true, but sufficient, given
fair weather and reasonable good fortune, to bring her to a civilized
settlement in the Straits. Why, then, should they yield to gloom?

"Isn't that glorious news?" he cried. "Now, Christobal, that motor
trip in June through the Pyrenees looks feasible once more. And you,
Miss Maxwell, though you have never quailed for an instant, can hope to
be in England in the spring. As for you, Tollemache, surely you will
say that our prospects are 'fair,' at the least."

"I would say more than that if it were not for these poisonous
Indians," replied Tollemache. "Here they come now, a whole canoe load
of 'em. I have never seen such rotters."

And, indeed, Francisco Suarez, detailed to keep watch and ward over the
ship until noon, ran up the companion and cried excitedly:

"Four head men have just put off from Otter Creek. They have missed
me, I expect. They will want me to go back. I beseech you, senor
captain, not to give me up to them, but rather to send a bullet through
my miserable heart."

"Tell him to calm himself," said Courtenay, coolly, when Christobal had
translated this flow of guttural Spanish. "He has no cause to fear
them now; let him nerve himself, and show a bold front. A palaver is
the best thing that can happen. We must display all the arms we
possess. Bid any of your invalids who can stand upright show
themselves, Christobal. We must lift you outside, Boyle. Bring your
camera, Miss Maxwell. If we could give these fellows a good picture of
themselves it would scare them to death."

The captain of the _Kansas_ was not to be repressed that day. He
refused to look at the dark side of things. He even found cause for
congratulation in the threatened visit of cannibals whom Suarez feared
so greatly that he preferred death to the chance of returning to them,
although they had spared his life.

And Courtenay infected them all with his splendid optimism. It was
with curiosity rather than dread that they watched the rapid approach
of the canoe and its almost naked occupants.

CHAPTER XI

CONFIDENCES

Courtenay was mistaken in thinking that the savages sought a parley.
The canoe was paddled by two women; they changed its course with a
dexterous twist of the blades when within a cable's length of the ship,
and then circled slowly round her. The four men jabbered in
astonishingly loud voices. Suarez, who gathered the purport of their
talk, explained that they