y would insure certain death at the hands of these people
who seemed to be all around them.

Jared Long had so little faith in the usefulness of the servant Quincal
as sentinel, that he arranged to place the least dependence possible on
him. With no supposition that any danger was likely to come from the
woods behind them, he sent the fellow a short distance back,
instructing him to keep his ears and eyes open, since if he failed to
do so, some wild animal was likely to devour him.

In crossing the Xingu below the falls, the rapid current had swept the
canoe downward, so that it lay against the bank at a point fully two
hundred yards below. It was here that the American stationed himself,
standing, like Fred Ashman, just far enough from the water to be
shrouded in the slight but increasing shadow made as the moon slowly
worked over and beyond the zenith.

Looking across to the other shore, he could discern nothing upon which
to hang a suspicion; but the first thing, perhaps trifling in itself,
which attracted notice, was the unusual quantity of driftwood which
appeared to be coming through the rapids and floating past.

As has been stated, in such a wooded country as the Matto Grasso there
was always more or less of this, and Long had taken a critical survey
of the rapids and noted the stuff which went plunging and dancing
through them. Now, however, he was sure there was an increase, and a
good deal of it consisted of large trees and logs, which must have been
brought down by some cause more than ordinary.

Had there been anything else to occupy his attention, the fact would
have escaped him, but the sentinel who is alive to his duty, notes
little things, even when they seem to have no bearing on the great
subject which engages all his energies.

It was a long way from the camp to the source of the Xingu, and in such
a vast country as Brazil, there might have been a violent storm raging
at that moment above and below them without the least evidence, so far
as they could see, around them. Like all countries, that portion of
empire is ravaged at times by fierce hurricanes and cyclones, which
might have uprooted scores of trees and flung them into the waters
which were now bearing them toward the Amazon and the broad Atlantic.

The sentinel naturally gave his chief attention to the other side of
the Xingu, where so many stirring scenes had taken place that afternoon
and evening. The camp-fire, which had been l