after that."

"Yep. But intention and accomplishment are two different birds. Wonder
what these Mayorunas are fixing to do. Wish I could talk their
language."

"Tucu evidently left orders for them to get up at a certain time, but
why I don't know. We'd better let them alone."

The shadow line passed out upon the water, slipping by infinitesimal
gradations across its mirror surface. The Mayorunas had become quiet.
The whites waited in silent suspense for they knew not what. Far out in
the forest a jaguar gave his coughing roar at intervals. Little by
little the Red Bone men arose from their squat until they stood erect. A
tense stillness held both forces. And the shadows crawled on--on--and
reached the farther bank.

Then a Red Bone man shoved his head forward, squinting upstream as if he
had heard something move in the rank grass. He began to sneak softly in
that direction. At that moment, from the water's edge a little above the
camp, sounded a loud hiss.

Before the sound died a sudden thrum of bow cords filled the air. A
whisper of five-foot shafts speeding over the water--a rapid-fire series
of tiny impacts--a couple of short groans--the thumps of falling
bodies--and the Red Bone outpost was no more. Shot through and through
by the deadly war arrows of the Mayorunas, they were dead before they
struck the ground. And from the men of Monitaya sounded one short,
subdued "Hah!" of savage satisfaction.

Up from the ground where that hiss had sounded rose a tall figure which
waved its arms and danced about in impromptu signals. Then it ran for
the canoes. Out from the gloom upstream other figures took shape,
running fast for the same point. With one simultaneous movement Knowlton
and McKay seized the Raposa and rushed with him to the stream.

"Senhores!" sounded Pedro's voice, low but tense, across the water. "Be
ready!"

"Ready and waiting!" snapped McKay. "Who are those people. Your women?"

"_Si._ We are not discovered--"

Across his words smote a long shrill yell from the town.

"_Por Deus._ We _are_ discovered! Get our rifles, for the love of _Deus
Padre_."

He leaped into a canoe, drove it headlong across, and dived for the
_tambo_. Behind him the other figures dashed panting up to the landing.
Tucu's voice rasped in swift commands. The fugitives swarmed into other
dugouts. The Mayoruna men, still ignorant of the identity of these
people, but assured by Tucu's voice and manner that they were not
enem