"_Si_, senhor. _Immediatamente._ Antonio--Jorge--Rosario! And you, too, Meldo--_vem cà_! Carry the bundles of the gentlemen to the hotel, presto! Proceed, senhores. I, Joao d'Almeida Magalhaes Nabuco Pestana da Fonseca, will remain here on guard until all your possessions have been transported. Proceed without fear." CHAPTER III. THE VOICE OF THE WILDS McKay, eyes twinkling again, awaited them at the top of the hotel's street ladder. "Rooms any good, Rod?" hailed Knowlton. "Best in the house, Merry." "See any insects in the beds?" "Nary a bug--in the beds." The twinkle grew. "Didn't look in the bureaus or behind the mirrors. Come look 'em over." Entering a sizable room evidently used for dining--for its chief articles of furniture were two tables made from planed palm trunks--McKay waved a hand toward a row of four doorways on the right. "First three are ours," he explained. "Only vacancies here. Eight rooms in this hotel--the other four over there." He pointed across the room, on the other side of which opened four similar doors. "They're occupied by two sick men, one drunk--hear him snore?--and one she-goat which is kidding." "Huh?" Tim snorted, suspiciously. "I think ye're the one that's kiddin', Cap." "Not a bit. I looked. The last room on this side is the Dutchman's, and these are ours. Take your pick. They're all alike." Knowlton stepped to the nearest and looked in. For a moment he said no word. Then he softly muttered: "Well, I'll be spread-eagled!" "Me, too," seconded Tim, who had been craning his neck. The room was absolutely empty. No bed, no chair, no bureau, no rug--nothing at all was in it except two iron hooks. Its floor consisted of split palm logs, round side up, between which opened inch-wide spaces. Its walls were rusty corrugated iron, guiltless of mirrors or pictures, which did not reach to the roof. "Observe the excellent ventilation," grinned McKay. "Wind blows up through the floor--if there is any wind--and then loops over the partition into the next fellow's room." "Yeah. And I'll say any guy that drops his collar button is out o' luck. It goes plunk into the mud, seven foot down under the house. But say, Cap, how the heck do we sleep? Hang ourselves up on them hooks?" "Exactly." "Kind o' rough on a feller's shirt, ain't it? And the shirt would likely pull off over yer head before mornin'." "Yes, probably would. But the secret is this--you're supposed to hang your hammock on those hooks. You provide the hammock. The hotel provides the hooks. What more can you ask of a modern hotel?"