The missionaries set about chopping wood, building fires, and nursing the sick as best they could. Then one morning a very sick Waura warrior arrived from his village. The year before he had been husky. Now he was a skeleton of bones covered with dry, taut skin. “My people, they are sick.” “We’d better go tomorrow to the village, Harold, and take Upawai from here to help us with the Waura language.” As they prepared to leave, one of the dying men, Arribal, insisted he would go, too. He lay in the bottom of one of the canoes which his wife and two Xavantena Indians paddled. It was a slow journey. The third morning, as the party was putting away from their night’s camping place, the shrill death wail pierced the jungle vastness. Arribal had gone into eternity. As the canoes continued upstream, the widow’s mournful cry sounded over the waters. They must bear the dead one quickly to the Waura village, because burial in the tropics must be immediate. As they came into view of the village, Indians met them to offer shelter. The warriors gathered in the missionaries’ hut, and they were never again without a crowd about them. Eight Indians lay helplessly on their mats. Without hygiene or isolation, the epidemic would rage through the tribe. In spite of injections and medicines, on the fourth morning a baby died in its mother’s arms. The fellows looked at each other. It wasn’t necessary to say what each thought, “This is just the beginning.” “Harold, what do you think? If you should stay here alone and do what you can for the sick, I will try to make the trip out. I’ll go by
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