Q.D." message. The message I could not interpret nor repeat,
although it was not nearly as complex as the one I had learned
before. After a while, the men came streaming into the _maloca_
from all directions, with anxiety darkening their faces. I had now my
first inkling of what was the cause of the commotion, and it did not
take me long to understand that we were in danger from some Peruvian
_caboclos_. The two young men who had brought the news to the Chief
had spied a detachment of Peruvian half-breeds as they were camping
in our old _tambo_ No. 6, the one we had built on our sixth day out
from Floresta. There were about a score of them, all ugly _caboclos_,
or half-breed _caucheros_, hunting rubber and no doubt out also for
prey in the shape of young Mangeroma girls, as was their custom. The
traps set by the Indians, as described in a previous chapter, would
be of no avail in this case, as the number of Peruvians was greater
than in any previous experience.
The enemy had been observed more than ten miles off, in an easterly
direction, when our two hunters were on the trail of a large
herd of peccaries, or wild boars, they had sighted in the early
morning. The Peruvians were believed to be heading for the _maloca_
of the Mangeromas, as there were no other settlements in this region
excepting the up-creek tribe, but this numbered at least five hundred
souls, and would be no easy prey for them.
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