To provide flesh food enough to satisfy more than sixty healthy appetites was no mean task, particularly in the immediate vicinity of a village of five hundred inhabitants, where the whole of the neighbouring country was strenuously hunted day after day; but Dick happened to be a particularly keen and clever hunter; moreover his training during the journey had been of such a character as to develop his speed, strength, and endurance to such a degree that he was able to go farther afield than any of the Indians, and thus reach a district where the game was neither so scarce nor so wild as it was in the immediate neighbourhood of the village; also he soon got to know the spots where game was most likely to be found. Consequently after the first three or four days, during which he was learning the country, he did quite as well as could be reasonably expected, and frequently excited the cacique's admiration by the quantity of meat which he contrived to bring in. As for Phil, he was a Devon man, and consequently had acquired, almost unconsciously, a considerable amount of knowledge regarding farming matters, so that he found himself more than on a par with the Indians, whose knowledge of agriculture was of the most elementary character; also he understood the full value of system in the arrangement of work, which the Indians did not. Consequently, by working systematically, and making the women do their fair share, he found that he could do the work which had been allotted to him, and still find time for his favourite hobby of research. It is not necessary to give a detailed description of our friends' doings, day after day, during their sojourn with the Mayubuna Indians; the above indication will enable the reader to picture the uneventful sort of existence which they led; and it is only needful to add that so well did the young Englishmen contrive matters that by the time that they had been three months in the village the suspicion and distrust with which they had at first been regarded had entirely disappeared, and the Indians seemed to have gathered the impression that their white prisoners had quite settled down and were content to spend the remainder of their lives with them. But it took fully three months to establish matters on this satisfactory basis; and this brought the time on to what may be termed the winter season; that is to say, the period of the year when, after a long-continued spell of fine weather, during which the crops ripen and are gathered in, the season of rain, wind, and violent thunderstorms begins which is to soften, nourish, and invigorate the baked earth and prepare it to bring forth the luxuriant vegetation of another summer. And it was one of those violent thunderstorms which provided our friends with the opportunity to escape for which they had been so long and so patiently waiting.