“Men, drink to Manuel’s last trip up the river,” he said. “I’m coming in rich.” “Rubber or Indians?” sarcastically queried a weasel-featured Spaniard. “Bustos, you lie in your question,” replied Manuel hotly. “You can’t make a slave hunter of me. I’m after rubber. I’ll bring in canoes full of rubber.” Most of the outlaws, when they could not find a profitable rubber forest, turned their energies to capturing Indian children and selling them into slavery in the Amazonian settlements. “Manuel, where will you strike out?” asked one. “For the headwaters of the Palcazu. Who’ll go with me?” Few rubber hunters besides Manuel had ever been beyond the junction of the Pachitea and the Ucayali; and the Palcazu headed up in the foothills of the Andes. Little was known of the river, more than that it marked the territory of the Cashibos, a mysterious tribe of cannibals. None of the men manifested a desire to become Manuel’s partner. He leered scornfully at them, and cursed them for a pack of cowards. After that night he had little to do with his fellow passengers, used tobacco sparingly, drank not at all, and retreated sullenly within himself. Manuel never went into the jungle out of condition. The _Amazonas_ turned into the Ucayali, and day and night steamed up that thousand-mile river, stopping often for fuel, and here and there to let off the rubber hunters. All of them bade Manuel good-by with a jocund finality. At La Boca, which was the mouth of the Pachitea and the end of Captain Valdez’s run, there were only three passengers left of the original twenty-four--Bustos, Manuel, and the stranger who seemed to have nothing in common with the rubber hunters. “Manuel,” said Bustos, “you’ve heard what the Palcazu is--fatal midday sun, the death dews, the man-eating Cashibos. You’ll never come in. _Adios!_” Then Captain Valdez interrogated Manuel. “Is it true you are going out to the Palcazu?” “Yes, captain.” “That looks bad, Manuel. We know Indians swarm up there--the Chunchus of the Pachitea, and farther out the Cashibos. We’ve never heard of rubber there.” “Would I go alone into a cannibal country if I hunted slaves?” “What you couldn’t do has yet not been proven. Remember, Manuel--if we catch you with Indian children, it’s the chain gang or the Amazon.” Manuel, cursing low, lifted his pack and went down the gangplank. As he stepped upon the dock a man accosted him. “Do you still want a partner?” The question was put by the blond passenger. Manuel looked at him keenly for the first time, discovering a man as powerfully built as himself, whose gray eyes had a shadow, and about whom there was a hint of recklessness. “You’re not a rubber hunter?” asked Manuel. “No.” “Why do you want to go with me? You heard what kind of a country it is along the Palcazu?” “Yes, I heard. That’s why I want to go.” “Ha, ha!” laughed Manuel curiously. “_Señor_, what shall I call you?” “It’s no matter.” “Very well, it shall be _Señor_.”