Ken Ward in the Jungle — Edition Insights

opped at a station. But the thought of the jungle haunted him until the train arrived at Tampico.

Ken had the name of an American hotel, and that was all he knew about Tampico. The station was crowded with natives. Man after man accosted the boys, jabbering excitedly in Mexican. Some of these showed brass badges bearing a number and the word _Cargodore_.

“Hal, I believe these fellows are porters or baggage-men,” said Ken. And he showed his trunk check to one of them. The fellow jerked it out of Ken’s hand and ran off. The boys ran after him. They were relieved to see him enter a shed full of baggage. And they were amazed to see him kneel down and take their trunk on his back. It was a big trunk and heavy. The man was small and light.

“It’ll smash him!” cried Hal.

But the little _cargodore_ walked off with the trunk on his back. Then Ken and Hal saw other _cargodores_ packing trunks. The boys kept close to their man and used their eyes with exceeding interest. The sun was setting, and the square, colored buildings looked as if they were in a picture of Spain.

“Look at the boats--canoes!” cried Hal, as they crossed a canal.

Ken saw long narrow canoes that had been hollowed out from straight tree-trunks. They were of every size, and some of the paddles were enormous. Crowds of natives were jabbering and jostling each other at a rude wharf.

“Look back,” called Hal, who seemed to have a hundred eyes.

Ken saw a wide, beautiful river, shining red in the sunset. Palm-trees on the distant shore showed black against the horizon.

“Hal, that’s the Panuco. What a river!”

“Makes the Susquehanna look like a creek,” was Hal’s comment.

The _cargodore_ led the boys through a plaza, down a narrow street to the hotel. Here they were made to feel at home. The proprietor was a kindly American. The hotel was crowded, and many of the guests were Englishmen there for the tarpon-fishing, with sportsmen from the States, and settlers coming in to take up new lands. It was pleasant for Ken and Hal to hear their own language once more. After dinner they sallied forth to see the town. But the narrow dark streets and the blanketed natives stealing silently along were not particularly inviting. The boys got no farther than the plaza, where they sat down on a bench. It was wholly different from any American town. Ken suspected that Hal was getting homesick, for the boy was quiet and inactive.

“I don’t like this place,” said Hal. “What ’d you ever want to drag me way down here for?”

“Humph! drag you? Say, you pestered the life out of me, and bothered Dad till he was mad, and worried mother sick to let you come on this trip.”

“Now, you’re not going to show a streak of yellow?” asked Ken. He knew how to stir his brother.

Hal rose to the attack and scornfully repudiated the insinuation. Ken replied that they were in a new country and must not reach conclusions too hastily.

“I liked it back up there at the little village where we saw the green river and the big trees with the gray streamers on them,” said Hal.

“Well, I liked that myself,” rejoined Ken. “I’d like to go back there and put a boat in the river and come all the way here.”

Ken had almost unconsciously expressed the thought that had been forming in his mind. Hal turned slowly and looked at his brother.

“Ken, that ’d be great--that’s what we came for!”

“I should say so,” replied Ken.

“Well?” asked Hal, simply.

That question annoyed Ken. Had he not come south to go into the jungle? Had he come with any intention of shirking the danger of a wild trip? There was a subtle flattery in Hal’s question.

“That Santa Rosa River runs through the jungle,” went on Hal. “It flows into the Panuco somewhere. You know we figured out on the map that the Panuco’s the only big river in this jungle. That’s all we want to know. And, Ken, you know you’re a born boatman. Why, look at the rapids we’ve shot on the Susquehanna. Remember that trip we came down the Juniata? The water was high, too. Ken, you can take a boat down that Santa Rosa!”

“By George! I believe I can,” exclaimed Ken, and he thrilled at the thought.

“Ken, let’s go. You’ll win the prize, and I’ll get specimens. Think what we’d have to tell Jim Williams and Dick Leslie when we go West next summer!”