This chapter begins with Fawcett asking, "Are you game?" (10.1).
For what? Wrestling an anaconda? Fishing for piranha? Chewing a piece of gum?
No, Fawcett is recruiting a new second-in-command, Frank Fisher, for his second Amazonian expedition, this one to track the course of the Rio Verde, which in Spanish means "Green Rio."
This expedition is even rougher than the last.
It's muddy, the men's shoes disintegrate, and their eyes are invaded by bees known as "eye lickers" (10.13). This is worse than anything in Eli Roth's Green Inferno movie.
Even though they are in a lush jungle, dudes can't find edible food.
All the plants are pointy and poisonous and any animals that die are almost instantly stripped of flesh by insects.
For almost a month, the men travel with next to no food.
Fawcett fears mutiny.
Hey, at least everyone is too skinny to turn to cannibalism.
When all hope is almost lost, Fawcett spies a deer in the jungle. He shoots it with his rifle, and the men finally have fresh meat to eat.
Half Fawcett's men die, but the rest escape the journal into Bolivia.