Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/236

 "And while I was in the dumps Santos announced that the psychological moment had arrived at which to invade the Blue Hen Valley. The low, clear-cut cornices of the Blue Hen Mountains showed off to the right, and as the land separating us from them was an open plateau carpeted with a short, tough grass, Tib decided we should leave the winding river and cut straight across country.

"Santos promised that he would pick us up two weeks from date, on his way back from Jauca; and wringing his hand we packed up some fodder and trinkets and left him. We had no guns, as we had come to dig and run, not fight.

"Well, for three days we tramped steadily towards the mountains. On the morning of the fourth day the trouble began. Tib said he was tired of preserved meat and was going to bag one of the water-fowl that we found everywhere in great numbers.

"‘I never saw a blue hen before, but they must be good eating,' he remarked, as he drove a rock into a flock and downed one.

"As he did this there was a fearful howl, and a cloud of long reed arrows hurtled by us. Before we had time to clinch our nerve we were surrounded by twenty fierce-faced gentlemen, dressed carelessly in bone necklaces, bone ornaments, and girdles of red toucan feathers. They were further adorned with blue clay plastered about their flat mouths, and with