Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/111

 I believe that every message I ever sent had something in it about rubber, whether the body of it related to the doctor, medicines, or what not, for along the Amazon River they live and die by that commodity.

After we had been at Jurutty a few weeks Bert and I got so we knew the fezenda about as well as its owner did and we walked or rode about the place either alone or with Señor Castro for we made it a point for one or the other to be on duty all the time and so make a reputation for ourselves and for future United States operators who might happen that way.

I often thought, in my rambles, that I could feel the presence of some human being back of a tree, or see a human shadow come and go before I could really make it out, but as this happened very often I came to believe it was merely a case of nerves. I talked with Bert about it and he said he frequently heard and saw things too but that there was nothing more to it than a snake or an animal moving about.

“Señor Castro,” he said, “has told us this little yarn about cannibals so that we would keep inside the fezenda. There used to be tribes of cannibals in the interior but all that