me so far to see, was not there.

CHAPTER XXVIII

IN WHICH ARE RELATED SEVERAL DISAPPOINTMENTS

The attack on the encampment of the animal trappers had evidently been
made several days before. The fire had devastated the place. All the
animals in cages had been killed or released. And in the blackened ruins
and about the clearing, on the rocks, there lay the bodies of more than
a dozen Patagonians. Tugg showed real feeling when he saw these dead
men.

"Poor boys!" he muttered, standing leaning on his rifle and gazing upon
one fellow who was really a giant. "They was square, jest the same. Ye
see, they fought for the Professor and the traps. But them scoundrels
was too many for them."

It was a dreadful sight. I do not want to write about it. Nor do I wish
to give the particulars of our search of the neighborhood for some trace
of the single white man who had been in the vicinity--the man whom Tugg
called the Professor, but who was the Man of Mystery to me. We found a
place where a huge fire had been built beneath the trees. There was a
green liana hanging from a high limb and the end of the liana had been
tied around the ankles of a man. The feet shod in American made boots
were all of that victim of the savages' cruelty which had not been
burned to ashes.

"It's a way they have," whispered Tugg. "They start the poor feller
swinging like a pendulum, and every time he swings through the flames
he's burned a little more--and a little more----"

I turned sick with the horror of it. There was nothing more to do. Tugg
recognized his partner's boots. The savages had made their raid, burned
the camp, destroyed all they could, and done their best to wreck the Sea
Spell. There must have been one traitor among Tugg's men at the
encampment or the savages would not have known of the schooner's
approach. At least, I shall always believe so.

But when the balance of his Patagonians came in from the swamp where
they had hidden after the attack, the captain seemed to believe all
their stories, took them back into his confidence, and at once set to
work to repair the damage done by the up-river Indians.

I confess that I was desperately disappointed. And I felt depressed,
too, over the death of the mysterious Professor Vose, or Carver, or
whatever his name had been. I could not get rid of the thought that
perhaps the man had been my father. But I should never know now, I told
myself. Whether it were so, or not I need