allowing himself to smile. Then he laughed.

"Do not fear," he said. "My heart is still my own."

"Same here. Specially when I remember these females would grin jest the
same if them club swingers had spattered our brains all over the front
yard awhile back. But I wisht sombody'd give the girls a nightie or
somethin' to wear. I been around some and I seen quite a lot, but I
ain't used to bein' vamped by a bunch of undressed kids with goo-goo
eyes the size of a plate o' fish balls. I'm only a bashful country kid
from N'Yawk."

"Live and learn," chuckled Pedro. "And clothes really have nothing to do
with modesty."

"True for ye. Clothes is mostly a disguise, anyhow, specially with
women, and an awful expense, besides. These guys are lucky, I'll say;
they 'ain't got to buy their wives no fur coats or silk stockin's or
nothin'. All the same, I got all I can do to hold me face straight when
I see these li'l owl-eyes givin' us the glad look. I'd oughter stayed
back in Remate de Males, where a feller can wink at a woman without
gittin' all his pardners massacreed."

"Perhaps it would not be fatal, now that we are guests of the chief. But
it is best to take no chances."

"Safety first. That's us. Grin at one of 'em and another might git sore
because she missed out, and first thing ye know ye've started somethin'
without meanin' to. Let's look at somethin' harmless--one o' them
poisoned spears, f'r instance."

At that moment Monitaya and Lourenco both arose, the chief to inspect in
person the progress of the arrangements for the feast, the bushman to
return to his companions with additional news.

"Monitaya tells me," he said, "that his people have lost girls in other
ways than by the murderous attacks of the gunmen. A number of young
women who have gone into the bush near their _malocas_ to get urucu and
genipapa, which they use to make the red and black body dyes, have
disappeared. So have several who went to the creeks for their daily
baths. Warriors who tried to trail them have found the footprints of a
few men, but always lost them at water. The girls had been taken away in
canoes. Even this tribe of Monitaya, which never has been attacked by
night raiders because it is too strong, has not been safe from these
stealthy woman stealings by daylight. Three girls have been taken from
here within the past two moons, and others have disappeared from other
_malocas_."

"Hm! And Schwandorf hasn't been here recently," sai