Jungle Wife

By Sasha Siemel

Jungle Wife, first published in 1949, is the warm-hearted story of a Philadelphia woman who married a professional hunter and sportsman, Sasha Siemel (1890-1970) and raised a family in the wilds of the Brazilian state Mato Grosso. Sasha met his future wife, Edith Bray Siemel (1919-2012), in Philadelphia while on a lecture tour, and moved together to Brazil where they raised their three young children. The family's many adventures are described in the book. Later, the couple returned to the U.S. and settled on a farm in southeastern Pennsylvania. Included are 2 maps and 8 pages of photographs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Nov 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781839740343

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© Red Kestrel Books 2019, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

CHAPTER 1 5

CHAPTER 2 46

CHAPTER 3 75

CHAPTER 4 117

CHAPTER 5 135

CHAPTER 6 157

CHAPTER 7 182

CHAPTER 8 206

CHAPTER 9 215

CHAPTER 10 229

ILLUSTRATIONS 234

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 245

JUNGLE WIFE

By

Sasha and Edith Siemel

and Gordon Schendel

Jungle Wife was originally published in 1947 by Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York.

• • •

CHAPTER 1

THE BLAZING BRAZILIAN SUN stood high overhead like a white-hot magnet, sucking up the moisture that is the lifeblood of the jungle. Heat waves shuddered over the glittering Upper Paraguay River and blurred the dusty greens of its far shore. The drone of myriad insects steamed up from the rank, choked thickets in a monotony broken by the ragged cries of quarreling parrots, parakeets, and toucans. But despite these overtones of invisible activity, the entire Mato Grosso seemed to be in slow motion—lethargic and weighted down by the almost physical heaviness of the heat.

It was June 1940—and, south of the equator, a beautiful winter day.

Damn you, Rupert dear! Do that once more, and I swear I’ll hang a cowbell around your neck!

I frowned in exasperation. Then I amended with a rueful smile, I would, that is, if I had a cowbell—and if you had a neck. Rupert was always underfoot; perhaps his habit of coming up noiselessly behind me wouldn’t have been so annoying if he hadn’t been an eight-foot boa constrictor.

Discounting Rupert, I was alone in our grass hut, rather lazily occupied in being domestic—straightening the mosquito netting over our woven-fiber hammocks and flicking a dustcloth across the row of books on the battered steamer trunk—doing this not in a little house dress and ruffled tea apron, but in a shirt, jodhpurs, and riding boots.

Whenever I wandered near the open side of the hut I paused to sniff appreciatively, for I fancied I could detect an alien, incongruous note among the jungle’s fecund vegetable odors: the fresh, spicy smell of newly cut lumber. From beyond the tangled undergrowth at the river’s edge there sounded recurrently the rasp of a hand saw, the sharp clatter of sawed board ends falling on a plank deck, and a running fire of conversation in hearty male voices.

Edith, it’s finished! Sasha shouted abruptly. Come and be impressed!

Kwa-a-a-wk! Kwa-a-a-wk! our pet macaws, Rainy and J. Pluvius, squawked insolently back; they began critical, sotto-voce cluckings to each other. They were perched on the sloping roof above me; their yard-long, iridescent blue-and-green tail feathers dangled below the palm thatch and, as they moved about, from time to time obstructed my view of the river.

Hurry, you sluggard! Sasha’s voice urged teasingly.

All day, except at siesta time, Sasha had been busy with his two native helpers on the deck of our half-finished houseboat. He had been extremely secretive at breakfast about what they were working on, save to say it wasn’t the houseboat itself. The current project would prove a masterpiece, he had asserted with a grin; I’d agree when I saw it.

Yes, my dear Mr. Siemel! I said with exaggerated meekness. I’m coming!

I walked around the live acuri palm that supported a corner of the roof, then brushed through a cloud of gaudy butterflies eddying in the sunshine, and started down the incline to the water’s edge.

You’re not running? Such a deplorable lack of enthusiasm, my sweet!

Sasha stood with his arms folded, waiting for me on the lumber-strewn deck of the houseboat. His mocking smile was belied by the eager impatience in his blue eyes, so oddly light against his suntanned face. In his nondescript attire—the old trousers and the shirt that hung limply on his six-foot frame—he somehow looked as distinguished as he did in formal dress. The beard helped, of course: neatly trimmed, brown like his thick wavy hair, and touched with the same faint traces of gray.

His helpers were standing beside him, smiling broadly. Both were mestizos of mixed Negro and Indian blood; the diminutive, cocky Lauro was nearly black, but the larger, phlegmatic Rosando was brown-skinned and of mainly Indian extraction.

Well, where is this masterpiece? I demanded.

Oh, when we finished it we chucked it into the river, Sasha said carelessly. However, that’s where it belongs.

He looked mysterious and highly pleased with himself. Flinging his arm around my shoulders, he led me to the rear deck, to which several of our spare dugouts were tied, and indicated his achievement with a vigorous sweep of his hand.

Milady, he said flamboyantly, we have created for you a palatial Hollywood pool, guaranteed against alligators, piranhas, and all other hazards to life and limb—complete with a perpetual supply of running water! Or, to be more prosaic, Edith, he concluded, here is your bathtub. No more must you bathe in the water bucket. Luxury, he grinned, has come to the jungle! I stared. A boxlike affair—about six feet long, five feet wide, and four feet deep—rested low in the water, suspended by a wooden framework between two dugouts attached to the houseboat. A neat plank walk led to it. The box held water to the same level as the surface of the river, and I could see that the river was flowing through it—through scores of holes bored in its ends. Sasha pointed out that while the holes let the water in, they were small enough to keep piranhas out.

Clever, eh? He looked almost insufferably smug.

You mean you invented it all by yourself? I parried. "You didn’t see a blueprint in Popular Science?"

Sasha looked crestfallen and slightly perplexed, and I added hastily, No, I guess I can’t accuse you of that since you weren’t brought up in the U.S. You’re a genius, then, Sasha. I smiled and said emphatically, You really are!

And I really was delighted.

In fact, Sasha, I went on slowly, suddenly conscious of the overwhelming heat and my shirt sticking wetly to my back, in fact, broad daylight and all, I think I’d like to try it out right now! Why not? Sasha shrugged. Launch yourself and dedicate it. There was a scuffling of feet and a clearing of throats behind us; I’d forgotten about Lauro and Rosando. Lauro, the more forward and spokesman for the two, smiled politely.

"Patrão, if the senhora and you will excuse us, please—he smiled again, diffidently—Rosando and I will go after more firewood now."

Yes? Sasha cocked an eyebrow at the ample pile of cordwood on the bank. Then, biting his lip to hide his amusement, he said agreeably, Go ahead, Lauro—go ahead!

The men self-consciously hurried ashore, scrambled up the bank, and disappeared.

I looked at Sasha.

Heavens, I said, do you suppose they thought I was going to undress right here in front of them?

Sasha chuckled. Possibly. But more probably they were just being gallant, so you really could bathe at once if you wished. They heard you say you wanted to. He laughed. After all, if you insist on speaking Portuguese with me for practice, don’t forget they understand you too.

Well—I might as well take them up on it, I concluded. I glanced about a little uneasily—a hang-over from my more civilized days—but except for a few alligators sunning themselves on a mud flat and several big storks fishing downstream, there were no possible observers. I began to unbutton the shirt I wore; even though they were much too large for me, I practically lived in Sasha’s shirts.

Well, Señor Siemel—— I paused significantly. Are you less chivalrous than your helpers?

Sasha grinned.

After giving me a kiss he strode down the gangplank. Halfway up the bank, he turned to call back flippantly:

Don’t drown now! Women are scarce in the jungle.

When he, too, had vanished, I leisurely resumed undressing, idly walking about the broad deck of the houseboat. So far, our floating home-to-be, which we’d already named The River Gypsy, was no more than a plank deck built on top of five thirty-six-foot dugouts. The superstructure, the house part of the houseboat, remained to be built. Although Sasha had been working on it for two months, he expected it would be several more before the houseboat was finished. The dugouts alone had represented weeks of backbreaking labor. Sasha and his helpers had felled several large araputanga, or mahogany, trees a couple of miles upriver and had dragged the logs by ox team to the bank, where with axes and adzes they had carved them out. The houseboat also was being built of mahogany, and it was an enormous job; every bit of lumber was sawed out from logs with a small kerosene-powered portable saw.

In spite of his helpers, Sasha was doing a great deal of the construction work himself, and he would have to do all of the finer finishing. Like most Mato Grosso men, Lauro and Rosando were excellent cowboys but not carpenters; God help them when they picked up any tool but the ax. In addition, they were temperamentally unsuited for long-term projects such as this; their interest lagged, and for them amanhã was always the busiest day of the week. In the meantime Sasha and I were living in the grass hut on the bank. Lauro and Rosando, with their wives and children—one had six kids; one had three—occupied similar huts a short distance away.

A sudden splash startled me; then I saw it was merely an alligator sliding into the water.

It certainly was going to be a treat to bathe in a full-sized tub. The last time I’d been able to was in the hotel in Rio de Janeiro on our honeymoon, five months ago. It seemed ironic that we should suffer from a lack of bathing facilities now, with a mile-wide river at our front door. But after being married in January, we had come here, to Sasha’s old headquarters on the Upper Paraguay River, at the height of the rainy season when the river was bristling with piranhas. And although these little cannibal fish had decreased considerably with the end of the wet months, they were still too numerous for safety. After witnessing a swimmer being eaten alive—being reduced to a skeleton in only five minutes by a ravenous horde of the fighting, churning, razor-toothed fish—I didn’t need any warnings from Sasha about piranhas.

Only three weeks ago we had had an unhappy demonstration that the piranhas still were around. Cenaria, Lauro’s wife, had been doing our laundry in the shallow water while her four-year-old daughter, Carlotta, sat on the bank idly watching. The mother was unmolested, but when the little girl playfully held her bare foot over the water a piranha leaped up and bit off her big toe!

Now undressed, I stepped out on the plank walk leading from the deck to our new built-in bathtub. The unclouded water rippling through the small holes made the straight lines of the new mahogany boards waver and curve. I swung myself in, and the water was deliciously cool.

I splashed about furiously for a minute, then stood still and watched the flowing, sunlit water warp my legs and thighs. No Hollywood star ever got such a thrill from her first marble pool. I leaned forward presently to study my reflected, flickering face. My bangs and long bob shot off at crazy angles.

So here I was, not Edith Bray now but Edith Siemel, in the heart of the wild Mato Grosso, five hundred miles upriver from Corumbá, the nearest frontier town; two thousand miles inland from Rio—and God knew how far from Philadelphia and my girlhood! Actually, though, my girlhood wasn’t so far away as Philadelphia; I was just twenty-two. And because of this I’d had a heck of a time persuading Sasha his fifty years didn’t necessitate a paternal attitude. I’d had to propose several times to convince him he wasn’t too old for me—and I’d had to seize a writhing snake in my hands to change his idea that the jungle is no place for a white woman.

I had first met Sasha at the University Club in Philadelphia when I was eighteen. He had been in the States to interest wealthy sportsmen in coming down to the Mato Grosso to hunt tigers—the South American tigre, or jaguar—for Sasha was a professional tiger hunter and earned his living by killing the huge cats that preyed on cattlemen’s herds and by conducting sportsmen’s expeditions. He had been born in Latvia but had run away from home as a boy and had knocked halfway around the world looking for adventure; he had found it in Brazil, finally, and had stayed there.

I had been so impressed by Sasha at that first meeting that I had gone home starry-eyed, so determined that I did the impossible—I talked Mother into letting me go down to the Mato Grosso to hunt tigers!

And I had gone the next summer; not alone, of course, but with an older woman, a friend of Sasha’s, Helen Post, acting as chaperone. We had stayed two months and each shot a tiger. Then, while Sasha was spear-fighting a third tiger, his revolver had accidentally gone off and discharged a bullet into his leg; we had managed, with his native helpers, to get him out of the jungle only after two weeks of travel by packhorse, oxcart, and dugout; according to the doctor at the hospital in Corumbá, in one more day gangrene would have set in. Sasha had gratefully said we female tenderfeet certainly had proved our mettle.

There was just room enough in the tub to stretch out and float. I lay back and stared dreamily up at the sky; high above a white heron was flapping its way across the river...

I had returned to the States far from satisfied with one tiger hunt. Back in Philadelphia, I had spent my time writing innumerable letters to Sasha and waiting for the postman. And finally—I still don’t know how I persuaded Mother—it had been agreed that I would again join Sasha in Rio the following July and spend several months in the jungle, serving as official photographer when he took parties of sportsmen tiger hunting. Then I had taken a quick course in photography.

Thus, in July 1939, I found myself once more in the Mato Grosso—and I had never left it since. As Sasha’s girl photographer, I had always been well chaperoned by several sportsmen, to say nothing of Lauro and Rosando, but still I had been with Sasha constantly. And when I had realized his interest in me could hardly be based on my photographic skill, I had taken every opportunity to start breaking down his resistance.

I had been infuriated by Sasha’s quixotic insistence that the difference in our ages was too great; that it wouldn’t be fair to bury me in the jungle for the rest of my life. Our stormy sessions continued for months, over hundreds of miles of the Mato Grosso—in camp at dawn, riding over the grassy largos during the day, and, after the others had taken to their hammocks, around the fire at night. I had used every argument from pish-tosh and piffle to the one that completely outraged him: "Darling, won’t you ever make an honest woman of me?"

Then, when I had almost given up, I finally succeeded one moonlit night as we sat on a log at the edge of a swamp, watching the fireflies glimmering over the water and listening to the hoarse bellowings of alligators. We had been quarreling over the usual subject—and abruptly I had seen a deadly coral snake weaving toward me through the swamp grass! I had had a horror of snakes, and screamed. Sasha had decapitated the snake with his machete and tossed its body into the underbrush; then he had turned to me and said with a maddening smile, So you’re the little girl who imagines she’d like to spend her life in the jungle with neighbors like that! I think this incident proves my point, dear.

I had sat without a comeback, silently raging at my stupid panic. And then fate had provided me with a second chance—another snake, presumably the first one’s mate, slithered toward me. Gritting my teeth, I had drawn my machete and approached it stiffly, intending to chop off its head—or my own foot in the attempt. But I had almost screamed again when I neared it and realized that this snake was headless! It had been the same one, of course, propelled by spasmodic muscular contractions. Somehow, in a do-or-die attempt, I had forced myself to reach down, pick it up with its dreadful coils writhing against my wrist, and fling it back into the underbrush.

Shivering uncontrollably, I had stood there staring after it—and then I realized that Sasha’s arms were around me and he was looking at me in a queer, admiring way and murmuring something that sounded like, You win, dear; I surrender! into my ear..."

A large fish jumped out of the river less than twenty feet away, and I watched the widening circle of ripples approaching the tub.

Why hadn’t I thought to get soap from our hut? Well, I’d remember next time. This bath would have to be soapless. I wondered what Sasha was doing at the moment and why he hadn’t returned to talk to me while I bathed. He probably was examining his guns; he hadn’t been on a tiger hunt for a long time, and I knew he was anxious to go out again; he was always going over his guns.

Abruptly there was the sound of galloping horses. And a few seconds later I heard the warning by which all friendly travelers in the jungle announce their approach, a shouted:

"O de casa!"

O de casa! The call came again; I could hear horses whinnying as they were reined up.

Amigos, approach! It was Sasha’s deep voice answering.

Then there was a babble of male voices exchanging greetings in Portuguese—sallies and laughter—and I could hear the jingle of spurs as the men alighted. Apparently they were just above me on the riverbank. A riderless horse poked his head into sight as he cropped leaves from the head-high bushes.

Ye Gods! I suddenly realized the predicament I was in.

If the men moved only a few feet nearer they could look right down on me—naked in my open-air bath! And my clothes were in a heap on the houseboat, fifteen feet away. I didn’t dare leave the water to get them, for at that very moment someone would be bound to pop out.

Until now I had been lazily and sensuously enjoying every facet of my bath—the hot sun and the contrasting sharp coolness of the water, the luxury of a tub with a scenic view—but the realization that I was trapped immediately spoiled it all. The sun became too hot on my tender, untanned shoulders; the water became too cold. And this was particularly unpleasant because there was nothing I could do about it.

What was wrong with Sasha? Why didn’t he get his visitors away from the river?

At that moment there was another burst of laughter from above, then louder words, as if the men were coming nearer. And I unmistakably heard Sasha saying, "The River Gypsy..."

My God! Was Sasha going to show them the houseboat? Didn’t he remember he had left me about to take a bath? What was the matter with him that he couldn’t remember I was here? Surely he didn’t think I had finished and dressed and gone? Or did he?

Indignant at being put in such a position, and beginning to shiver from being too long in the cold water, I became very angry with Sasha.

The voices came still closer, and there was the sound of several men crashing through the underbrush. I heard the word houseboat. I remained indecisive only a fraction of a second longer, then angrily called out:

"Sasha! Sasha! Stop where you are! Don’t you dare come a step nearer!"

There was an abrupt silence above me. Then I heard Sasha saying something to the men, and a second later he alone was looking down at me from the top of the bank. He peered at me motionlessly a moment, then began to grin.

All right, laugh, darn you! I shouted up furiously in English. "What were you planning on doing? Making me a sideshow for your visitors? Don’t you have any respect for your wife?"

Sasha erased his grin and came silently down the bank a few feet.

I’m sorry, my dear, he said soberly. I apologize. I completely forgot you were here. We have some visitors. Four cowboys from the Descalvados Ranch. They just stopped to leave me a roll of copper screening that the Descalvados manager brought up from Corumbá.

I snorted indignantly.

Well, take them away from here! I demanded wrathfully. I want to get out and get dressed.

Sasha continued to gaze down at me silently, and finally said, Edith dear, no damage was done. They haven’t seen you—and, in fact, don’t even know why I held them back.

I don’t care, I shouted unreasonably. "Just take them away!"

Certainly, my dear, he replied meekly. I’ll lead them far away—immediately.

Then he grinned wickedly, blew me a kiss—and disappeared in the underbrush.

Later, when I had retired unseen and fully clothed to our hut and brushed my hair—hard and angrily—my rage evaporated. I felt clean and polished and relaxed from my long soaking. And so what if my spouse was absent-minded? He was still Sasha. While I was smiling to myself over this Sasha walked into the hut. He gave me a conciliatory kiss on the top of my head and persuaded me to come out and meet his visitors.

They were talking volubly with Lauro, who, of course, had been a cowboy himself before he joined Sasha. One, who was introduced to me simply as Pedro, was extremely fat and almost toothless; the other three were younger and less remarkable. Each doffed his flat-brimmed felt sombrero and made an elaborate bow when he was presented to me—and thereafter pointedly avoided meeting my eyes, as custom decreed with another man’s wife.

The senhor has a handsome establishment, Pedro said, addressing Sasha after a somewhat awkward silence. He added, Very handsome! with a wave which took in our airy grass hut, the small corral of milch cows and saddle horses, and, farther down, the few cages in which Sasha kept his wild-animal pets.

Sasha smiled and thanked him.

"Sim, the senhor has made a fortunate choice of a site, the youngest-looking cowboy corroborated, in the manner of a veteran of the jungle generously complimenting one who possessed considerably less knowledge of the region. He added knowingly, It is the only high ground along the river in thirty leagues. Here the floods will never touch one."

Sim. Sasha smiled and forbore making the obvious retort—that it should be a fine site, for he had spent a week traveling up and down the river before selecting it. (And the wisdom of his choice had been borne out during the height of the past rainy season, when the headwaters of the Upper Paraguay for a length of six hundred miles surged over their banks and transformed the surrounding jungle into an island-studded lake two hundred miles wide, leaving us marooned but secure on our high site for nearly three months.)

Sasha then suggested to Lauro that our visitors might take pleasure in a drink of rum. And Lauro set off for our hut with a grin.

While we waited Sasha and the men discussed tigers and the relative scarcity of tiger signs in the neighborhood during the past few months. Absently listening, I studied the costumes of the cowboys, which always fascinated me.

The Mato Grosso’s cowboys, or vaqueiros, are certainly colorful, and the outfits of these men from the Descalvados Estancia were typical. Each wore a silver-trimmed sombrero, a gaudy shirt, khaki trousers, and hip-high deerskin or calfskin leggings. And each had a hand-woven bright red poncho carelessly slung over his shoulder.

Seeing these waterproof wool blankets with the hole in the center gave me a sudden idea. Ponchos were used at night on the grassy largos as blankets, or in wet weather as raincoats, but they had a variety of other uses too. And I was going to invent a new use, starting tomorrow.

I knew that after my disconcerting experience just past I’d never be able to take another bath without some protection for modesty’s sake. I’d get a bright red poncho and drape it over the tub! Sasha would roar at the idea, but let him.

Still discussing tigers, Sasha mentioned a spear fight, and as the vaqueiros were interested in seeing his spears, we moved off to our hut. I lagged behind, fascinated with the men’s huge noisy spurs and their peculiar gait.

They wore enormous spurs with roweled rosettes six inches in diameter. And, like all vaqueiros, they were barefoot—which, combined with the size of their spurs, made walking quite difficult. The four of them rocking along behind Sasha walked not only pigeon-toed but also on tiptoe, for otherwise their oversized spurs would have enmeshed and tripped them.

Their spurs were made of iron, but hammered silver decorated their sombreros, saddles, reins, machetes, and six-shooters. Two of them even had their tiradors fastened about their waists with clasps of silver-mounted tiger teeth. (A tirador is a fringed little leather apron worn over the right hip to protect the trousers.)

We arrived at the hut and seated ourselves on several empty ammunition boxes. Lauro was there, very busily filling a quart bottle from the barrel and getting out a couple of tumblers; as he’d had plenty of time to rejoin us, he’d obviously been sampling the rum.

Lauro spoke hurriedly: "Would the patrão care to pour the drinks himself?"

But Sasha, an amused glint in his eyes, indicated with a wave that Lauro should do so.

Lauro filled one glass a third full of the colorless cachaça, or native sugar-cane rum (it is made by ranchers in small distilleries, and a fifty-gallon barrel costs twenty-five dollars; Sasha had put one by to last through the year), and then he filled the second glass to the brim. He handed the first to me and the second to the fat vaqueiro, as he was the oldest of our guests. (We had plenty of glasses, but Mato Grosso hospitality decrees that one is passed around instead; Lauro had supplied me with a separate glass only in deference to my oft-expressed objections, within our own circle, to this practice; Sasha, of course, had long ago become habituated to the customs of the country.)

Pedro raised his brimming glass to Sasha and me.

May the lives of the senhor y senhora be long and happy! he said, tipping it; he halted for breath when he had it half emptied.

"Very fine cachaça," he grunted appreciatively. He passed the glass on reluctantly.

The others, in turn, each drank deeply and smacked their lips. And then Sasha had half a glassful, and the quart of rum was emptied.

The second quart was consumed more leisurely, for Sasha displayed one of his tiger spears—a twelve-inch, bayonetlike steel blade topped by a three-inch crosspiece on a six-foot hardwood shaft—and then the talk shifted to firearms. The men obviously were awed by Sasha’s fairly large collection of guns.

Pedro proudly exhibited his .38 Smith & Wesson six-shooter with its handsome chased-silver mounting. He rubbed his thumb over it caressingly, and it was obvious that he considered it his most valuable possession.

This was stolen from me once, he said almost dreamily. "While I was asleep. We were out on the largos. I woke up just as the thief galloped out of camp. When I reached for my gun it was gone, and I jumped on my horse and took after the dog. I caught him, too."

And you recovered the gun, obviously. Sasha smiled. Did you have difficulty?

Oh—no difficulty, said Pedro with a crooked grin. He gulped more cachaça and reached into his back pocket. And the thief steals no more guns.

He brought his hand out of his pocket suddenly and opened it to display a couple of small objects. Regard!

I leaned forward for a closer look at the brown shriveled-looking things on his extended palm. Then I gasped with horror, for I saw that they were unmistakably human ears!

Pedro grinned, tossed them into the air, and caught them nonchalantly. I took my receipt!

There was a silence, which Pedro took as proper tribute to his feat. Then he shrugged modestly and stood up, returning the grisly objects carefully to his pocket.

We are grateful to the senhor for his hospitality, he said politely. But the sun is descending. We still have six leagues to ride to our camp site.

The other vaqueiros got to their feet rather unenthusiastically. They were all on their way to a jungle camp where they would make their headquarters for the next two weeks while hunting down stray cattle in the marsh.

We walked with them to their horses. They mounted, then sat for a couple of minutes, saying their farewells. I noticed that each man had in his saddle holster a .44 Winchester carbine, an old-time Buffalo Bill gun. They were traveling light, each with only one small garupa, or saddlebag; the remainder of their camping supplies was loaded on two pack horses.

Pedro assured Sasha that if they ran across any fresh tiger signs, anywhere at all, they would let him know.

One of us will ride to inform the senhor directly, he promised emphatically. He will ride as with the devil behind him!

Then, touching their spurs to their horses, the men were off with farewell waves and shouts, their pack animals trotting behind on lead ropes.

We stood watching as they cantered along the edge of the jungle, until they disappeared in a thick growth of brush.

I turned to Sasha. Pedro really shocked me! And he seemed to be such a polite, easygoing person, too.

Well, Sasha mused, of course he had a real grievance if his gun was stolen. Guns are fairly essential equipment in the Mato Grosso. And you must remember that this is a country where thieving is considered a worse crime than murder.

Well—perhaps so, I agreed unwillingly. But to carry those ears around as trophies! That seems pretty callous, to say the least.

Sasha rubbed his elbow before replying. To be perfectly fair—he was always perfectly fair; too much so at times, I thought—"to be perfectly fair, even that is only an old ‘thief-taker’s’ custom."

I knew about thief-takers, of course. Since there were no law officers in the jungle, a thief-taker—a man about one step above a professional gunman—was often hired to track down a fleeing criminal by a victim or a victim’s relatives. And when he caught up with his quarry, he seldom brought him back alive. It would, naturally, be difficult, singlehanded, to guard a desperate criminal night and day through hundreds of miles of jungle, and in any event it was much simpler to bring back just the ears as proof of a successful mission. Sasha had told me that he once knew a thief-taker who had taken fifty pairs of ears. For that matter, John T. Ramsay, the former owner of the Descalvados Ranch (and an ex-Texas sheriff), who never was a thief-taker at all, at one time had twenty-eight human ears nailed on his ranch-house doorjamb: trophies of his skirmishes with various Mato Grosso bad men.

True, patrão. Lauro spoke in a scornful tone. True, patrão, if that were all. But that Pedro—I know him. I know other things he has done—and said. He spat contemptuously. That one is no good. He is a big bag of air.

Sasha rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Is he, Lauro?

Lauro sneered.

"He brags he is so fast with his gun. He tells everybody he is one very tough caboclo! Lauro spat again. The only people he shoots are people who have no guns! Remember, I told you how a vaqueiro met an old Indian on the trail and shot him dead, and when the other vaqueiros asked why, he just laughed and said, ‘That Indian was too ugly to live!’ Remember, patrão?"

Sasha and