212 EXPLORING FOR CASTILLO A RUBBER 



him quiet until the screams ceased. Then they whispered that it was 

 death to speak aloud and returned to their sleeping places. The next 

 morning they explained that the screams came from the spirit of a 

 man who was murdered and buried with money on him, and if any 

 one had spoken the spirit would have at once attacked and killed the 

 speaker. No whit impressed, the Pioneer searched the river bank, and 

 finally found a huge and ancient sloth, which he promptly killed. And 

 thus was the uneasy spirit laid, for the cries ceased from that time. 



The rubber trees up there, so he said, were from two to three feet 

 in diameter, and most abundant bleeders. They always cut them down 

 to secure the rubber, as they get more that way and know that if they 

 spared them the next crew of gatherers would destroy them. He said 

 that on the land we had come to examine, the rubber gatherers had 

 been in the habit of cutting the trees down, but that two years before 

 the practice had been stopped, and a premium of twenty-five dollars 

 paid to any one who informed of such destruction. As the whole tract, 

 some five hundred thousand acres, was private property, and wild, and 

 as most of the Indians lived on the other side of the mountains, the 

 rubber was quite plentiful, and with a very little system, the crop could 

 be greatly augmented. 



The next day was undertaken in good earnest the work of getting 

 our stores and ourselves safely ashore. And no light task we found 

 it. The surf was tremendous and it was impossible, even with the skill- 

 ful management, to get to land without being drenched, the men being 

 landed in the ship's boat, the stores coming ashore in a dugout. 



While the goods were being landed, the Scout and the Prospector 

 stripped and took a bath. Later they shuddered when they remembered 

 it, for the sharks that haunt that shore, coming far into the shallow 

 water, are big and voracious. In the meantime I was looking at the 

 forest. Much to my delight I found Castilloa trees growing within one 

 hundred feet of the shore. Small ones to be sure, but thrifty. One, 

 about three inches in diameter, had been tapped, and from the cuts I 

 stripped some good strong rubber. 



