ive away, old thick-skin! Dive deep as you will, I'll have your hide
yet!"

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

THE POISONED ARROWS.

The result of the tapir chase determined Guapo to have himself better
armed. There was one weapon--and a very efficient one too--which he
knew how both to make and use. That weapon was a "gravatana," or
blow-gun, sometimes called "pocuna." He had had an eye to this weapon
all along, and had already provided the materials necessary for making
it. These materials were of a varied character, and had cost him some
trouble in getting them together.

First, then, for the blow-tube itself he had cut stems of a slender
palm-tree,--a species of _Iriartea_, but not that sort already
described. It was the _Pashiuba miri_ of the Indians. This little palm
grows to the height of from twelve to twenty feet, and is never thicker
than a man's wrist. Its roots, like the others of its genus, rise above
the ground, but only a few inches. The sterns which Guapo had chosen
were of different sizes. One was about the thickness of the handle of a
garden-rake, while the other was not over the diameter of a
walking-cane. Both were hollow in the heart, or rather they contained
pith like the alder-tree, which when forced out left a smooth bore.

Having cut these stems to a length of about ten feet, and pushed out the
pith, Guapo inserted the smaller one into the bore of the larger, which
fitted tightly all the way--for he had chosen it of the proper thickness
to this end. The object of thus using two stems instead of one will
not, at first, be understood. It was for the purpose of making the tube
perfectly straight, as this is a most important consideration in the
gravatana. The outer and stronger stem corrected any bend that there
might be in the inner one, and they were carefully arranged so that the
one should straighten the other. Had it not been perfectly straight,
Guapo would have bound it to a post and made it so; but it happened to
come quite right without further trouble. The tube of the lesser one
was now cleaned out thoroughly, and polished by a little bunch of the
roots of a tree-fern, until it was as smooth and hard as ebony. A
mouthpiece of wood was placed at the smaller end of the tube, and a
sight was glued on the outside. This "sight" was the tooth of an
animal,--one of the long curving incisors of a rodent animal called the
"paca," which is found in most parts of tropical America. To make