Despite the caution, we decided to take the path, figuring that Don Ramon would hardly return quite openly along the road, but would take the concealed way.
We found the path boggy and dark, and thick with mosquitoes. Fortunately, we had head-nets with us, so we were protected at the most vital points. The jungle got thicker as we went on, hedging in on the path, until we seemed to move between two solid walls of vegetation. Later we skirted a swamp and the trees grew thinner, although the ground vegetation was a greater tangle than ever. Finally we seemed to be leaving the river, since the ground became firmer and the trees more scattered, much like some of the open "parks" in Texas.
And then we saw white water ahead.
"Hello!" exclaimed Darrell, who was in advance. "That must be the Brazo! But how the deuce"
"Yes," said Arnheimer. "Apparently we have got onto the Peninsula-del Circulo!"
"The lair of the demon!" Darrell laughed. "Ha! We weren't going to look him up! But we're here after all!"
"We may find him," Lassignac cried excitedly, "and then!"
Janis smiled amiably. "And then we go right on. We're here to look for Don Ramon, remember! Let's strike back along the Peninsula and see if we can't find our path again. We must have lost it somewhere, I'm sure."
So we turned away from the rapids toward the neck of the Peninsula. As we went along we saw signs of clearing, of human activity. Camping spots, of course, where the boatmen and rafters had laid over.
Darrell, once more in the lead, suddenly stopped and pointed to something in the grass. "Connaughton's cap!" he exclaimed.
We crowded around him. There lay the cap, beside the path, as if carelessly dropped. We all recognized it at once.
"He's around here somewhere," said Darrell. "Oh, Ned! Oh, Connie!" he called.
We joined him in the call, but except for the noise of birds and insects, and the chatter of some little monkeys, we heard nothing like an answer.
"I'll bet he's around here somewhere," Darrell insisted, in a curiously flat tone. "Let's look for him!"
Although he didn't say it, we knew what was on his mind. We saw his face suddenly grown pale and strained. And I feel sure that the rest of us looked no better.
"Have the demons got Connaughton?" was what he had left unsaid.
We had brought our revolvers and automatics with us. Silently we drew them and then we spread out to search.
The point where we found Connaughton's cap was at the neck of the Peninsula. So we were moving toward the main river bank. The ground vegetation there was a bad tangle and difficult to get through, but in places it would leave fair-sized spaces covered with lush grasses, looking like comfortable spots for camping. I had reached one of these grass plots, when I noticed that it looked somewhat different from the others I had examined, as if someone had sat there and kicked holes in the sod. Not recently, that is, but a day or two before. You know, in such moist places tracks do not keep long.
Well, I did my best to follow them. The tracks led through the bushes, over other grass plots. It was chiefly by the broken branches and torn
