Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/84

  "Then one day a few of them came in and said that they had trapped a maipuri—a kind of water-tapir—over on the other bank. I took a few men and went over to superintend the skinning of the beast, and while so engaged two of the Indians came rushing up to say that a small steamer was coming up the river.

"It turned out to be a little gunboat. Shortly after we left Bolivar there had been one of the semi-annual revolutions, and the new governor of the district, knowing that I had gone up the river, had come up to see what could be made out of me. The matter could have been arranged peaceably enough had it not been for Frederick. On sighting the steamer the fool had promptly armed the boat crews, and when the people from the gunboat landed near the camp they were confronted by an array of twenty half-caste Caribs, armed with bored-out Springfields, and about two-score of Indians, gorgeously equipped with opera hats and spectacles, [ 68 ]