THE morning after his arrival at the hacienda, Dr. Bracken was astir bright and early. After drinking a cup of coffee and declining all items of breakfast which the obsequious butler suggested, he lighted a black stogie and strolled outdoors. The sun was rising with a blaze of glory, swiftly dissipating the mists that hung over the river, and promising an exceptionally warm day.
As the doctor made his way toward the huts where his Indians were quartered, he caught sight of a familiar figure standing on the dock and gazing out over the river—Captain Santos. He immediately turned his steps in that direction.
Santos looked around as a board creaked beneath the doctor’s tread.
“Ah, good morning, captain!” greeted the doctor. “Up early, I see.”
“Si. Eet was no use to stay in bed. I could not sleep wan weenk all night. I ’ave fall een love to beat hal’. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, for theenk about that keed.”
“The best thing you can do,” said the doctor, “is to snap out of it muy pronto, and work with me. Now—how many of our Indians can we trust with this work, provided they are well paid?”
Santos grinned. “We can trust any of them—eef well paid.”
“Then here’s the plan: We have thirty Indians, all told. I gather that this wild boy is somewhere in the jungles to the south of here. I think I know where to find him and how to capture him. After he is caught, I must have a place to keep him until I am ready to bring him here.
“So we’ll split into three searching parties. We’ll allot ten men to Trevor, and let him go to the north, where he’ll be quite sure not to find Jan. You will take ten men and head east, while I go south with the other ten. Instead of Continuing east, however, you will circle southward until you strike my trail. I’ll wait for you at my first camp. Then I’ll show you where I want you to build my little prison. We’ll make a secret base camp on the spot, and we’ll take Jan there:
“Your plans, señor, are good for your own ends. What about mine?”
“I was coming to that. Once we get Jan we’ll see that a message from him reaches the girl, asking her to meet him at a certain place. She’ll go. Well have two Indians there to persuade her to go the rest of the way to our camp. If something goes wrong with our plans we’ll kill the Indians for attempted abduction. Their comrades will not know they have been paid to do this work, and dead men tell no tales.
“Señor,” said Santos, admiringly, “you ’ave wan damn’ good head. What you say, I do.”
“Good. Get your three parties organized, and I’ll go and fix things with Trevor.”
Dr. Bracken found the Trevors breakfasting with the don and doña. He outlined his plan to them, and all were in hearty accord with it. Don Fernando offered to take ten of his own men and search the country to the west, across the river, though Jan had never been known to hunt in that part of the jungle and that was agreed upon.
By ten o’clock the four bands were ready to march. Farewells were being said. The two, women were saying good-bye to their husbands, while the doctor and Ramona stood a little way off.
Suddenly, to Dr. Bracken’s surprise, she turned to him and said in a low voice:
“I’ll tell you something, doctor, if you will promise not to tell anyone.”
“Eh? Of course I’ll promise, señorita.”
She came closer. “It’s about Jan. I believe I can tell you where to find him. You see, my father and mother don’t know that he came to see me many times after he saved me from the puma. But I do so want you to find him and bring him back!”
“I’ll find him, never fear,” replied the doctor, “even if I have to devote my whole life to it. What was it you were going to say?”
“He told me,” said Ramona, “that he lived in a tree-hut, four days’ journey to the south. It is beside a deep pool that is beneath a waterfall. Your chimpanzee is there, also. That is all I know, but it may help.”
“It will help a lot,” the doctor assured her, “and I am deeply grateful to you for confiding in me. You may rest assured that your confidence has not been misplaced. And now the others are ready, so I will say good-bye.”
The doctor smiled grimly to himself as he led his band of Indians away. This was going to be easier than he had anticipated. In one of his packs was a case of hypodermic needle cartridges, such as he had used for capturing wild animals in Africa. After finding Jan’s tree, all he would need to do would be to camp near it, out of sight, and wait for the young man to appear. A “hypo” bullet in the arm or leg would put him to sleep for several hours. When he awakened he would be in the doctor’s power.
As for abducting Ramona, Dr. Bracken had no intention of carrying out this part of the bargain with his confederates. He could easily dispose of Santos in the jungle, and return to the hacienda with the report that the captain had been killed by a native’s blow-gun dart.
The doctor was in an excellent humor when, about an hour before sunset, he bade his Indians halt and make camp. He had finished his evening meal and lighted a stogie when Santos and his Indians marched into camp.
The two bands camped together that night, and together went forward on the following day, and for two days thereafter. Then, as night was drawing near, Dr. Bracken heard the roar of a waterfall. Bidding the Indians stop where they were and make camp, he took Santos forward with him. Before he left, he loaded his rifle with a hypo cartridge and ordered the captain to do the same.
They located the waterfall about a half mile away. Looking upward, the doctor, with a grin of triumph, saw Jan’s tree house.
“Wait here and keep out of sight,” ordered the doctor, “while I go forward to investigate. If the man or the ape shows up, shoot for an arm or leg.”
He handed the captain several extra hypo cartridges and walked over beneath Jan’s tree. Beneath it he found many nutshells, the dried remains of orange, pineapple and banana skins, and a number of gnawed bones. The appearance of these remains convinced him that neither Jan nor the ape had been in the tree for several months.
He accordingly laid his rifle on the grass, and climbed the tree. Perspiring in every pore and breathing heavily, he presently reached the lowest limb and drew himself up on it.
A single glance into the interior of the hut convinced him that it had not been used for some time. With great curiosity, he examined Jan’s collection of native weapons, ornaments, clothing and hides. Careful woodsman that he was, he looked also for evidence that would convince him beyond any doubt that this was Jan’s hut. With the aid of his flash light he found it, clinging to the bark of the tree trunk—chimpanzee hair, auburn hair, and the hair rubbed from the jaguar skin garments with which Borno had clothed both of them.
He was about to leave when he noticed something else—a piece of notebook paper projecting from beneath a badly cured jaguar skin. Quickly lifting the pelt, he saw many more pieces of paper and a stubby, much-chewed pencil. The papers were covered with pencil drawings, crude but showing marks of talent, and with much childish printing, all in capital letters. In it he found many names and descriptions of animals, both prehistoric and existing, evidently copied from natural histories. He also found the sentence written over and over: “Jan likes Ramona.”
Pocketing one of the papers and replacing the skin over the others, the doctor, quite satisfied with his discoveries, climbed down the tree once more. Picking up his rifle, he walked over to where Santos awaited him.
“I’ve found his lair,” he said. “Some day, if he is alive, he is sure to return to it. We’ll build a blind, here at the edge of the jungle, and post a good marksman in it night and day, with a rifle and plenty of hypo cartridges. While we’re waiting for the lad to return we can be building our cell and our permanent camp.”
“You are sure this ees the right place?”
“Positive. Look here.” The doctor extracted the folded note paper from his pocket and handed it to Santos.
“So! What ees this? A beeg bone-backed lizard weeth teeth on his back and horns on his tail. ‘Stegosaurus,’ eet say onderneath.”
“A prehistoric reptile,” said the doctor. “Jan must have copied it from one of Ramona’s books.”
“Mil demonios! You theenk he steal her book? Eet say here, too, ‘Jan likes Ramona.’ Carramba! I geeve him a real bullet if I catch him fool around her!”
“If you give him anything but a hypo bullet before I’m through with him, it will be just too bad for you,” warned the doctor, snatching the paper from his hand. “When I have finished with him you can chop him in little pieces, for all I care, but not before. Sabe?”
“Si, senior, I onderstand. But after that he better look out, I tal’ you.”
Darkness came on with the suddenness common to the tropics just as they got to camp, so nothing more could be done that day.
Early the next morning the doctor left minute instructions with Santos for the construction of the jail cell and permanent camp, and took two Indians with him to build the blind near the tree-hut.
Having finished the blind; the doctor left the two Indians on guard there, promising to send two more that night to relieve them. Each was armed with a rifle containing a hypo cartridge, and ordered to shoot only for the arm or leg.
A week later the permanent camp was completed. There was a cabin for the doctor and Santos, in one end of which a small room was partitioned off by means of stout wooden bars. This, the doctor called his cancel, or jail, and it was here that he intended to imprison Jan until he should be ready to take part in the terrible climax to his revenge which he head planned and toward which end his life, since the birth of the boy, had been devoted with a fervor worthy of a better cause.
There was also a bunk house and cook shack for the Indians.
But while all this was taking place, Santos was doing a certain amount of planning in the furtherance of his own ends. It was not necessary, he thought, to capture Jan in order to entice Ramona away from the hacienda. This could easily be done by sending her a short note imitating Jan’s writing.
Without broaching his plan to the doctor, whom he knew would frown on it because it might interfere with his own scheme, Santos took two of his Indians into his confidence, offering each an immense sum of money for his part in the crime. Soon it would be necessary to send some one back to the hacienda for supplies, and when this time came he meant to detail his two accomplices for the work.