As we were doing this--for Itza was more expert at such matters than I was--she touched my arm and pointed silently to where an unsuspicious deer had stepped from the jungle and stood looking at us curiously. That night we dined on broiled venison, and spent the evening “haricotting” the rest of the meat over a smoky fire. We now had plenty of food to last us for several days, even if no other game was obtainable and I had no further fear of going hungry for some time to come. The sun was just topping the mountains when we set off the next morning, following the course of the stream, happy and light-hearted. By noonday, when we stopped again to rest and eat, the brook had widened to a fair-sized river and, remembering the vision or whatever it was, that I had seen in the sorcerer’s smoke, I looked about for material with which to construct a raft or boat of some sort. Then for the first time, I realized that I was unconsciously assuming that I actually _had_ looked into the future, or at least had, by some mysterious means, been enabled to view the route we were following. Nonsense! I said to myself. How could I have seen a place I had never visited? By some form of hypnosis or auto-suggestion Nohul Voh might have caused me to _think_ I saw the valley near the cliff with the great idol. I _had_ seen that before. But I had surely never been here by this broad stream. Yet there was the symbol on the rock by the pool. There was the stream. Try as I might to argue against it, I felt in my heart and innermost mind that everything would eventuate precisely as I had seemed to see it back in Mictolan. And at any rate, it would be far easier and quicker to travel down river by boat or raft than to follow the winding course of the stream afoot. In the tropics, it is usually a simple matter to make some sort of a craft that is buoyant, easily handled and capable of supporting considerable weight in fairly calm water. There are always bamboos or the cork-like Balsa trees within easy reach when in jungle country, and where there are lakes or back-waters, there are the hollow reeds that, tied into bundles and lashed together, may be used to construct those light, seaworthy but strange crafts known as “balsas” by the Indians, who use them exclusively to navigate the waters of Lake Titicaca. And here, close to the stream, were bamboos, cork-like balsa[4] trees and plenty of reeds. Itza fell to with a will and worked like a beaver. Her endurance and strength always surprised me. She did not give the impression of being a particularly strong woman, but the soft curves and contours of her body and limbs covered muscles that were almost equal to my own, and she possessed the remarkable endurance of her race. And when it came to performing any task that called for primitive methods or native skill, she was immeasurably superior to me, despite the fact that I always prided myself upon my knowledge and experience of woodcraft.