on
of the subchief was in command and that the strangers seemed friendly.
Yuara spoke, briefly but authoritatively, and the weapons sank. Then,
with a word to his three companions, he ducked through the doorway. The
other three remained where they were.

"We shall have to wait now, comrades, until Yuara tells his father and
the chief about us," Lourenco said. "So let us take off our packs and
rest."

He set the example by laying his rifle on the ground, unslinging his
pack, squatting beside it, and coolly rolling a cigarette. Apparently he
was paying no attention whatever to the savages, who watched his every
move. But McKay, glancing at him as he followed suit, saw that, for all
his seeming unconcern, the Brazilian bush rover was keenly watchful and
that his gun lay within reach of his hand.

From within the tribal house sounded the monotonous voice of Yuara.
After listening a moment Lourenco quietly addressed the nearest warrior.
A slightly surprised looked passed over the cannibal's face. He replied,
and a slow conversation ensued.

Meanwhile the others looked over the array of savage fighting men.
Except for difference of stature, build, and expression, they were as
like as brothers. All were light skinned--hardly darker than the
river-tanned whites themselves; all had straight-set eyes, with no hint
of the slant often found among the Indians of the Amazon headwaters; and
the cheek bones of all were fairly low. Their average stature was a
little under six feet, and most of them had an athletic symmetry of
physique. Their feet, McKay noticed, were small and shapely.

All wore tall feather headdresses of parrot and mutum plumes. All had
the scarlet and black rings around the eyes, the streaks from temple to
chin, the wavy design on their bodies. And each wore in the cartilage of
his nose a pair of small feathers slanting outward. At another time and
under other circumstances the white men might have smiled at those nose
feathers, which resembled odd mustaches; but as they studied the austere
faces around them they found no occasion for merriment. Nor was the
tension lessened by the sight of the weapons grasped in the strong hands
of the warriors.

Great bows and arrows, such as the hunters had borne, were supplemented
here by the long clubs of heavy wood and by ugly spears. The clubs
terminated in balls studded with jaguar teeth. The spears were triple
pronged, each prong ending in a saw-toothed araya bone and