should be tapping trees
instead of loafing here. But my partner and I have just come in from a
long trip into the _sertao_--wilderness--and are resting."

"Yeah? Was that yer buddy I seen with ye?"

"My--ah--buddee? Partner? Yes, that was he--Lourenco Moraes, the best
comrade one ever had. He has gone to tell the coronel of your arrival.
Have you met with an accident downriver?"

He moved a thumb meaningly toward the only remaining member of the crew.

"Yeah," grimly. "Bad accident."

Tim tapped his pistol significently, raised five fingers, winked, and
twitched his head toward the Peruvian. Pedro lifted his brows, nodded
quick understanding, pointed to the bad arm of Jose, and made motions as
if pulling a trigger. Tim shook his head and enacted the pantomime of
drawing and throwing a knife. Whereat the Brazilian, aware that Jose was
not a prisoner and probably knowing that North Americans were not knife
throwers, looked much puzzled. But their sign manual went no farther,
for they now approached the house which evidently formed the dwelling
and office of Coronel Nunes.

At the foot of the ladder stood a broad-shouldered, square-jawed,
thick-muscled, deeply tanned man, who, without speaking, pointed a thumb
upward. Above, in the doorway, waited an elderly Brazilian of medium
height and spare figure, standing with soldierly erectness and garbed in
white duck of semimilitary cut. He beamed down at McKay and Knowlton,
but as his black eyes encountered those of Jose they seemed suddenly to
become very sharp. Then his gaze rested on Tim's broad face and he
smiled again.

"Enter, gentlemen," he invited. "_Esta casa e a suas ordenes_--this
house is at your disposal."

McKay, with a bow, climbed the ladder, followed by Knowlton. Jose, with
a swaggering stare at the wide-shouldered man, who stared straight back
without facial change, also went up. Tim came fourth and last, for Pedro
stopped beside his countryman, who evidently was Lourenco.

The travelers found themselves in a room which, in view of its distance
from civilization, seemed palatial. Its floor was tight, its furniture
modern, its walls decorated with a few excellent pictures, of which the
largest was a superb view of the rugged harbor of Rio de Janeiro.
Comfortable chairs were ranged along the walls, and the middle of the
room was occupied by a massive square-cornered table on which lay a
jumble of hand-written business papers, a number of books, a high-