CHAPTER XXI

THE LONE MESSENGER

“Look out!” exclaimed Blake, as he saw the bird sentinels fly from the back of the big beast.

“What is it?” asked Joe, who was working the camera.

“He’ll be coming this way soon if he happens to see us. He’s getting uneasy now that the birds are gone.”

Joe, who had been looking at the mechanism of the moving picture machine, glanced over toward the rhino. The huge creature did indeed seem to be getting restless.

He stopped feeding and began sniffing the air, at the same time peering about with his little pig-like eyes. The birds were circling about, seemingly in an endeavor to locate the enemy they had sensed. Whether or not they would locate them our heroes did not know. They were fairly well screened amid some bushes, but this would offer no barrier to the rush of the rhinoceros.

With the birds gone the rhino knew something was wrong and it began casting about to discover it, either by the sense of smell or his sharp hearing. But the wind carried from him to the boys, consequently he did not get their odor, nor did the slight clicking of the machine carry to him.

With a puzzled “woof” and his peculiar whistling grunt the big beast finally moved off into the depths of the jungle, crashing his way through the underbrush. The tick birds followed as if satisfied that their walking restaurant had done the right thing.

“There he goes,” said Blake, with a sigh of relief, for they had brought no guns with them and were some distance from the river camp.

“Yes, we got some good pictures and without any danger,” observed Joe. “Well, shall we get back?”

“Might as well, I guess,” agreed his chum, and they took to the trail again, a deserted elephant path through the fastness of the jungle affording good footing.

On their way back they had rather a curious experience. They had often read of the honey bird, but had not yet seen one, and when a little feathered creature began circling about them, uttering a peculiar note and seeming to be urging them to follow, Joe said:

“That must be a honey bird, Blake.”

“I believe it is. Let’s trace it and see if we can pick out a honey tree. Maybe that story about it is all bosh.”

But it was not, as they soon found. The bird flew on ahead of them, perching in one tree after another until it had led them about half a mile. Then, alighting on the limb of a gum tree, it stayed there, calling shrilly.

“The bees must be near here,” observed Joe. They looked around and, finally attracted by the buzzing of some insects, they located the bees’ nest in a hollow tree.

Building a fire, which they caused to smoke heavily by piling damp leaves on it, they had soon routed most of the bees, and then with a small hatchet they had with them they managed to chop out a portion of good wild honey, some of which they took back to camp with them.

“And where does the honey bird come in?” asked Joe.

“There he is now, eating the bees and grubs,” said Blake, pointing to the wise little creature which had been joined by others like it. They were having a great feast, and indeed it seems that the bird does lead men to the nest of bees in order that it may get what otherwise it could not--a share of the sweet stuff and the succulent larvæ.

The honey formed a welcome addition to their meal. The rafts were completed now, and the next day the expedition started down the river, the pack animals having been left behind.

The trip down the stream was interesting. There was not so much life to be seen as there was in the jungle, but there were any number of crocodiles--big ones that seemed at first to be mere floating logs, but which soon came to life when the raft passed. A number of pictures were made of the unprepossessing saurians and, once or twice, great hippopotami came so close that it seemed they were going to attack the rafts. But the big boats were too solid to cause any fear in regard to them, and Joe and Blake filmed the huge creatures as they swam alongside, often with their mouths open to their widest extent.

The progress was not fast, but it was much easier than traveling through the jungle. There were no bundles to carry, and the blacks seemed to appreciate this.

All day long they stretched out on the rafts, improvising their queer chants and songs, now poleing the craft out from the shore when the current carried them too far in, or keeping out from rapids they might run upon.

At times a halt would be made to enable game to be shot, for it was necessary to keep the party in meat, and it all had to be killed fresh in that equatorial climate.

They had been four days going down the river and were beginning to wonder when they would come near the location of the kidnapping natives. Mr. Duncan was beginning to get more and more worried as he approached what he hoped would prove to be the place where his daughter was held captive.

“Oh, if Jessie is only alive and unharmed!” he exclaimed, “everything else will be all right.”

“Of course she’ll be,” declared C. C. Piper, who had only once or twice relapsed into his former gloomy moods. “Of course she’ll be all right and we’ll soon find her.”

“We’ll have to send out a scouting party soon,” declared Sergeant Hotchkiss.

“Why?” Joe wanted to know.

“Because we don’t want to come upon that native camp unexpectedly. We don’t want to rush into danger. There may be a big crowd of ’em and if we can take ’em unawares we’ll have so much the better chance to rout ’em. Yes, we must soon send out a scouting party.”

“Can Joe and I go?” asked Blake, eagerly.

“Hum! Well, I suppose so,” was the former soldier’s answer. “But we’ll need some native guides, too.”

They had moored the rafts to the river bank that evening, for they did not want to chance running down the stream in the dark, and were just making a camp when Blake, who was looking across the water, called out:

“Here comes the biggest crocodile I’ve seen yet. Get a gun, C. C., and have a pop at him. Maybe we could take the skin home for a souvenir.”

They all looked to where he pointed. In the gathering dusk they could see some object coming up stream. It did seem larger and higher out of the water than crocodiles usually swim. The motion, too, was different.

“Crocodile!” cried Sergeant Hotchkiss, when he had taken a glimpse of it. “That’s no crocodile.”

“What is it, then?” asked Blake, curiously.

“A native in a dugout canoe,” was the answer. “It’s a solitary native and it’s strange, too, seeing him all alone.”

“He’s seen us and he’s going to turn back,” put in Joe.

Then Happy One, the leader of the blacks, called out something in his native tongue. There was a moment of silence and back floated an answer across the stream.

“What does he say?” asked Mr. Duncan.

“Happy One assured him that we were friends,” translated the sergeant; “and asked who he was and where he was going.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he was a messenger going for help for some captives.”

“Help for some captives!” cried Blake. “Maybe he can tell us something about those we are after!”

Sergeant Hotchkiss started in surprise, and then shouted something to Happy One, who immediately set up a great shouting. The lone messenger in the canoe, that was hollowed out of a solid tree trunk, hesitated a moment and then waved his paddle.