ee through this
darkness. McKay was visible enough to his own party, but not to the
enemy. The blond man in the hammock watched the somber figure of his
comrade, followed the flight of a big firefly whose light floated near,
thought of the two bushmen out in the dark, and looked again at the
still form of Rand.

"Drifters all," he soliloquized. "The fireflies and Rod and Tim and I
and those Brazilian dare-devils--all floating around because we can't
keep still, and never getting anywhere. And you, you silly-ass Rand,
have a mint waiting for you up home, and we have to come find you and
lead you up there and shove your nose into it. And if you get your
brains back you'll be a nine days' wonder and a hero of the jungle and
all that, and the girls will all tumble over you--because you've got a
couple of millions in your sock. And we fellows who yanked you out of
hell by the left hind leg can pocket our pay and go jump off the dock,
for all anybody cares. Ho-hum! All the same, I'd rather be me than you,
old thing. Free to drift and able to handle myself. You can have the
money and the moths that hang around it."

With which he yawned, squinted again at the sinister figure squatting
out yonder in the moonshine, arose, and made himself useful. Working
very quietly, he took down three of the hammocks, rolled them up, laid
them at the corner nearest the creek; made up the packs by sense of
touch and placed them and the rifles of the absent pair in the same
place. Then he lifted the Raposa from the one remaining hammock, laid
him on the packs, rolled up the hammock itself, and put it under the
unconscious man's head. If given time when the crisis came, he meant to
save all equipment. If not, Rand lay where he could be grabbed without
delay.

Before he completed the work he became aware that the Mayorunas all were
awake. Not only awake, but moving stealthily about, as Lourenco had
predicted. McKay also knew it and stepped back into the hut, where
Knowlton told him what he had done. But so softly did the men of
Monitaya move that the Red Bone watchers showed no sign of alarm. Both
the Americans observed, however, that the cannibals across the stream
had their heads together and that occasionally one looked up at the
little moon.

"Get that, Rod? They're waiting for the shadows to crawl over there and
cover them and the water. They know that then we can't see what they're
up to. I'm betting they intend to pull some dirty work