“But I saw some hog tracks on that trail, and while the upheaval may have washed some of them away, and may have frightened the balance of them into cover, I’ll see what can be done.”
He built a fire, cut down a hardwood sapling, trimmed it into a pointed spear, hardened the point in the fire, Indian fashion, and grinned at his audience.
“Here’s where the hunting instinct comes in, and where the knowledge of reading trail I’ve picked up is going to help. You folks just promise me you’ll stay here. I’ll scout around. It’s pretty hard to go out in a strange country where there’s a heavy growth of brush and timber, and find your way back, unless you’re accustomed to it. So don’t leave the place.
“I’ll be back inside of a couple of hours, and I may have game.”
The girl promised to wait in camp. The scientist showed no disposition to leave. He was propped with his back against a stone, a pencil and notebook in his hands, jotting down impressions.
“And only put dry wood on that fire,” warned Phil.
“Why?” asked the girl.
“Wet wood makes a smoke.”
“But don’t we want to make a smoke? Shouldn’t we signal?”
Professor Parker favored her with a peculiar glance.
“To whom,” he asked, “did you contemplate sending a signal?”
And, as realization of their predicament thrust itself once more upon the girl’s consciousness, Phil softened the blow for her with a grin and a joking remark.
“I want to save the smoke to cure a ham I’m going to bring in,” and he swung the spear into position, and started up the slope, climbing steadily, yet stealthily.
He reached the summit of the peak within a matter of fifteen minutes, and was able to confirm his original impression that they were on an island. It was not over two miles broad, but seemed to stretch for eight or ten miles in a general easterly direction. It was a tumbled mass of jagged crests and Phil strongly suspected that what he was seeing as an island was merely the top of a high mountain range which had been entirely above water before the world had swung over in its change of poles.
He followed a game trail, saw fresh pig tracks, heard a rustle in the brush. A little darting streak of color rushed across the trail, and Phil flung his spear and missed.
He chuckled.
“Better have used a rope,” he said to himself, and went after his spear.
He had not yet reached it when he heard a deep-throated grunt behind him, the swift patter of hoofed feet on the trail. He sent a swift glance over his shoulder, and saw a wild boar, little eyes red with fury, curved tusks champing wickedly, charging at him. The boar was very high of shoulder, very heavy of neck, long of head and tusk. And it was savage beyond description.
Phil made one wild leap for his spear, caught it up, tried to whirl.
The boar was on him before he had a chance to swing the spear around so the sharpened end faced the charging animal. But he did manage to make a swift, vicious thrust with the butt end. The wood caught the animal flush on the tender end of the nose, deflected him in his charge, sent him rushing past, knocking the spear from Phil’s hand, throwing Phil, himself, off balance.
But Phil recovered, grabbed at the spear again, waited for the animal to turn.
The boar, however, seemed to have had enough. He swung from the path into the thick foliage and vanished from sight, although the branches continued to sway and crack for some seconds after Phil had lost sight of him.
Phil gripped the handle of his spear, surveyed a skinned knuckle, and grinned.
“Well,” he said to himself, “that’s the first lesson. Hang on to your weapons. That was a nice ham that went away, although he might have been a bit tough, at that.”
He was commencing to enjoy himself. Being out in the open, with nothing but his hands and a sharpened spear of hardwood with a fire hardened point, called for his knowledge of woodcraft, made him feel the thrill of the hunter.
He took careful marks so that he would have no difficulty in returning to the proper peak when he was ready to come back. Those landmarks were the significant ones which would have been overlooked by an amateur woodsman, yet which would be always visible from any direction.
Phil found himself surveying his clothes, wondering if the girl knew how to sew. It began to look as though they would be forced to make clothes of skins, fashion a shelter, cache away food.
He saw that there were some species of fruits on the trees, and suddenly remembered that he was hungry. The fruit looked edible, and Phil picked a tree which was not so large but what he could climb it, leaned his spear against the bole, and started up.
He reached the top, pulled off some of the fruit that was soft enough to eat, sliced away a thick, green skin, and found that the interior was pink, slightly acid, rather sweetish. There were seeds in the interior as in a cantaloupe, and Phil scraped out the seeds, cut away slices of the thick fruit, and devoured them eagerly.
But his stomach craved meat, and he realized that it was the part of wisdom to conserve his reserve rations. Therefore, the situation called for a kill of some sort. So he started to slide down the tree.
He had reached a point in the lower branches some ten feet from the trail, and directly above it, when a very slight motion in the shadows attracted his attention.
He froze into instant immobility.
No one but a woodsman would have seen that flicker of moving shadow within shadow, but Phil had trained his senses until they were as alert as those of a wild animal, and he not only saw the motion, but he sensed the menace of it with some subtle sixth sense which placed him on his stomach along the overhanging limb.
A moment later the motion became substance. A dark-skinned man, naked save for a breech cloth which was wrapped about his hips and middle, emerged into the sunlight which patched the trail.
Chapter 6
Jungle Death
Phil saw the woolly head, the wide nostrils through which a piece of white bone had been thrust. He saw, also, that the man’s eyes were on the ground, that he was following trail, and realized, with a sudden thrill, that the trail he was following was Phil’s own shoeprints in the loamy soil.
The man carried a bow in his hand, an arrow ready on the string. There was a quiver over his shoulder, and in this quiver were some dozen arrows, their feathered tips showing as bits of gaudy color against the darkness of the foliage covered mountainside.
There could be no mistaking the menace of the man’s approach. It was the approach of a killer stalking his kill, of a hunter crawling up on his prey.
The bare feet of the savage made no sound upon the trail. His advance was like the advance of a dark cloud sliding across the blue sky, ominous, silent, deadly.
Phil realized the danger to the girl and the scientist. Unversed in woodcraft, they would fall easy prey to such prowling savages. It became imperative for Phil to ascertain whether the man was alone or whether he was but the outpost of a large force, scouting up the slope.
And the quick eyes of the savage would soon see the telltale tracks leading to the tree, the rough spear which was thrust against the bole. Phil had no doubt the arrows in the quiver were tipped with a deadly poison. The man had but to fling up his bow, send an arrow winging to its mark, and Phil Bregg would be killed as swiftly and mercilessly as one shoots a puma down from a tree.
There was but one thing to do — to steal a page from the hunting tactics of the puma himself, and Phil flattened himself on the limb, tensed his muscles.