Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/71

  "I had my outfit towed up as far as Ciudad Bolivar," Leyden continued. "There I found a German named Meyers, who had a big trading station. He told me in confidence that he was planning to call in his loans, as far as he was able, and leave the country, as the rapacity of the new government made it impossible to carry on a profitable trade. He was a man of about fifty, unmarried, and had lived at least half of his life on the river.

"It happened that my lieutenant, a young German-American named Lefferts, had contracted the fever on the way up the river. He was the son of an old friend of mine in New York, and I had promised to take care of him. You have had some experience in tropical malaria, Doctor. Or perhaps it is not malaria; at any rate, one dies in rather an indecent hurry, and quinine is about as efficient as so much flour. I sent the lad back on the steamer and asked Meyers if he knew of any one with whom to replace him—a white man, of course, as it is always well to [ 55 ]