some honest-to-goodness clothes we had a long talk-fest. Señor Castro, he said, believed that I had been devoured by jaguars, but he had somehow felt that I had been captured by the cannibals. He had searched into the depths of the jungle for some trace of me until he was taken down with the fever where he lay nigh unto death for a month. When he got well he concluded he’d go north for in the meantime Señor Castro had gotten another operator.
“I’m certainly an unlucky dog, Jack,” Bert bemoaned his fate; “I can’t understand why I couldn’t have had even a look-in on that cannibal business. Here I’ve been down with the fever while you’ve had as fine an adventure as ever befell a man. Back to Broadway for mine where the only cannibal princesses I shall ever see are those that trip the light fantastic in the chorus.”
“Truly, I’m sorry, old man,” I consoled him, “but it wasn’t my fault though it was your misfortune. You’ll get yours yet, so cheer up.”
A week later we were ready to sail down the Amazon to Para, there to take ship for New. York. Señor Castro paid us the full amount agreed upon by the manager of the Compagnie