ting artificial respiration. After
four hours of this the mule came to life and stayed alive--though he was
a wreck for a year afterward.

"I just put all these together, made the Indian do his own
breathing--and here he is. I'm going to sit up awhile longer and watch
him, but the critical period is over. You chaps can turn in."

But none turned in until midnight, when no doubt remained that
Lourenco's prophecy would come true--that Yuara would live to draw bow
again. Then, when the slashed arm had been thoroughly cleansed and
bound, Lourenco spoke once more to the savages.

"The medicine of the wise white man and the air spirits have saved Yuara
from the death demon. Yuara has fought as a man of his tribe should
fight, and so has lived when he would have died. To-morrow Yuara shall
once more see his people, the first man of the Mayorunas to come back
from the death of poison. And he and his comrades shall tell of the
white man's wisdom, without which he now would lie cold on the ground."

"So shall it be," Yuara himself faintly answered. "Yuara, son of Rana,
second chief of the men of Suba, will not forget."

"_Por Deus!_" exclaimed Lourenco. "Comrades, this man is no common
hunter, but son of a subchief. Capitao, you have done good work to-day."

CHAPTER XV.

THE CANNIBALS

Through the long, dim shadows of early morning the little column passed
on the last leg of its journey to the _maloca_ of Suba, chief of this
outlying tribe of the Mayorunas. At its head marched Yuara, his left arm
incased in bandages, his face drawn and pallid, his stride stiff and
springless, but still carrying his weapons and stoically setting the
pace as befitted the son of a subchief. He had had no sleep; he had lain
in the gates of death; his arm ached cruelly; yet a warm glow shone in
his hollow eyes as he reflected on the fact that in all the unwritten
history of his people he was the first man to survive the inexorable
power of the wurali. As long as he lived this fact would lift him above
the level of all his fellows. Even the chief could not boast of such a
superhuman feat.

The undergrowth this morning was not so thick as it had been, and the
machetes of Lourenco and Pedro stayed in their sheaths. The ground, too,
was more level and the footing more firm. After some three hours of
walking the Americans found that they had come into a faint path.

Somewhat to the bewilderment of the white men, who expected the Indians