore it was imperative to sleep under mosquito netting.
On the advice of Val Jacinto, who was to accompany them, the travelers were to go up the river about fifty miles. This was as far as it would be convenient to use the canoes, the guide told Tom and his friends, and from there on the trip to the Copan valley would be made on the backs of mules, which would carry most of the baggage and equipment.
The heavier portions would be transported in ox-carts.
As Professor b.u.mper expected to do considerable excavating in order to locate the buried city, or cities, as the case might be, he had to contract for a number of Indian diggers and laborers. These could be hired in Copan, it was said.
The plan, therefore, was to travel by canoes during the less heated parts of the day, and tie up at night, making camp on sh.o.r.e in the net-protected tents. As for the Indians, they did not seem to mind the bites of the insects. They sometimes made a smudge fire, Val Jacinto had said, but that was all.
"Well, we haven"t seen anything of Beecher and his friends," remarked the young inventor as they were about to start.
"No, he doesn"t seem to have arrived," agreed Professor b.u.mper. "We"ll get ahead of him, and so much the better.
"Well, are we all ready to start?" he continued, as he looked over the little flotilla which carried his party and his goods.
"The sooner the better!" cried Tom, and Ned fancied his chum was unusually eager.
"I guess he wants to make good before Beecher gets the chance to show Mary Nestor what he can do," thought Ned. "Tom sure is after that idol of gold."
"You may start, Senor Jacinto," said the professor, and the guide called something in Indian dialect to the rowers. Lines were cast off and the boats moved out into the stream under the influence of the st.u.r.dy paddlers.
"Well, this isn"t so bad," observed Ned, as he made himself comfortable in his canoe. "How about it, Tom?"
"Oh, no. But this is only the beginning."
A canopy had been arranged over their boat to keep off the scorching rays of the sun. The boat containing the exploring party and Val Jacinto took the lead, the baggage craft following. At the place where it flowed into the bay on which Puerto Cortes was built, the stream was wide and deep.
The guide called something to the Indians, who increased their stroke.
"I tell them to pull hard and that at the end of the day"s journey they will have much rest and refreshment," he translated to Professor b.u.mper and the others.
"Bless my ham sandwich, but they"ll need plenty of some sort of refreshment," said Mr. Damon, with a sigh. "I never knew it to be so hot."
"Don"t complain yet," advised Tom, with a laugh. "The worst is yet to come."
It really was not unpleasant traveling, aside from the heat. And they had expected that, coming as they had to a tropical land. But, as Tom said, what lay before them might be worse.
In a little while they had left behind them all signs of civilization.
The river narrowed and flowed sluggishly between the banks which were luxuriant with tropical growth. Now and then some lonely Indian hut could be seen, and occasionally a craft propelled by a man who was trying to gain a meager living from the rubber forest which hemmed in the stream on either side.
As the canoe containing the men was paddled along, there floated down beside it what seemed to be a big, rough log.
"I wonder if that is mahogany," remarked Mr. Damon, reaching over to touch it. "Mahogany is one of the most valuable woods of Honduras, and if this is a log of that nature----
"Bless my watch chain!" he suddenly cried. "It"s alive!"
And the "log" was indeed so, for there was a sudden flash of white teeth, a long red opening showed, and then came a click as an immense alligator, having opened and closed his mouth, sank out of sight in a swirl of water.
Mr. Damon drew back so suddenly that he tilted the canoe, and the black paddlers looked around wonderingly.
"Alligator," explained Jacinto succinctly, in their tongue.
"Ugh!" they grunted.
"Bless my--bless my----" hesitated Mr. Damon, and for one of the very few times in his life his language failed him.