Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/119

 man, we stole forth determined on gaining our freedom or else going to our deaths.

At the end of every mile we covered I put my ear to the ground and listened in, but there were no sounds of our being followed. After ten hours’ travel over trails that I knew I figured that we were nearer Jurutty than to the cannibal village. We kept right on and after another five hours my ground telegraph told me that human footsteps were coming and I knew it was a question of only a little time until the savages would overtake us.

When they were within arrow shot of us we each stood back of a tree on either side of the trail and as a squad of them came up unsuspectingly we blazed away at them with our revolvers and there were eight cannibal carcasses ready for the buzzards to pick.

When we reached the fezenda Bert came near to giving the buzzards still more pickings, for he mistook my companion and myself, with our long, unkempt hair and bare bodies, as brown as those of Indians, for a precious pair of cannibals and he took a couple of pot-shots at us.

After we had taken our baths and put on