hrust the boat with
poles.

"Did you hear what old Shaddy said?" Rob whispered to his companion.

"Yes. We shall have to look out then and have our guns ready."

"But have the Indians guns?"

"No, spears and blowpipes, through which they send poisoned arrows."

"Ugh!" ejaculated Rob uneasily.

"Horrid things! Shaddy has often told me about them," said Joe.

"What has he often told you about, my lad?"

The boys started, for the old sailor had approached them unheard.

"Indians' blowpipes," said Joe.

"Ah, yes; they're not nice things, my lads. Can't say as I would like
to be killed by one of their arrows."

"Why?" said Rob. "What are they like?"

"Stop a moment, my lad, and I'll tell you."

He left them to give some instructions to the men as to the use of their
poles, but returned directly.

"Know what we're doing now?" he said, with one of his dry quaint smiles
on his weather-beaten face.

"Yes, going up this river."

"Right, my lad! But we're going upstairs like. You'll see we shall
keep on rowing along smooth stretches where the water seems easy; then
we shall come to rapids and have to pole on against a swift rush of
water, and every time we get to the top of the rapid into smooth water
we shall have gone up one of my water steps, and so by degrees get right
up into the mountains."

"Why are we going up into the mountains? Is it to get back to the main
river?" said Rob.

"Wait a bit, my lad, and you'll see. Besides, Mr Brazier'll get plants
up here such as he never saw before. But you were talking about the
Indians and their blowpipes. I don't mind the blowpipes; it's the
arrows."

"Poisonous?"

"Horrid, my lad. They're only little bits of things with a tuff of
cotton at one end and the wood at the other sharpened into a point, but
they dip it into poison, and just before they shoot it out of the
blowpipe they hold it nipped between the jaws of one of those little
sharp-toothed piranis, then give it a bit of a twirl with their fingers,
and the teeth saw it nearly through."

"What's the use of that?" asked Rob.

"Makes it so that the arrow breaks off and leaves the point in the
wound. Anything don't live very long with one of those points left in
its skin."

"Think we shall meet any Indians, Shaddy?" said Joe.

"Maybe yes, my lad; maybe no. You never know. They come and go like
wild beasts--tigers, lions, and such-like."

"Do you think my lion will follow us, Shaddy?"