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 concessions along the Beni and Mamore rivers. He and his pa were too well known as big traders to drive profitable bargains, he explained, but he figured that a brace of comely Americanos, fondly expected to die at any moment of malaria, could work many an economical riffle. The possibilities in rubber were vast, he purred, and for every caoutchouc-tree snared, Tib and I were to receive one-fifth of the profits.

"So we left the amiable States in his dark-complexioned company, little recking of the Purple Friday in store for us, and little appreciating that the simple, man-eating speculators on the Beni were yelping along a bourse as yet not awakened into activity. Our first stop was at Para, where we met the old man Santos, and with him went over the whole game.

"It didn't look very good to me after I'd learned the Beni is nine hundred miles long and navigable for half its length, but Santos had a tip the Bolivian government intended chasing along the rivers with narrow-gauge, baby railroads, and he exploded in a set-piece of verbal pyrotechnics that concessions salted now would soon see us all ennuied with gold.

"‘We for the Bolivianos, Billy,' sparkled Tib, his rotund form expanding. 'We'll garn the bough while the rubber fruit is ripe. Santos says he'll loan us his body-servant, Wogo; which being trans-