Several long dug-out canoes were tied up at the bank. They were a precautionary measure. If the water in the river should rise suddenly, as it sometimes did, the men could take to the boats as the whole region would soon be inundated. They unloaded the launch and carried the supplies to the storehouse. Their personal effects were taken to those huts having sufficient space for their hammocks. David returned to the boat just in time to see a large bird winging its way up the river. “There goes your pet,” one of the men greeted him. “I told you so.” The wire had been bitten in two as if it had been a thread. “Well, if it’s like that, I’m glad it’s gone,” David said, but he was in reality somewhat sorry to lose his prize. “You can’t keep them,” the man continued. “They bite or gnaw their way out of anything and if you try to be friendly they bite your fingers off.” The bird had swerved in its flight and with raucous screams disappeared over the tree-tops. Nothing was seen of the men engaged in the rubber harvest, for they were in the forest collecting the previous night’s flow of sap. Only two Brazilians, the cook and his helper, were on duty at the camp, and they kept up a continuous bombardment of questions of the newcomers, most of which concerned David, but he did not try to understand what was being said. The Indians and Brazilians arrived from the forest shortly before noon and looked at the white man in astonishment. The Indians had their abodes apart from the others and did not mingle with the Brazilians; most of them had their entire families with them and all helped with the work in hand. David was awakened early the following morning. Daylight had not yet penetrated into the jungle, but by the time coffee had been prepared, each man going to the cook shack with his cup for his share, the gray light was filtering through the branches overhead. The Indians remained near their hovels and prepared their own food over small fires. “Come with me!” The speaker was one of the men who had come on the launch, and his words were directed at David. “Here is your outfit. I will start you on a route and tell you all you have to know,” he continued. “Tomorrow and every day after that you’ll be alone like the rest of us.” David took the small ax which, however, had a handle five feet long; that was the “outfit” to which the man had referred. Silently, he followed his guide into the forest. “Now, listen,” the latter said, after they had gone a short distance. “The trees that produce the rubber milk are called _Hevea braziliensis_; everybody knows that name, even the most ignorant Indians, so you ought to remember it, too. The trees grow all over the forest, but the trouble is that there are never very many of them close together. You will find one here and one there and by the time you have discovered a few hundred you will be many kilometers from where you started. Could you tell one if you saw it?”