The Monmouth inquirer., 1925-03-19
Beyond the Amazon

mTNDIANsY" repeated the captain.
We'll, now, as to real wild In
dams, l never truly saw n in the
United States. Most Of the tales you
boys have heard about Indians are
more than half pure nonsense, any
way.
but, come to think about 1t, 1 did
run afoul of some wild Indians once.
Way south of here 1t was; in fact,
right on the rim of the equator. The
strange part is that once you came to
know those wild Indians you saw that
they were much the same as the civil
iized folks you had lived with all your
life. The big differences lay in
clothes and ornaments and externaIs.
up around the headwaters of the
Amazon is not a healthy place for a
white man to wander. Death turks
everywhere. 1t buzzes at him in the
form of poisonous stinging insects. 1t
leaps at him from trees in the shape
of giant cats. 1t crawls silently on
him upon its belly in the guise OF
mighty, bone-crushing serpents. The
danger from savage Indians is all more
or less incidental. Yet white men go
there-and some come back to tell
of it.
Our party vas purely a CONNER
cial one, which may explain why we
won through where many others had
failed. We minded our own business
and didn't bother the native Indians
or try to pry into their affairs. In
response to our attitude for the most
part they let us go our ways in peace.
AS time went on we found much rub
Der and got a lot of it out and started
on its way down stream.
AT the junction IF two big rivers
we built a ~storehouse. 1t was made
Of mahogany logs. The bottom part
was designed to be a sort of block
house and the second floor was the
storeroom. We never expected to.
need the blockhouse. 1t was a sort
of emergency affair. But n never
knows what is going to happen.
1T was like this: There was a big,
red-haired boy in our crew, one of
those clean, strengthening chaps with
whom women and girls the world over
are prone to fall in love. Up n
branch of the river lived Old Chief
Feather Buster. He was so called on
account of the odd way in which he
combed his long, straight hair. The
chief had many wives and many
daughters. There was one of his
daughters in particular who was the
very queen of beauty in the chiefs
eyes. This daughter Of his saw our
%red-haired boy just once. The next
thing we knew she had left her home
and was camped in one Of the mud
huts which were built in the open
place outside our blockhouse door.
THE r~ed-haired boy didn't know
what to do about the chiefs daughter.
The chief didn't know what to do
about the boy. The daughter didn't
know what to do next, so she just
stayed in the mud hut and waited. 1t
was enough for her that she could be
near her idol.
Then the fireworks started, liter
ally. The chief tried to burn our
storehouse by shooting flaming ar
rows into the roof. The cl~ose4grained
mahogany logs failed to catch fire.
Then he declared out-and-out war.
Two parties of our rubber-bearers
were waylaid and slaughtered BY
the promise of some rich plumber he
got several of our friendly neighbour
ing tribes to join hands with him in
.n offnoI- ~ fho hIAaIyhnrC0 Tho
whole thing was so well planned and
carried out so secretly that one night,
before we knew that anything out of
the way was on foot the whole army
of Indians was on us. The worst of it
was that several traitors among the
natives right in our own ranks had
to be fought while we were driving off
the main body of the savages who at
tackled us from the front of the in
closure.
1T was a good fight. Quick and
sharp, a few killed, some wounded.
Then quiet. In front of our door
someone groaned. l ventured out to
see who it might be. Shot through
and through with an arrow lay the
chiefs daughter. Even as l leaned
over her she drew a great, sobbing
breath and then lay still, quite dead.
"In the morning word was sent to
Chief Feather Buster. He came and
mourned. When l invited him to come
into the ~blockhouse to talk things
over he sent back word: My heart is
stone. / fight no more for the length
of two moons. Then beware
"Since there was not much to be
won from further fighting, we shipped
such stores as We're ON hand to a new
station farther up the rlver-and
shortly after that l was taken i'll with