Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/212

 the rowers to right-wheel, the Bug breathed a prayer to the river-god, swore he was a Christian, and in a lugubrious chant told how the ha-ha of merry laughter had been lost in the shuffle for us, for all time. Our rowers, five brawny Moxos, as brave as lions when facing nothing larger than a messenger-boy, also lost a modicum of their interest, and on the first night after we dodged the Marmore aimlessly wandered away, not forgetting to take one of the boats.

"Wogo barked in despair when, on the morrow, Tib seized a paddle, passed a chaste resolution on the future of the deserters, and turned the remaining prow up-stream, while I recited 'Excelsior.' The Bug didn't care to leave us and encounter Santos's displeasure, but to cheer us on our way he recited unwholesome tales about the people of that section. They were the Caripuna Indians, crude hunter-folk, he babbled. He said their name meant 'Watermen,' and that for amiability the average alligator had them blushing over their deficit. I shuddered in private, but Tib laughed and promised the first palm-roofed malocca should see us gayly and safely bartering with the aborigines.

"‘It will remind you, Billy, of pictures of William Penn shaking down the natives under the Charter Oak,' he bubbled.

"But as the first streak of the gray morning revealed streamers of white mist to our sleepy eyes,