the house of the Red Bone chief. A flash lit up Rand's face.

"So that is how I got my sore head. You struck me with your rifle butt.
That explains much. Before I became a wild beast I was shot in the head.
The bullet did not go through the skull. It struck me a terrible blow on
the crown. When I recovered consciousness I was not myself. I have never
been the same until--"

"Gee cripes!" exploded Tim. "That's it. I seen that same thing up home.
Bug Sullivan, it was. When he was a li'l' feller he tumbled downstairs
and hit his head, and for 'most ten years he was foolish. Then a brick
fell off a buildin' and landed on his bean. It knocked him for a gool,
but when he come out of it he was bright as a new dime. Looey, when ye
busted Rand with yer gun ye jarred somethin' loose inside, and now he's
good as any of us."

"By George! You're right!" cried the lieutenant. "Things like that do
happen. I've heard of them. Haven't you, Rod?"

McKay nodded.

"That is it," affirmed the Raposa. "I have not been insane. But much was
gone from me. My mind was a house full of closed doors which I could not
open. I knew who I was and why I was here, but I knew also that
something had happened to my brain; knew I was defective; believed I was
wanted for murder. So I could not go out. I could only stay here, prowl
the jungle, live the jungle life.

"Now that the closed doors have opened again, others have swung shut. I
cannot remember much of my wild-beast life here. Some things are clear.
Too clear. Torturings and horrible feasts. Perhaps I should be grateful
that some things are forgotten.

"But now my life up to the time I was shot is plain again. I talked with
a man who had traveled the Amazon and the Andes. I never had seen
either, and I was ripe for something new. A steamer was just sailing
south, and I got aboard in a hurry. No baggage but a suitcase and five
thousand dollars. I had traveled a good deal--Europe, Canada, Japan--and
always found that plenty of money was all a man needed. Thought it was
the same way here. I've learned better.

"I visited Rio--a few hours--and then came up along the coast and
inland. At Manaos I got into trouble. Went ashore and got to drinking
with two Germans. One of them--Schmidt--grew ugly and said a lot of
rotten things about the States. Tell me something, men--is the war over
and did our country get into it?"

"It is, and it did." And Knowlton outlined the epochal occurrences of
the world