"The Mayorunas, by the way, are not so debased as you might think. Though cannibals, they do not kill for the sake of eating 'long pig,' like the cannibals of the South Seas. Neither do they eat the whole body. Only the hands and feet of their dead enemies are devoured. These are carefully cooked and eaten as delicacies along with monkey meat, birds, fish, and other things prepared for a feast in honor of a victory. The eating of human flesh seems to be symbolism rather than savagery. Furthermore, they do not range the jungle hunting for victims. They eat only those who come against them as enemies. "So it is quite possible, you see, that strangers might go among them and escape death. It would depend largely on the ability of the strangers to convince the savages that they were friends. The difficulty is that the savages consider all strangers to be enemies until friendship is proved." "A sizable difficulty," McKay remarked. "Almost insurmountable. Yet it might be done. Mind, I speak now of the Mayorunas, not of the Red Bones. I tell you again that the Red Bone country is closed." "And where is the Mayoruna region?" "In the same general section. The Mayorunas are much more widely distributed. They are on both banks of the Javary and extend as far west as the Ucayali. "Now if I sought to enter the Red Bone region--and again I say I would not--this would be my way of going at it. I would go first among the Mayorunas near the Red Bones and seek to convince them that I was their friend. I would make the Mayoruna chief as friendly to me as possible. I might even take a Mayoruna woman for a time--some of them are handsome, and such a step would make me almost a Mayoruna myself in their eyes. Then I would persuade the chief to send messengers to the Red Bones with word of me and a request that I be allowed to visit their settlement. The request, coming from the Mayoruna chief, probably would be granted. I would then go in with a bodyguard of Mayorunas, do my business, and come out via the Mayoruna route." A thoughtful silence ensued. Bottle necks clinked against the cups. "Something in that idea," conceded Knowlton. "A good deal in it. Barring the woman part, of course." "Ay," spoke McKay, his tone casual as ever. "When you came out what would you do with your woman, _mein Herr_?" Schwandorf, tongue loosened a bit by his kümmel, chuckled. "Ho-ho! The woman? Leave her, of course, when she had served my purpose. Why bother about a woman here and there?" "I see." McKay's face, indistinct in the gloom, was unreadable, but his tone had a caustic edge.