ight by the swiftly moving canoes. But now, recognizing the signs
of exhaustion, he realized that without some powerful spur the Indians
would not attempt to reach the home _malocas_ until the morrow.

Then the spur came. Even as Tucu began scanning the shores for a good
camp site, he and every other Mayoruna suddenly ceased paddling and
threw up his head. Faint and far, a xylophonic call of beaten wooden
bars rapped across the jungle, rising and falling in swift, regular
cadence--a sirenical flow and ebb of sound waves. Over and over it
undulated, rapid, incessant, imperative.

A chorus of excited grunts broke from the canoe brigade. The dugout of
Tucu leaped away like a roweled horse. Lourenco and Pedro buried their
paddles in mighty strokes, hurling their boat ahead to keep from being
run down by those behind.

Lourenco barked at Tucu, who flung back an answer.

"Paddle hard, Capitao! If we do not keep up we shall be wrecked. That
message is the war call of the Mayorunas--calling in the hunters from
the forest to take arms against an enemy. We must race now with these
madmen around us, or we go under. Paddle!"

CHAPTER XXIII.

STRATEGY

In the last light of the fast-fading day the canoes darted from the
forest into the clearing where stood the Monitaya _malocas_.

Long before their arrival the siren call had ceased, but there had been
no lessening of speed by the racing dugouts. On the contrary, the last
long mile had been covered in a final desperate spurt, the paddles
swinging in swift unison to the accompaniment of a ferocious chant of
one syllable: "Hough! Hough! Hough!" This explosive cadence had echoed
down the stream ahead of them; and now, as the panting crews emerged
from the jungle, they found themselves flanked by a long line of their
fellow-warriors, bristling with drawn arrows and ready spear points. But
of the enemy whose presence that great xylophone had betokened there was
no sign.

At sight of the familiar feather bonnets of their own men the tense
Monitayans let their weapons slowly sink. And when Tucu, leaping ashore,
gaspingly demanded news of the fight, the line dissolved into a mob
which rushed to welcome him and his mates. In the first few breaths it
was learned that no fight had yet taken place, but that all the warriors
had been brought in and ordered to prepare to march at the next sunrise;
and that the sudden war call had been sent out as the result of the
arrival of a st