[Footnote 34: See Chapter VII.]




CHAPTER XIII

THE SCOUT OF PAPUA[35]

_Chalmers, the Friend_

(Date of Incident, about 1893)


The quick puffing of the steam launch _Miro_ was the only sound to
break the stillness of the mysterious Aivai[36] River. On the launch
were three white people--two men and a woman. They were the first who
had ever broken the silence of that stream.

They gazed out under the morning sun along the dead level of the
Purari[37] delta, for they had left behind them the rolling breakers
of the Gulf of Papua in order to explore this dark river. Away to the
south rolled the blue waters between this vast island of New Guinea
and Northern Australia.

They saw on either bank the wild tangle of twisted mangroves with
their roots higher than a man, twined together like writhing serpents.
They peered through the thick bush with its green leaves drooping down
to the very water's edge. But mostly they looked ahead over the bow of
the boat along the green-brown water that lay ahead of them, dappled