line with it, which had been cut off about
shoulder-high from the ground. From the tip of this thin trunk dangled a
wide strip of bark. The savage, having indicated this, stood as if the
action of the device were perfectly clear.

"Too deep for me," admitted McKay, after a puzzled study of the tube and
the trunk. The others nodded agreement. Lourenco confessed to the Indian
the blindness of all.

Thereupon Tucu bent the sapling far over and released it. As it sprang
erect the bark strip slapped the end of the gun. Also, the watchers saw
something hitherto unnoticed--a thin, flexible vine attached to the top
of the thin stump. Lourenco's face showed understanding.

"See, comrades, this is it: The little tree is bent far down and held by
the long vine. The vine passes around a low branch, then up over other
limbs, and out across the path, where it is fastened to a root near the
ground. A man following the path breaks the vine. The little tree then
flies up and the bark sheet strikes the wide mouthpiece of the gun. The
air forced into that mouthpiece by the blow of the bark shoots the
little dart. The dart does not fly as hard as if blown by a man, but it
goes swiftly enough to pierce the skin of anything except a tapir. As
soon as the poison is in the blood the work is done."

"It sure is done," Knowlton echoed, thinking of the short distance
covered by the dead Peruvian after passing this spot. "Mighty ingenious
apparatus. These people are no fools, I'll say."

"You say rightly," Pedro muttered. Turning, they went out to the path,
looking askance at the thin death tube as they passed along it.

The scouting Mayorunas returned, having found nothing. Tucu resumed his
place at the head of the line. Without a backward glance at the body
sprawling in the trail at the rear, the column swung into its usual
gait.

The Americans, silent before, were silent again. They had looked for the
first time on the work of the Mayoruna traps; had observed the
cold-blooded way in which the Indiana handled the still form on the
ground; had visualized the forthcoming mutilation of that body and the
resultant cannibal rites. More vividly than ever before they realized
that these men and Monitaya himself were relentless creatures of the
jungle, and that, despite the present existent friendliness, there
yawned between them and their barbarous allies an impassable gulf.

For the moment the jungle itself seemed a poisonous green abyss of
c