The Ocean Wireless Boys on the Pacific

The town was soon left behind and they struck into a trail which was broad and well trodden. On all sides were dense groves of tropical vegetation, towering palms, spreading mangoes laden with golden fruit, that ever-present banana and fragrant guava and lemon trees. From the tall lance-wood and cotton trees great creepers and lianas, looking like serpents, twined and coiled. There was a moist, steaming heat in the air.

“It’s just like being in a big conservatory at home,” said Jack, and indeed the air had just the odor and closeness of a glass-house.

“This is fever territory,” declared Mr. Jukes, administering a large dose of quinine to himself. “There is to be no sleeping on the ground, remember.”

“I guess not, after the experience we had in our room at the hotel last night,” said Raynor, and amidst much laughter he narrated the details of their uncomfortable night.

As they pushed onward, there came from the river, which glinted like molten lead in the sunshine at their left, a long-drawn cry which startled all the white members of the expedition. It resembled the human voice and appeared to be the appeal of someone in agony.

“Shure there’s some poor soul in throuble over yonder forninst the river,” declared Muldoon, and before any one could stop him he had left the trail and was making for the water.

“Hi you white man, you comee back,” cried Salloo.

But he was too late. Hardly had Muldoon left the trail than he sank up to his knees in black, oozy mud which held him like liquid glue.

His struggles only made matters worse, and soon he was up to his knees in the evil-smelling, glutinous mass which bubbled about him as it sucked him down.

“Help! Murther! Shure, O’im kilt intirely!” cried the frightened man, waving his arms frantically.

CHAPTER XXIII. – A DANGEROUS TREE

All this time, from the river, came the same weird cries that had mystified them. What with these cries and Muldoon’s lusty yells for help, had there been an enemy within a mile they must have heard them, but luckily they were in a territory known to be peaceable, although Salloo was not quite so sure of some of the tribes who had a bad reputation as “head hunters.”

“He’s stuck in the mud!” exclaimed Jack, and was starting forward to Muldoon’s assistance when Salloo grabbed his arm.

“No go,” he warned, “him mud velly bad. Make drown in mud plitty quick no get helpee.”

The native began making his way by a circuitous route toward the luckless Muldoon. In his hand he had a long rope. He leaped from tuft to tuft of the hummocks that appeared above the black soil. As soon as he got close enough to Muldoon he threw the struggling boatswain the end of the line, which Muldoon had presence of mind enough to place under his arm-pits. Then Salloo skipped nimbly back to the trail and all laying hold with a will they soon hauled Muldoon out of his disagreeable predicament, although he was a sorry sight to look at.

“But faith,” he exclaimed, “it’s glad enough I am to know O’im not dead intirely. A little mud will soon dry and clean off, begob.”

“Tropical places are full of just such treacherous swamps,” declared Captain Sparhawk. “It will be well for all of us to be very careful and not leave the trail except by Salloo’s advice.”

But now the strange wailing sound which they had for the moment forgotten in the excitement of Muldoon’s rescue again startled them. The cause of it was quickly explained by Salloo.

“Him dugong, allee samee sea-cow,” he said.

“Oh, I know now – like the manitou they have in Florida,” cried Jack.

“Me no know 'bout man or two,” said Salloo, “but him big an’mul. Live in river. Makee noise like heap cryee allee timee.”

“It sounds as if somebody was being murdered,” commented Raynor. “However, I guess we’re not the first people to be scared by the dinner-gong, or whatever you call it.”

The halt for the noon-day meal was made in a pleasant grove of tropical trees which stood on safe rising ground to one side of the trail. All the white members of the party were glad enough of the chance to take a rest, but the wiry natives appeared to be perfectly fresh and strong as when they set out, despite their heavy burdens. While the natives began cooking their rice and salted fish, with a sort of curry sauce, Salloo set about making a fire for the whites. With marvelous dexterity he twirled a stick between his outspread hands against some dry tinder and soon had a good blaze going. The boys scattered to get wood, of which they soon had a sufficient quantity. Then, determined to make the most of their halt, they flung themselves down under a peculiarly fine tree with wide, dark green leaves, glossy as polished leather.

They were chatting about the incidents of the trip so far when Jack all at once felt something strike him on the arm. His first impression was that it was a stone. But on looking at the place where he had been struck he saw that the sleeve of his shirt, for he had laid aside his khaki coat, had been ripped in parallel lines as if a curry comb, with sharp teeth, had been drawn down it. He felt a sharp pain moreover, and then he saw blood on his arm.

Billy had sprung up in alarm at his sharp exclamation of pain, and was peering into the brush in the dread of seeing savage faces peering at them. His shout of alarm brought them all, including Salloo, on the run to Jack’s side. The boy explained what had occurred and the faces of the whites grew grave. If they were attacked at this early stage of the journey it augured ill for the remainder of their adventure.

But Salloo speedily solved the mystery. Lying on the ground beside Jack was a green, oval-shaped ball, about the size of those projectiles that one sees stacked by memorial cannons in our country. But this missile was covered with sharp spikes like the spines of a hedgehog. Salloo pointed up into the beautiful tree under which they had cast themselves down to rest.

“Nobody throw him,” he explained, “him big fruit, some callum Durion nut. You comee way from there. One hittee you headee your blains getee knocked out.”

“They deserve to be for getting up a scare like that,” laughed Jack, who, like Billy, stepped hastily from under the dangerous tree. “It seems to be a pretty good idea in this country to be always on the look out. Even nature seems to have it in for you.”

Jack’s arm was doctored by Captain Sparhawk, for it was quite painful, but luckily the spines of the durion, sometimes called the Jack fruit, are not poisonous and it was soon all right again. But during the noon-day meal, which was then ready, when they heard the crashing of nut after nut from the durion tree, both boys felt they had had a very lucky escape from having their skulls fractured.

“Be jabers,” commented Muldoon, “shure o’ive been in a hurricane where the blocks and tackle that was ripped from aloft made yez skip around loively to dodge thim, but this is the first toime thot iver I heard of a three throwing things at yez as if ye was a nigger dodger at a fair.”

“You’ll discover stranger things than that, Muldoon, before we have been very long in New Guinea,” said Captain Sparhawk.

“Faith, so long as they’re not snakes, oi dunno thot I care much,” said the Irishman. “Begob, o’im thinking that St. Pathrick would be a good man to have along in a counthry where the craturs are. Wun wave uv his sthick and away they’d all go, bad luck to thim.”

CHAPTER XXIV. – WIRELESS AT WORK

For two days they traveled thus, making fresh discoveries constantly. Once, for instance, Billy triumphantly pounced on what seemed like a fine bit of fire-wood for the noon-day halt. But he dropped it with a yell, as the “stick” suddenly developed legs and on being dropped walked off.

“Begorrah, there’s a shillalegh come to loife, so it has,” yelled Muldoon, as he observed the phenomenon; but the “shillalegh” was only one of those strange “stick insects” that abound in that part of the world and sometimes fool even the natives.

At noon of the third day they found themselves approaching a settlement, as cleared ground, where grew maize, sugar cane, yams and other plants, testified. The village proved to be a large one where white traders and animal collectors often stopped and there was a native hostelry in it conducted by a greasy-looking Frenchman who had a native wife as dirty-looking as he was. The native huts were all of bamboo hung with cocoanut mats. Natives squatted in front of them chewing betel nuts, the juice crimsoning their lips and chins. All ages and both sexes indulged in the habit, which is universal throughout Polynesia and the South Seas generally.

There appeared to be a lot of rivalry among the men as to who could grow the fuzziest, most outstanding crop of hair.

“Faith, a barber would starve to death in this country,” declared Muldoon.

Just then a young woman came down the “street,” if such the muddy track between the huts could be called. She held something in her arms that they thought at first was a baby. But it turned out to be a young pig!

“We’ll rest at the hotel here,” said Mr. Jukes, “till it grows cooler. My dyspepsia is bad again. It comes from traveling during the heat of the day as we have been doing.”

The mid-day meal was cooked on a sort of altar built of stones. The boys watched the operations in this open-air kitchen with interest. At least twenty natives assisted in the culinary demonstration and the chatter and laughter was deafening. They made a hearty meal on the native fare, which they were astonished to find was quite as good as anything they had tasted at home.

As Mr. Jukes did not wish to go forward at once after the meal they took it easy in several grass hammocks stretched under a large, shady, tree. The fact that the natives kept coming up and peering into their faces and that babies, chickens and pigs wandered about under the hammocks did not disturb the boys after a while, and they dropped off to sleep.

“I don’t wonder the natives here are lazy,” remarked Jack, when Muldoon awakened him with a yell of “All hands on deck to see it rain.” “I rarely slept in the day-time, but here I just dozed off without knowing it.”

“Same here,” chimed in Raynor. “I didn’t have to even half try.”

“This climate is very enervating, boys,” declared Captain Sparhawk, joining in the conversation. “That is why this part of the globe makes so little progress toward civilisation. Men who are hustlers in their own country come here determined to make the dirt fly, but after a few months their energy oozes out of them like – well, say like tar out of the seams of a hot ship’s deck.”

“That’s a good comparison,” laughed Jack.

Once more everything was stirring in the adventurers’ camp, and soon they were on their way again. The Frenchman, whose “hotel” they had left, had told them that by evening they would reach another village, the last one they would encounter before plunging into the really wild jungle, where there was another “hotel.”

“As it will be our last chance for many days to sleep under a roof, I propose we stay there to-night,” said Mr. Jukes, swallowing a pill.

This suited the rest of the party and they struck forward at a brisk pace after their refreshing rest and sleep. The jungle was filled with countless birds, but there were no feathered songsters among them. The air was filled with nothing but discordant shrieks and cries that set the teeth on edge. Once the boys had the thrill of seeing a bird of paradise, with its glorious plumage and wonderful tail feathers, flash across their path.

The village they stopped at that evening resembled in almost every respect the one in which the noon-day halt had been made. There were the same huts, the same swarming pigs and chickens, and the same fuzzy-headed Papuans, many of them returning from the fields with corn and yams.