"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 049 - The Mental Wizard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

THEY did not catch the aviator, David Hutton. He got some breaks. He came to a stream, almost fell
over a dugout canoe cached by some hunter, and launched it. He paddled with weak ferocity for a while,
then lay down in the two inches of water sloshing on the bottom of the dugout and slept or was
unconscious—he never was sure which.

The water gurgling in and out of his ears awakened him, and he found his craft aground on a mud bar on
which tall birds with long, yellow legs and pouchy necks stood. He shoved the boat off the mud, got it
out in the current and paddled.

Hutton watched for floating coconuts, picked them up, and finally found one that was good. Later, he
landed for fruit, and killed a fat bird with a stick, and ate it raw.

That day, he slept in the canoe in the stream, and awakened conscious of water no longer around him,
but with movement near. He listened. Something nudged the canoe, almost overturned it.

He looked out, and actually cried out in terror. For he was on another mud bar and there were scores of
alligators around him. One had nudged the canoe. He clubbed the ‘gator; luckily, it withdrew. He got the
dugout afloat again.

The river was the Magdalena, and it led eventually to Cartagena. Big black natives and smaller brown
natives saw him frequently and remembered, for a white man paddling a dugout alone was unusual, to say
nothing of a white man who was skin and bones and who wore only a leather apron.

Amber O’Neel trailed the flier down the river by questioning the natives. O’Neel was taking chances
coming into the districts of the Colombian police. He knew it, but did not hesitate. He was cautious,
though. And he was raising the ante to hit natives.

"Two guns, and all the ammunition he can carry in two trips to the man who gets that flier!" he promised.

A bit later, it was three guns, and three loads of ammunition. Then he thought of throwing in an outboard
motor, which was a brilliant stroke. Almost any native would trade his wife for an outboard motor.

O’Neel and his natives were not more than an hour behind David Hutton when the latter tied his canoe
up to the stone wall along the Cartagena water front.

David Hutton stood on the wall and looked around. That move quite possibly changed the life course of
a great many people.



A CROWD was gathered on the water front. David Hutton looked the way every one else seemed to be
looking, out into the bay. A steamer with four funnels, flying a United States flag, was anchored out in the
stream.

"A tourist boat, probably." Hutton shuddered. "People out having fun. It seems strange—after what I’ve
been through."

His second look at the crowd showed something he had overlooked. A lot of top-hatted personages.
There was also a squad of soldiers, some sailors, policemen, and two different bands.