ntral
figures as they walked, they also noticed that the pair of Mayorunas who
had been summoned were lame. One walked with a stiff knee, the other as
if a whole leg was paralyzed.

"Squad--halt!" muttered McKay. A step and a half and the four stood
aligned and alert, two strides from Monitaya.

The eyes of the chief dwelt long on McKay, and they were hard eyes.
Without shifting his gaze he grunted a few words. The two crippled
Indians stumped forward and stared into McKay's face. Through a long
minute the Americans felt a sinister tension grow in the air about them.
Then, slowly, the cripples turned about and faced their ruler. In the
tones of men sure of themselves, they spoke one word.

With the utterance of that word the tension broke. Through the long line
of watching tribesmen ran a murmur. The clubmen relaxed from their ready
poise. The subchiefs glanced at one another as if disappointed. And the
stern face of Monitaya himself was transformed by a wide, friendly
smile.

A sweeping gesture and the cordial timbre of the chief's voice told the
Americans plainly what Lourenco translated a moment later.

"We are welcome, comrades. We shall sleep in the _maloca_ of Monitaya
himself and a feast shall be made for us. Our lives have just hung on
one word, but now that the word is spoken we are safe. I cannot tell you
more now, for I do not wholly understand this matter myself as yet--but
I shall learn. Now is the time, Capitao to give presents, if you have
any for the chief."

"I have. But our packs are in the canoe, and I'll be hanged if I'll make
a beast of burden of myself at this stage of the game."

"I will have all the packs brought up, Capitao. The men of Suba took
them from us at their _maloca_; now they shall restore them before all
these people."

He addressed Monitaya affably, then spoke more brusquely to Yuara. That
young man, whose previous austerity now had dissolved into open
friendliness, uttered four words. Immediately his men returned to the
canoes and brought up not only the packs, but the rifles.

From his blanket roll McKay brought forth a cloth-wrapped package out of
which he drew a half-ax, its blade gleaming dully under a protective
coating of grease, which he swiftly swabbed off. From his haversack he
produced a heavy chain of ruby-red beads. Under the bright sun the beads
glowed like living things, and the glittering steel flashed back a
dazzling beam. The two gifts together had cost c