off
breech bolts blended with the faint slither of arrows being swiftly
drawn from quivers. Eyes searched the bush, spying no enemy.

Two more steps, and Tucu stopped, head thrust forward, eyes boring into
something on the ground. The rest, taking care not to touch one
another's weapons, crowded around and looked down at the huddled form of
a man.

A matted mass of black hair, a neck burned copper brown by sun, tattered
cotton shirt and trousers, big, bare dirty feet, a rusty repeating rifle
of heavy caliber--these were what they saw first. The man lay straight,
his face in the dirt, his hands a little ahead as if he had been
crawling forward at the moment of death. Tucu turned him on his back,
revealing a blanched yellow-brown face which was proof positive of his
race.

"Peruvian," said Pedro.

"What got him?" demanded Knowlton. "No wound on him."

Lourenco questioned Tucu. The leader, who evidently knew just where to
look, tore open the thin shirt at the left side and pointed to a tiny
discoloration surrounding a red dot under the ribs. He muttered a few
laconic words.

"A blowgun trap," Lourenco explained. "The gun is set a little way
beyond here. This man, sneaking along the path, broke the little cord
which shot the gun. The poisoned dart struck in his side. He must have
pulled out the dart, but he could not go far before his legs became
paralyzed, and he fell. Then, still trying to crawl, he died."

Pedro picked up the dead man's gun and worked the lever. The weapon was
fully loaded and showed no sign of recent firing. Pedro coolly pumped it
empty, gathered up the blunt .44 cartridges, and pocketed them for his
own use.

Tucu watched the proceeding in satirical approval. Then, leaving the
body where it lay, he went stooping along the path ahead, his keen eyes
searching the undergrowth. In a few minutes he returned with the
blood-stained dart which, as Lourenco had guessed, the stricken prowler
had pulled from his flesh and dropped. This he passed to a blowgun man.
The latter carefully opened his poison pouch, redipped the point of the
dart, held it a moment to dry in a shaft of sunlight, and slipped it
into his dart case among a score of unused missiles.

"No waste of ammunition here," was McKay's dry comment. "What happens to
this corpse now?"

Through Lourenco's mouth Tucu answered.

"It will be left here until police warriors come from the _malocas_.
Certain men travel the paths daily to inspect