Читать книгу Don Sturdy with the Big Snake Hunters or Lost in the Jungles of the Amazon - J. W. Duffield - Страница 3

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“Well, Don, I’ve fixed up the contract for those big snakes I hope to catch in Brazil,” said Captain Frank Sturdy to his nephew, Don, as he stopped at the door of the garage where the latter was overhauling the engine of his car.

“That’s bully, Uncle Frank!” exclaimed Don Sturdy, a lad of fourteen, unusually tall and strong for his age, as he dropped the spark plug he was grinding and came eagerly to the door. “I hadn’t any idea that you’d put the deal through so soon.”

“I didn’t myself, to tell the truth,” admitted the captain. “There’s usually a good deal of humming and hawing and backing and filling before the company comes to the point. Big bodies move slowly, you know. But several big orders from zoölogical gardens happened to come in at about the same time; consequently, they were ready and anxious to talk business. So we’ve signed on the dotted line, and all I’ve got to do is to get the snakes—that is,” he added, with a grin, “if the snakes don’t get me first.”

“They’ll have to be pretty lively to do that,” laughed Don. “But honest, Uncle Frank, that’s the best thing I’ve heard since Sitting Bull sat down. When do we start? I’m just crazy to be off.”

“Where do you get that ‘we’ stuff?” asked the captain quizzically.

“You don’t mean to say that you’re not going to take me along!” exclaimed Don, a look of alarm coming into his eyes.

“Of course I’ll take you along,” affirmed the captain. “I was just teasing you a bit. Though I’m free to admit that, on your account, I wish the trip were a little less dangerous. Hunting anacondas and boa constrictors is risky business, and capturing them alive is still more risky. I’ve got a right to take chances on my own life, but I feel uneasy about exposing you to such peril.”

“Don’t worry on my account,” said Don. “Look at the risks we took in the Sahara Desert. But we came through all right. But you haven’t told me yet when you’ll be ready to start.”

“I imagine that we can have all our preparations made in about two weeks—three at the outside,” answered Captain Sturdy thoughtfully. “There are a lot of loose ends connected with our last desert trip that have got to be attended to. Then, too, I have to buy a good deal for the outfit we’ll take along to Brazil. But I’ll make the fur fly from now on, for I’m quite as anxious to get down there as you are yourself, and you know why.”

“Yes, I know why,” said Don, as a great longing came into his eyes. “It’s in Brazil that we’ll have the best chance of finding my father and mother and sister Ruth, if they’re still alive.”

“They’re alive all right,” declared the captain heartily, more to reassure the heart-hungry lad than from profound conviction. “I’m sure from the story that Mr. Allison told us that they were rescued from the worst peril of the shipwreck and probably taken to Brazil. We’re on a warm trail now, and we’ll follow it to the end.”

“It was only last night that I dreamed of Ruth,” said Don, his voice a trifle husky. “It seemed as though I were in a jungle, and, looking through the trees, I saw her holding out her arms to me and calling me to hurry. I worked like mad to make my way through the brush to get to her, but when I got to the spot where I had seen her she had vanished. But I could still hear her voice calling me to hurry. I’m just sure that she’s alive.”

He turned away to conceal his emotion, for his pretty sister was inexpressibly dear to him.

“We’ll find them all if it’s in human power to do so,” affirmed the captain. “And Amos will be as keen as any of us.”

“Oh, is Uncle Amos going with us too?” asked Don delightedly.

“It would take a team of wild horses to hold him back,” laughed the captain. “He’d come anyway, but it just happens that business calls him in that direction too. He’s made arrangements to go to Brazil in the interests of a museum, and he’s also tied up with a drug company interested in certain specifics that are said to be obtainable in the wilds along the Amazon River. So we’ll all go together.”

“That’s splendid!” cried Don enthusiastically. “Now if we could only get Teddy to come along, we’d have the same party that we had on our Sahara trip.”

“It would be great,” agreed the captain. “Teddy’s a fine boy, and I’d like nothing better than to have him along. But the last time I saw Mr. Allison he said that Teddy would have to devote himself to school studies for some time to come to make up for what he lost while he was in Africa. So we’ll have to count Teddy out of it this time.”

Uncle and nephew talked for a few minutes longer, and then the captain left to attend to his correspondence. Don spent a little time finishing the work he was doing, and then went into the house to wash himself.

He was passing the living room door when he heard the shrill voice of Jennie Jenks, the maid of all work, in voluble conversation with Mrs. Roscoe, the housekeeper. He glanced in. Mrs. Roscoe, a pleasant, rather good-looking woman, was sitting in a rocking chair. Jennie stood by a table, occasionally shifting a wad of chewing gum from one side of her mouth to the other, while she excitedly poured out her story.

“I tell you I heard it, as sure as I’m standin’ here, Mrs. Roscoe. I was comin’ in from hangin’ up the clothes, an’ as I passed the garage I heard the cap’n sayin’ to Mister Don that he was goin’ to get a lot of big snakes, Golcondas, I think it was he called ’em, an’ I want to say one thing and that ain’t two, that if he brings any of them big slimy things into this here house I’m goin’ to pack up and get out jest as sure as my name’s Jennie Jenks. I never could abide them horrid things, an’ it gives me the cold shivers even to think—”

Just then Don gave a loud hiss, and Jennie jumped so convulsively that she swallowed her gum and choked so that Mrs. Roscoe had to thump her on the back.

“Oh, Mister Don, what a start you did give me!” said Jennie reproachfully, as soon as she could get her breath.

“Never mind, Jennie, I’ll get you a new stick of gum,” said Don, with a grin.

“Wasn’t it the truth I was tellin’ Mrs. Roscoe about them Golcondas?” Jennie appealed to Don for corroboration.

“Call them anacondas and it’s the truth all right,” agreed Don. “We hope to bring home a lot of them.”

“Bring home!” shrieked Jennie. “Oh, the awful things! To have them crawlin’ around and likely enough step on them. I suppose the dratted things are as big as that old black snake that tried to climb into the buggy, when me and Dan Bixby was goin’ to the county fair?”

“Let’s see, that was about four feet long, wasn’t it?” asked Don casually.

“Dan killed the critter, an’ said it was all of five feet long when it was stretched out,” replied Jennie.

“Well,” said Don, “the Golcondas, as you call them, are sometimes twenty-five or thirty feet long.”

Jennie showed all the symptoms of having a fit.

“And as thick,” continued Don, casting his eyes around the room, “as one of those piano legs over there.”

“Heaven have mercy on us!” gasped Jennie.

“We might put them up in the attic,” teased Don. “They won’t be likely to bother you much. They sleep a good deal of the time, especially after they’ve eaten a whole goat or sheep. It would only be when they got real hungry again that they might roam over the house. Then, of course, they might snap you up if you got in the way. They could swallow you as easily as you swallowed the gum—more so, in fact, for they wouldn’t choke while they were doing it.”

Jennie by this time was almost past speech.

“Of course, you might have a chance even then,” Don went on, winking at Mrs. Roscoe. “You know the whale swallowed Jonah, and he came out again all right. It might be an interesting experience.”

“Now, Mister Don, quit your fooling,” admonished the good-natured housekeeper. “Jennie will be having hysterics if you keep this up.”

Don went up the broad staircase to his room, took a bath and replaced his overalls with his ordinary clothes. When he went downstairs he found his uncle standing by the window in the living room.

“Got anything special on hand, Don?” the captain asked.

“Nothing but what can wait,” was the answer. “Is there anything you want me to do for you?”

“I’d like to have you go over to Mr. Thompson’s for me, if you don’t mind. There are some business papers that I should like to have him sign.”

“I’ll be glad to go,” said Don, and he took the documents his uncle handed to him. “I’ve been working pretty hard on the car all morning, and I feel like taking a good walk.”

The boy started out at a brisk gait, rejoicing in the bright sunshine, which was all the more welcome because of the heavy rains which had fallen during the two days preceding. The air had been washed clean and was fresh and inspiring, the dust of the road had been laid, and the grass and foliage of the trees were a vivid green. It was one of the days when it is good to be alive.

About half a mile from the house ran a creek which abounded with fish, and where Don had spent many happy hours with rod and reel. It was not very deep, except in spots, and ordinarily ran along placidly.

But as Don neared it that day, he noted that it had become a raging torrent. The heavy rains had swollen it to an unusual height, and the water was rushing through the narrow channel like a millrace and with a roar like that of an angry beast.

An exclamation of surprise broke from the lips of the youth.

“Never saw it as bad as that before,” he said to himself. “There must have been a cloudburst up in the mountains. I’d hate to be in it at this minute. No one could fight against that current.”

He hurried on to look at the unusual spectacle.

The path that he had been traveling ran almost parallel with the course of the stream, and he had only a few rods to go before he was on the bank of the angry torrent.

A little distance upstream a huge tree trunk bridged the creek, which at that point was about twenty feet wide. It was frequently used by the people of the vicinity as a convenient method of getting from one side to the other, for the nearest real bridge was more than half a mile below. Don himself had often crossed by way of the tree in the course of his fishing excursions.

He was glad that he did not have to cross it that day, for the spray had drenched it and made it exceedingly slippery. Ordinarily this condition would not have greatly mattered, for a fall would have meant little more than a wetting. But a fall into this welter of waves and foam—the boy shuddered a little as he thought of it.

Absorbed in watching the tumbling waters, Don had not noticed the approach of a boy and girl on the other side of the stream. Only when they were almost on the edge of the bank did his eyes catch sight of them.

The girl, he noticed, was pretty, with sparkling blue eyes, wavy brown hair and a graceful figure. But what immediately fixed his attention and stirred him to pity was the painfully crippled boy, who walked with difficulty by the aid of a crutch, dragging one leg behind him as though it were partly paralyzed.

“Poor fellow,” thought Don, as he tried to realize what it would mean to himself if he were so afflicted.

The pity he felt gave way almost instantly to a thrill of alarm, as the girl ran gayly forward and stepped on the slippery tree trunk, with the evident intention of crossing the creek.

“Emily! Emily, come back! You’ll fall!” cried her companion, hobbling toward the edge of the bank.

“Oh, no, I shan’t,” she called back, as she took a few more steps. “I’ve crossed it a hundred times before.”

“Please, please come back!” cried the crippled boy, in a tone frenzied with anxiety.

She was nearly a third of the way over by this time, but the urgency in her companion’s tone seemed to swerve her from her purpose, and she turned to go back. In turning her foot slipped, and the next instant she had fallen into the raging waters.

A cry of anguish rose from her companion as he saw her disappear, and he dragged himself forward frantically with the evident design of plunging after her, though in his condition he could render no help and would almost certainly have himself been drowned.

“Wait!” shouted Don, who had thrown off his coat and was racing to the spot.

“Oh, save her!” cried the boy. “She’s my sister! Save her!”

“I’ll try to!” cried Don, and plunged headlong into the torrent.