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+Project Gutenberg's The Boy Aviators in Africa, by Captain Wilbur Lawton
+#2 in our series by Captain Wilbur Lawton
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+Title: The Boy Aviators in Africa
+
+Author: Captain Wilbur Lawton
+
+Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6905]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on February 10, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY AVIATORS IN AFRICA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sean Pobuda
+
+
+
+
+THE BOY AVIATORS IN AFRICA
+
+OR
+
+AN AERIAL IVORY TRAIL
+
+By Captain Wilbur Lawton
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A REUNION
+
+
+"Here, Harry, catch hold."
+
+"Ouch--I dropped that cartridge box on my pet corn."
+
+"Say, you fellows, are we going to Africa or are we on a Coney
+Island picnic?"
+
+"Be serious now, Billy Barnes, you may be all right as a reporter,
+but as a shipping clerk you're no more good than a cold storage
+egg."
+
+"Well, I'm doing the best I can," was the indignant reply,
+"here--I've got it all down: Box 10--  One waterproof tent, one
+rubber-blanket, tent-pegs, ropes, more ropes.--Say, Frank, what in
+the name of the 'London Times' and jumping horn-toads do you want so
+much rope for?"
+
+"To tie up a certain young reporter named William Barnes when he
+gets too fresh," was the laughing reply.
+
+The three boys sat about a heaped, confused collection of ammunition,
+cooking-utensils, rifles, and camp "duffle" in general, one evening
+late in May.  The eldest of the group, a sunny-faced, clear eyed lad
+of about sixteen, held in his hand a notebook from which he called out
+the inventory of the articles piled about him as his brother, a youth
+of fourteen, sorted them out.  The third member of the trio was a
+short, stocky chap of possibly seventeen, with sharp, blue eyes that
+gleamed behind a pair of huge spectacles.  He was examining a camera
+with care; from time to time turning his attention to an open notebook
+that lay beside him in which he was supposed to be entering the list
+as the other called it off.
+
+The place where the boys were busying themselves was the upper floor
+of a large garage in the rear of the Chester residence, on Madison
+Avenue, New York City, which had been turned into a workshop for the
+two young Chesters--Frank and Harry--already well known to our
+readers as The Boy Aviators.  The well set-up lad who was so
+industriously calling off the equipment that lay scattered about was
+Frank Chester, and the ready classifier of the mixed-up outfit was
+Harry, his younger brother.  The third member of the group was Billy
+Barnes, the young reporter, already down to us as the chronicler of
+the Chester boys' adventures in Nicaragua and the depths of the
+Everglades of Florida.  Since the boys' return from Florida on the
+U. S. torpedo boat, the Tarantula, they had been busy putting into
+shape the rough working plans of the African hunting expedition they
+had planned as a sort of vacation.
+
+The ample bonus the government had awarded them for their singularly
+clever work in rescuing Lieutenant Chapin, the inventor of
+Chapinite, by their aeroplane Golden Eagle II, had supplied them
+with ample funds for their trip.  As for Billy Barnes (or "Our
+Special Staff Correspondent, William Barnes," as he was now known),
+besides the sum realized from the sale of the rubies the boys found
+in the Quesal Cave in Nicaragua, the money the youthful scribe had
+made on writing up the boys' Florida adventures had provided him
+with a good fat nest-egg.
+
+The natural stimulus given to the red-blooded Chester boys by Mr.
+Roosevelt's hunting adventures had a good deal to do, with their
+resolution to go to Africa.  And now--after several weeks of work on
+getting together as good an outfit as was procurable--they were
+putting what Billy called "the finishing touches" on their
+accoutrements.  Stacked in corners of the room were big chests
+painted blue and marked with the boys' names and neatly numbered in
+white painted characters.  These cases contained the different
+sections of the Golden Eagle II, the aeroplane equipped with
+wireless, that had made history in Florida.
+
+There were twenty of these cases besides the ones labeled "Camp
+Outfit," "Medical," "Armory Chest," "Grub Chest," and several
+nondescript ones containing the odds and ends that an expedition of
+the kind they planned would find indispensable.  In some smaller
+boxes also were packed yards and yards of bright-colored cloth and
+calico, spangles, cheap jewelry and brass ornaments for use among
+the natives.  In making up their outfit the boys had taken the
+advice of a well-known African traveler who had retired from his
+adventurous life to purchase a place in New Jersey, where he
+intended to spend his remain days.  Through a mutual friend the boys
+obtained an introduction to him and his advice in selecting the
+outfit had been simply invaluable.
+
+
+"Go easy, carry lots of quinine, don't waste ammunition, and count
+ten before you pick a quarrel with a native," had been his simply
+laid-down rules for getting along in Africa, and these rules the
+boys had determined to adhere to strictly.
+
+"Say, is this going to be a hunting trip or an invasion of Africa?"
+inquired Billy, quizzically as Harry sorted out and Frank read off
+ceaselessly the apparently interminable inventory of the supplies of
+the Chester party.  "I'm getting writer's cramp."
+
+"A hunting party of course," laughed Frank, "but you know that
+hunters who go into the bush depending on their rifles usually come
+out a good deal thinner than when they went in.
+
+"That's so," assented Billy, "but when we have a sixty-mile
+aeroplane like the Golden Eagle II we can easily fly out to
+civilization in case of necessity."
+
+"Yes, if we have enough gasoline," assented Harry, "but how much can
+we carry into the bush?"
+
+"Just enough for our purposes and no more," replied Frank, readily,
+"fortunately the soluble tablets of picric and glycerine will help
+out our supply materially.  A few of these tablets dissolved in
+gasoline render the efficiency of one ordinary gallon equal to
+three; but I don't care to use them except in a case of absolute
+necessity as they are very hard on an engine."
+
+"Then we can count on every gallon we carry being of triple
+efficiency?" asked Billy.
+
+"Certainly," replied Frank, who had invented the tablets in
+question, and which were an extremely useful addition to the
+equipment of the modern aviator.  As the boys worked on and the
+equipment, as it was classified, was packed away in the cases
+assigned to each class of articles, there came a sharp knock at the
+door of the garage building and a servant entered with a special
+delivery letter to Frank.  The boy tore it open eagerly and then
+gave a low whistle of astonishment.
+
+"Read it out, Harry," he said, handing the missive to his brother.
+"It concerns all of us."
+
+Harry took it and read as follows:
+
+DEAR FRANK AND HARRY:
+
+Shall be in town to-morrow morning with my father and Mr. Luther
+Barr, the well-known ivory importer.  He has a communication of
+importance for you.  What it is I am afraid to trust to writing, but
+you will know full details when you see us.  Will you call at the
+Waldorf at ten-thirty and have breakfast?  We can discuss the matter
+over the meal.  All I can say now is that if the Golden Eagle is
+still in shape for her old-time stunts there is work ahead of her
+that will prove harder than anything she has yet tackled.  However,
+I know you are not the chaps to balk at a little danger--particularly
+when exciting adventures are in the wind.
+
+So long, then, till to-morrow:
+
+                        "LATHROP EASLEY"
+
+"Well, what do you know about that?" gasped Billy Barnes, here we
+are fixing up for a nice little holiday trip to rest our shattered
+nerves, and here comes, a job along that looks as if we should have
+to work all summer."
+
+"It certainly is curious," replied Frank musingly.
+
+"What can Lathrop mean?  Who is Luther Barr?  I have heard the name
+but I cannot place him."
+
+"Lathrop says he is an ivory importer," suggested Harry.
+
+"Easy to find out," said the resourceful Billy.  "Where's the 'phone
+book?"
+
+Frank handed the volume to him from its hook beside the instrument.
+
+"Ah--here we are," exclaimed Billy, as he ran his finger triumphantly
+down the "B" list.  "Barr, Luther--that's our man, eh?  Ivory
+importer, offices No. 42 Wall Street--home, White Plains."
+
+"White Plains, that's where Lathrop's folks live," exclaimed Harry.
+"That's where he first became associated with the Golden Eagle."
+
+"And turned out to be a good partner," added Frank.
+
+"A jim dandy," agreed Billy.  "I tell you boys, I've got a good nose
+for news and if there isn't some sort of a story back of Mr. Luther
+Barr and Lathrop's letter I'll eat my hat without sauce."
+
+Any acceptance of the young reporter's generous offer was interrupted
+by a sudden noise in the usually quiet street.
+
+"I tell you the fare's a dollar!" the boys heard an angry voice
+declaim.
+
+"'Tain't nothing of the kind or I'm a lubber--fifty cents is all
+I'll pay.  I'll be horn-swoggled if you get a cent more, yer
+deep-sea pirate," was the indignant phrased reply.
+
+Something in the voice was strangely familiar but the "horn-swoggled"
+settled it.
+
+"Ben Stubbs," gasped all the, boys simultaneously and rushed out of
+the garage to the street.
+
+Here they found a stoutly-built, crisp-bearded man with a face
+tanned to what Billy called a "weathered oak finish," arguing loudly
+with a taxicab chauffeur.  The man was obdurate over his fare and
+just at, the boys came on the scene was suggesting that his equally
+determined passenger get back in the cab and take a ride to the
+police station.
+
+"The sergeant will settle our dispute," he said angrily.
+
+"What's the trouble, Ben?" exclaimed Frank, giving the angry man on
+the pavement a hearty slap on the back.
+
+"Why, this here piratical craft," the other was beginning when
+suddenly he dropped the battered bag he carried and burst into a
+mighty roar--a regular Cape Horn hail.
+
+"Back my topsails if it ain't you, Frank," he cried, wringing the
+other's hands till the boy's arms were almost dislocated.  "And you
+too, Harry, and keel haul me ef here ain't Billy too.  Well, if it
+ain't good to see, you Chester boys again."
+
+"Say, are you the Chester Boys--the Boy Aviators?" suddenly cut in
+the chauffeur in a respectful tone.
+
+"We are," replied Frank, "why?"
+
+"Oh, well," said the chauffeur, "then I'll let your friend off with
+fifty cents.  I thought he was a 'greeny'."
+
+With that, he calmly twisted the dial of the cab which registered
+$1.00 back to the fifty cent mark and coolly pocketed the coin the
+indignant Ben handed.
+
+"Does that thing work backwards?" demanded the amazed old
+adventurer, as the taxi whizzed off before he could frame words to
+express his indignation.
+
+"Not often," replied Billy with a laugh.  "I guess that chap reads
+the papers and thought it wouldn't do him any good to try to fool a
+particular friend of the Boy Aviators."
+
+"Well, boys, what are your plans?" demanded Ben, as--after the
+rugged fellow had been introduced to Mrs. Chester, a sweet-faced old
+lady, and Mr. Chester, a fine-looking, gray-haired man of about
+fifty--he and the boys sat in the garage discussing the African
+outfit.
+
+"We hardly know now," replied Frank, and then in a few words he
+described Lathrop's letter and its contents.
+
+"Wherever that boy is there's bound to be doings," remarked Ben,
+sententiously, when the young leader had finished.  "Down in Florida
+when he wasn't tumbling into alligators' mouths or getting bit by
+serpents he was allers up to some mischief--you mark my words
+there's something in the wind now."
+
+The boys talked late and long that night over the letter and what
+possible plan Mr. Barr, the ivory importer, could have to discuss
+that would be of interest to them, but they were able to arrive at
+no definite conclusion except that there was nothing to be done
+about it till morning.
+
+As for Ben with his usual philosophic attitude toward mysteries, he
+filled his pipe and silently smoked.  To those of our readers who
+have not met Ben this phase of his character may seem inexplicable,
+but to the boys Ben's passive acceptance of any situation had become
+quite familiar.  Ever since they had rescued the rugged old
+adventurer from a marooned treasure-mine in Nicaragua and he had
+shared their strange adventures in Florida on the Chapin Rescue
+Expedition, the old man had become as much a part of their necessary
+equipment as the Golden Eagle itself.  He had arrived that night in
+response to a telegraphed request to his cottage at Amityville on
+Long Island, where he cultivated an extensive farm--also part of the
+Quesal ruby profits--and devoted himself to fishing and hunting.
+
+'The Boys' mere word, however, that they were off to Africa had been
+sufficient to arouse the old man's roving instinct and here he was
+on deck once more as active as a boy and almost as impatient for the
+start for the Dark Continent.  Ben slept at the Chester's home that
+night and if his dreams were not as populated with visions of
+elephants, leopards, deer, huge snakes and pigmy savages as theirs
+it was not any lack of interest in the coming expedition that was
+responsible for it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE STOLEN IVORY
+
+
+"Will you please send this card up to Mr. Beasley's rooms and tell
+him that the visitors he was expecting are here?"
+
+It was Frank Chester who spoke early the next day, as the boys, in
+response to Lathrop's letter, stood at the Waldorf desk.  The clerk
+looked at them a little disdainfully.  Frank and Harry Chester were
+not the sort of boys who devoted much time to thinking about clothes
+and while they both wore dark neat-fitting suits they certainly did
+look a little out of place among the pasty-faced, cigarette-smoking
+youths in loud-looking garments who constituted most of the young
+men with whom the clerk was in the habit of coming in contact.
+
+"I don't think that Mr. Beasley can see you now, call later," he
+began, superciliously turning round to the letter-rack and sorting
+out the mail and putting each guest's letters in the proper box.
+
+For a second an angry flush rose to Frank's face.  The man's manner
+was enough to irritate any high spirited boy.  But Frank Chester was
+not given to what Bill Barnes called "flying off the handle."  He
+calmly took another card from his pocket and in a rather sharp
+voice, though his tones were even enough said:
+
+"Are you going to send that card up at once or shall I call the room
+on the telephone?"
+
+The clerk faced quickly about.  The two youths he had looked upon as
+rather awkward country bumpkins, judging as he did from their tanned
+faces and broad shoulders, were evidently not to be trifled with.  He
+glanced at the card as he rolled it up and handed it to a boy to be
+placed in a pneumatic tube and shot up to the fourth floor, on which
+Mr. Beasley and his party had taken rooms.
+
+"Oh, you are the Chester boys?" he exclaimed with a strong accent on
+the "the" and in markedly more respectful tones.
+
+"We are," said Frank with a smile which was reflected on his
+brother's face.
+
+"I beg your pardon for keeping you waiting, I'm sure," said the
+clerk with an apologetic leer, meant to be an engaging smile.
+
+"That's all right," said Frank shortly, turning away from the desk.
+
+"Well, having your name in the paper does do you some good after
+all," remarked Harry with a laugh.  "That fellow certainly turned a
+flip-flop, when he found out who we were."
+
+Five minutes later the boys were ushered into the Beasley rooms and
+were busily engaged shaking hands and exchanging all sorts of boyish
+exclamations of welcome with Lathrop Beasley, a tall, rather slender
+youth who had been their companion in Florida.  Like the boys,
+Lathrop was an accomplished aviator and wireless operator, although
+he had not the initiative or the sturdy pluck to perform the feats
+that they had.  He was, however, a boy of considerable brain and
+skill and among the boy-aviators of the country held an enviable
+position.
+
+"About your letter," began Frank when the first greetings were over.
+
+"In a minute," replied Lathrop, "here's father now."
+
+As he spoke, the portieres parted and a stout, fresh complexioned
+gentleman, ruddy from his bath and shaving, appeared.  He had the
+pompous manner of the successful man of business and seemed to the
+Chester boys to be the least bit patronizing in his manner.
+
+"Mr. Barr will be here in a minute," he said, after introductions
+had been made by Lathrop, "he will explain to you his idea.  I am
+merely a partner in the enterprise.  You will, of course, be glad to
+accept any restrictions he may impose?"
+
+"We hardly care to discuss that yet," said Frank, rather nettled by
+Mr. Beasley's pompous manner, "until we know what he requires."  He
+exchanged glances with Harry.
+
+"In fact," he went on, "we were planning to take a complete rest and
+follow in Mr. Roosevelt's foot-steps, by taking a hunting trip in
+Africa, only," he added with a smile, "we meant to hunt by aeroplane."
+
+"Wonderful," said Mr. Beasley, evidently much impressed by Frank's
+ready manner, "when I was a boy, if a lad had a "bone-shaker"
+bicycle he thought he was doing something fine, and as for flying--why,
+we never thought of it."
+
+"Perhaps the boys of to-day are further sighted," said Frank with
+quiet note of sarcasm in his tone that was quite lost on the
+well-meaning old merchant.  Indeed at that moment Mr. Beasley rose
+heavily from his chair and stepped forward to greet a new arrival
+who appeared from another room of the suite.
+
+"This is Mr. Luther Barr, the famous ivory importer," he said, with
+far more respect in his tones than he had used to the boys; whom
+indeed, he looked upon as talented chaps, but still boys--which to
+men of his caliber is an infallible sign that anything such youthful
+persons may attempt is extremely likely to go wrong.  How erroneous
+such an opinion is, those of our readers who have followed the
+adventures of the Chester boys know.
+
+Mr. Luther Barr deserves a new paragraph.  Long, lean and hollow
+cheeked, the term "gangling" fits him better than any other.  Mr.
+Luther Barr's black suit hung on him as baggily as the garments of a
+cornfield scarecrow and Mr. Luther Barr's sharp features were not
+improved by a small growth of gray hair; of the kind known as a
+"goatee" that sprouted from his lower rip.  For the rest of the boys
+noticed that Mr. Barr was gifted with a singularly gimlet-like pair
+of steely blue eyes that seemed to bore through you.
+
+"As sharp a man as ever drove up the price of ivory," added Mr.
+Beasley as he introduced the boys to this singular figure, "he can
+scent an ivory bargain--"
+
+"From here to Africa," struck in Mr. Barr in a sharp nasal tone that
+grated unpleasantly, "and you and I are going to be Kings of Wall
+Street if these boys put this deal through for us," he added with
+what was meant to be an amiable smile, but which, as a matter of
+fact, distorted his face till it looked uncommonly like an old
+Japanese war mask.  Indeed the boys, who had seen the collection in
+the Metropolitan Museum, could not help smiling to themselves, as
+the same thought struck each of them.
+
+"Well, Beasley," exclaimed Barr suddenly, "I'm as sharp set as a
+Long Island fox.  Let's have a bite of breakfast and then we can get
+down to business."
+
+From Mr. Barr's manner of dispatching his breakfast and the
+remarkable skill with which he wielded his knife, in conveying
+various morsels to his mouth, it was evident that he had spent so
+much time piling up money that his social education had been sadly
+neglected.  Once or twice the boys caught Lathrop's eye and they saw
+that the lad was blushing with shame at the uncouth manners of his
+father's friend. For this reason the boys refrained from paying any
+apparent attention to Mr. Barr's actions, although--as, they
+remarked afterwards--he was as well worth watching as the "sword
+swallower in a circus side show."
+
+"Yes, boys," said Mr. Barr with his mouth full of buttered toast and
+ham and eggs, "I guess I know more about Africa than any man alive."
+
+"You have crossed that continent?" asked Frank..
+
+"No, sir," replied the old ivory merchant with some contempt.  "I
+wouldn't waste my time where there ain't no ain't no money.  What I
+mean is, I know more about the Gold Coast, the Ivory Coast and the
+Slave Coast than any man in this or any other country and have got
+more good solid coin out of them."
+
+Mr. Beasley looked up admiringly from his plate.  Here was evidently
+a man after his own heart.
+
+"The Slave Coast?" echoed Harry inquiringly, "I thought--"
+
+"Thought there wasn't no more slaves, eh?" inquired Mr. Barr
+amiably, swallowing his coffee with a noise like water running out
+of a bath tub, "wall, that's because yer young.  When yer git older
+you'll larn that there's money in everything here's a demand for,
+and there's just as big a demand for slaves on some rubber
+plantations I could tell yer of as there ever was in the old days of
+the South--and more money in 'em on account of its being more
+dangerouser."
+
+"Do you mean to say that there is slave-running now?" asked Mr.
+Beasley, while both Frank and Harry wondered and Lathrop looked
+uncomfortable.
+
+"Sure I do," chirped Mr. Barr, "but no more for me.  There's too
+many British gunboats and 'Merican gunboats and Dutch gunboats and
+what not about now to make it comfortable or healthy.  No, I've
+retired from that business--but there's money in it," he concluded
+with a regretful sigh.
+
+Immediately Mr. Barr had concluded his breakfast--and with his
+apparently slim accommodations it was a wonder to the boys where he
+put it all--he snapped, with a flinty glint of his small pig-like
+eyes:
+
+"Now, let's git down to business.  You boys want ter make a bit of
+money?"
+
+"'To be sure we do," replied Frank, "but we don't want to make any
+that isn't honest money."
+
+"We'll, there's no accounting for boys nowadays," sighed Mr. Barr,
+"however, you needn't worry about this money--there'll be plenty of
+it and it'll all be good honest coin."
+
+"What do you wish us to do?" demanded Frank.
+
+"Just this: Mr. Beasley here and me is in on a deal in ivory.  That
+is, we were, but the big cache we had hoarded up in the Kuroworo
+Mountains in the Bambara country has been stolen by a rival trader,
+an Arab named Muley-Hassan.  We know where he's hidden it and we
+know, too, that he won't dare to bring it out till he thinks that we
+aren't watching him.  Now the time is ripe for a big deal in Ivory.
+There is a shortage in the market.  Prices will go up sky high.  If
+we get it out in time we'll make a barrel of coin, but if we don't
+we stand to lose heavily."
+
+Mr. Beasley gave a groan; to the boys' amazement he seemed to be
+about to collapse.  Lathrop too looked ill and anxious.  Old Barr
+paid no attention, however, but went on.
+
+"Now, I heard about you boys and your air-ship, and I heard, too,
+that you was planning a little trip to Africa and thought you might
+like to combine business and pleasure."
+
+He drew from his pocket a much-thumbed, crudely drawn map and spread
+it out on the table.  How he obtained it, the boys never learned
+exactly, but they heard later that a treacherous attendant of the
+ivory dealer had sold it to him for a good round sum.
+
+"This country down here," he said, indicating it with a black rimmed
+finger nail, "is the Southern Soudan.  Here's the Bambara country to
+the north of Uasule.  Now right at this point, in the Moon Mountain
+range,"--he pointed to a red-marked trail zigzagging across the map
+to the range and terminating in a red star--"right at that thar
+point, old Muley-Hassan, the Arab, has hidden our ivory cache.  You
+see the latitude and longitude is marked and furthermore--and here's
+the most remarkable part of it--you will know the spot when you see
+it by the fact that the mountains above the cache present an exact
+facsimile of an upturned human face.  In a direct line drawn from
+the nose of this face, where you see the red star, lies the ivory."
+
+The boys were deeply interested.  Unpleasant as was the impression
+old Barr had made on them, yet what he was disclosing was
+impressive; but as yet they did not show that they were anything
+more than casually struck by it.
+
+"Well, Mr. Barr?" said Frank, as the old matt paused impressively.
+
+"Well--" said Mr. Barr, "the scoundrel stole it and it's up to you
+to get it out of there, if you will undertake it."
+
+"How does it depend on us?" asked Frank.
+
+"In just this way.  Muley-Hassan has his eye on us---we can do
+nothing toward locating the ivory.  You can pitch a camp there and
+scout about for it in your aeroplane or dirigible or whatever you
+call it."
+
+"But even if we do find the Arab's hiding-place, what good does that
+do?" objected Frank.
+
+"We can arrange with the French government to send soldiers up into
+the country and get the stuff out, if necessary," readily replied
+the wrinkled old ivory dealer, "but we can make no move till the
+cave is located.  If they suspected we were after it, they would
+soon move it to another hiding-place or even pack it cross-country
+to the Nile and ship it out by the Mediterranean."
+
+Frank and Harry asked leave to hold a brief consultation at the
+conclusion of which, they announced that they would think the matter
+over, and see Mr. Barr at his office the next day.  The old man was
+far too shrewd to insist on a decision then and there, and so he
+left the hotel with the boys' promise to consider the matter
+carefully.  As for Frank and Harry, they had pretty well made up
+their minds not to have anything to do with Mr. Barr, but an
+unforeseen circumstance altered their determination.  As Barr left
+the room with Mr. Beasley, Lathrop turned on them with troubled
+eyes.
+
+"Will you do it, Frank?" he asked anxiously.  "Please say yes."
+
+"Why, Lathrop, whatever is the matter," asked Harry, noticing the
+almost painful anxiety, with which the boy looked at Frank and hung
+on his decision.
+
+"It's just this," said the boy in a voice that shook, as he tried to
+steady it, "if that ivory isn't found, we shall be ruined.  My
+father will be beggared."
+
+"Beggared," exclaimed both the Boy Aviators who had regarded Mr.
+Beasley--as indeed did his friends in general--as one of the "best
+fixed" business men in New York.
+
+"It's true,"' said Lathrop, despairingly.  "He has been speculating
+foolishly and entered into an agreement with this man Barr to borrow
+money for still further stock deals.  The only hope he has of paying
+his debts is the realization of the profits he could have made on
+the ivory.  Its theft was a bitter blow to him, not so much for his
+own sake, as for my mother and sisters.  Myself I don't care, I can
+get out and work, but it would break my heart to see them reduced to
+poverty."
+
+The situation was a difficult one for the Chester Boys.  They had
+taken a hearty dislike to the crafty old ivory merchant and had made
+up their minds not to enter into any enterprise in which he was
+interested.  Here, however, was a new complication.
+
+"Give us half-an-hour, Lathrop," said Frank at length, and the two
+boys withdrew to another room to talk the matter over.  It was ten
+minutes past the agreed time when they came back.
+
+In the meantime Lathrop had been joined by his father and the two
+had waited in painful anticipation for the Boy Aviators' verdict.
+
+"Well--," began Lathrop eagerly as the two boys with grave faces
+reentered the room.
+
+"Well," said Frank, with a smile, "I guess we'll help you out,
+Lath."
+
+Tears stood in the eyes of both Mr. Beasley and his son, as in shaky
+voices they endeavored to thank the Chester Boys.
+
+"That's all right, Lathrop," said Frank at length--"turn about's
+fair play.  You drove the aeroplane to Bellman's island you remember
+and saved us--now, we'll save you and your father, if we can--how
+long can you give us, Mr. Beasley?" he asked, briskly turning to the
+thoroughly humbled merchant.
+
+"Eight weeks--if I hear from you by cable in eight weeks I can keep
+things going," was the reply.
+
+"Phew!" whistled Frank, "that's not an awful lot of time."
+
+"Can you do it, Frank?" asked Lathrop eagerly.
+
+"We'll try as hard as we know how," was the modest answer.
+
+"And--and you'll take me along?" faltered Lathrop.
+
+"Sure, you can come as your father's representative at large,"
+laughed Frank.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE DARK CONTINENT
+
+
+About a month after the events related in the last chapter the
+bluff-bowed French coasting steamer, Admiral Dupont, dropped anchor
+in the shallow roadstead off the steamy harbor of Fort Assini on the
+far-famed Ivory Coast.  A few days before, the boys had left Sierra
+Leone and engaged quarters on the cockroach-infested little craft
+for the voyage down the coast.  It was blisteringly hot and from off
+the shore there was borne on the wind the peculiar smell that every
+traveler knows as "African."  It is the essence of the dark
+continent.  Our young voyagers and Ben sniffed at it eagerly.
+
+"Smells like marigolds," said Billy at last--and it did.
+
+But there was soon plenty more to discuss than the strange
+appearance of the town, which in reality was little more than a big
+village with here and there one, or two houses of some pretension
+scattered about.  For the rest, it consisted of the wickerwork huts
+of the natives.  Back of the town were dense forests and beyond
+these again a long blue line of hills.  An unhealthful looking lagoon
+lay between the houses and the mainland, into which the boys had been
+told the Bia River, up which they were to begin their voyage to the
+interior, emptied.
+
+A broad yellow beach stretched in front of the houses and from this,
+as soon as the little steamer dropped anchor, whaleboats and canoes
+in great numbers were launched through what looked to be a thunderous
+surf.  They were navigated by Kroomen--or Krooboys as they are
+sometimes called--and who are a superior race to most of the natives
+of Africa.
+
+Some of the paddlers and oarsmen in the boats that surrounded the
+Admiral Dupont were almost six feet in height and splendidly built.
+
+"Good looking fellows those," said the captain, who had joined the
+group of wondering young adventurers, "but in spite of their good
+looks they are petty thieves, if they get the chance."
+
+Of this quality, the boys were soon to get an example.  Frank had
+laid down his field-glasses on a deck chair and didn't give them any
+more thought, even when the decks were fairly swarming with
+half-naked, chattering, laughing Kroomen.  When he looked around for
+them, however, for the purpose of making out more clearly the
+outline of the distant mountains, the glasses had vanished.
+
+The young leader quickly divined what had occurred and stepping to
+the rail he held above his head an English sovereign and a pair of
+glasses, borrowed, from Billy.
+
+"I'll give this money to the man who finds my field glasses," he
+shouted.
+
+"It's a long chance," he remarked to Harry, "there may be some one
+there who understands English.  Anyway they can see that I'm willing
+to give money for something like the object I held up."
+
+As much to Frank's astonishment as anyone else the next minute they
+heard a hail from a canoe containing two particularly black Kroomen.
+
+"Hey, boss;" one of them was shouting, "what you lost, eh?"
+
+"Some one stole my field-glasses," shouted back Frank.
+
+"All right, American massa," hailed back the Krooman, "I sail long
+time 'Merican ships.  I catch him for you."
+
+"Well, what do you think of that?" demanded Billy.  "If the Statue
+of Liberty had come off her perch and done a song and dance you
+couldn't have astonished me more than to hear that sack of coal talk
+English."
+
+"They take several of those fellows to sea on trading ships, that
+stop in here for logs from the interior," struck in Ben.  "It
+wouldn't surprise me but what that fellow there has been in New York
+harbor, yes, and in San Francisco too."
+
+The boys looked their astonishment.
+
+"They are good hard workers," went on Ben, "and make good sailormen.
+They always come back here though in the end.  They are as home
+loving as a house cat."'
+
+While the boys talked, their baggage was being hoisted into a
+lighter that lay alongside, ready for shipment ashore.  They were
+about ready to quit the ship when their attention was attracted by a
+terrific uproar among the natives alongside.  Two or three canoes
+had been upset and in the water half a dozen Kroomen were splashing
+about like big, black fish.
+
+"They'll drown," gasped Harry, as he watched the furious water
+battle.
+
+"Not them," sniffed Ben, "they are as much at home in the water as
+they are ashore.  Hello!" he exclaimed, suddenly pointing, "there's
+your field-glasses again, Frank."
+
+Sure enough, from the hands of a spluttering, half-drowned native,
+the Krooman who spoke English had just wrested a dripping pair of
+black morocco-covered field-glasses.  He held them aloft in triumph,
+treading water while he held the other's head under the sea as a
+punishment for his thievery.
+
+"I catch 'um, boss, I catch um," he kept shouting triumphantly.  A
+few seconds later, having half drowned the unfortunate thief, he
+stood dripping like a figure cut out of black basalt before the boy.
+As he received his recovered property Frank presented its rescuer
+with the sovereign.  If it had been a fortune the man could not have
+been more overcome with gratitude.  He sank on his knees.
+
+"You come ashore my boat?" he begged.  "Cost nothing to United
+States boys."
+
+The adventurers assented and, having seen their baggage properly
+stowed on the lighter, they landed through the surf a short time
+later and found themselves on the flat, yellow beach facing the
+rather dreary  looking row of Europeans' houses.  The method of
+landing the surf boats and the wonderful dexterity with which the
+natives handle them is worth a whole chapter to itself.  But it
+might prove tedious reading, so suffice it to say, that with one man
+standing erect in the stern with a steering oar, and the others
+paddling like demons, the Ivory Coast boatmen invariably land their
+passengers, in a smother of foam which seems overwhelming, without
+spilling a drop of water on them.  Not a visitor to this coast but
+has been impressed by their wonderful skill.
+
+"Well, here we are," remarked Billy, looking about him at the novel
+surroundings.
+
+"The first thing to do," announced Frank, "is to go to the house of
+Monsieur Desplaines, to whom Mr. Barr gave us a letter of introduction,
+and talk over our plans."
+
+Monsieur Desplaines was the consular agent of the United States
+government at Assini, which is a French port, and had promised by
+cable to Mr. Barr to give, the young travelers all the advice that
+his experiences could suggest.  He had also volunteered to select
+for them a train of native baggage carriers, and hunters that would
+be reliable.  There are no roads into the heart of Africa and
+everything is transported by human pack-trains.  The natives of this
+part of the coast are strong, muscular men not easily fatigued and
+are capable of carrying burdens on their heads twenty-five miles or
+more a day without exhaustion.
+
+As the boys started to make their way up the beach a trim figure
+with neatly waxed black mustaches, almost extinguished in a huge
+pith helmet and dressed in white duck with a red sash about the
+waist, emerged from the nearest house and hastened toward them.
+
+"Welcome to Africa!" cried the newcomer as he approached and who, as
+Frank at once guessed, was M. Desplaines himself.  "Come with me to
+the house and make yourselves at home."
+
+The boys shook hands warmly with the little Frenchman who seemed so
+hospitably inclined and followed him eagerly toward the whitewashed
+house from which be had emerged.
+
+"I would have been at the steamer to meet you," he exclaimed
+apologetically; "but she got here a day ahead of time and I was not
+prepared."
+
+Inside the house, which was delightfully cool and darkened by
+jalousies from the glaring heat outside, the young adventurers were
+introduced to Madame Desplaines and two little girls, who
+constituted the family of the consular agent, who also kept the
+general supply store at Assini.
+
+After dinner that evening, M. Desplaines talked long and earnestly
+to the boys.  Of the real object of their mission, he had of course
+no knowledge.  That was kept a secret even from Barr's intimates.
+There was too much at stake to let it leak out.  His idea was the
+boys had come on a hunting and exploration, much of which was to be
+performed by aeroplane.  He informed the boys that, acting on cabled
+instructions, he had laid in a good supply of gasoline by the last
+steamer from Sierra Leone and that arrangements for a train of
+carriers and for boats up the river had been made.  There was a
+wheezy steam launch belonging to the trading post which would tow
+the boats up the Bia River as far as they desired.  The Kroomen the
+boys engaged would take them to that point would then be abandoned,
+as they refused to go far from the coast.  Such was the outline of
+M. Desplaines' conversation with the travelers.
+
+The evening was far advanced when already the little party was ready
+for bed and already their imaginations had been fired by the tales
+that the consular agent had told them of the interior of the wild
+Bambara country.  As they were saying good night to their hospitable
+host and hostess, there was a knock at the door.  In response to M.
+Desplaines shouted: "Come in," a tall coal-black figure stalked into
+the lamp-light.  The glow shone warmly on his black skin and lit up
+the mighty muscles that played beneath it.  The strength of the man
+was evidently tremendous.  The boys, to their surprise, recognized
+him at once, as the rescuer of Frank's opera-glasses.  He paid no
+attention to Desplaines or his family, but walked straight up to
+Frank.
+
+"Hi boss, you go hunt, you go far into land of Bambara," he said,
+raising his mighty arm and pointing to the northeast.
+
+Frank nodded.
+
+It was a strange scene.  The boys and Ben in their hunting costumes
+and stout boots, M. Desplaines, short and inclined to be fat and as
+neatly barbered and tailored as if he had just stepped off the
+boulevards, Madame Desplaines and her little girls in cool, white
+frocks--and in the center of the group--dominating it by his
+impressive manner and mighty form--the huge, ebony Krooman.
+
+"In the land of Bambara much game," went on the Krooman.
+
+"So we have heard," replied Frank.
+
+"In the land of Bambara much danger," continued the Krooman, fixing
+his dark eyes full on Frank, "much danger to the white boys, who fly
+like birds."
+
+"Why, how do you know that?" exclaimed Frank, amazed that the
+Krooman should not only know their destination--which might have
+been a guess--but have divined the fact that they had an aeroplane.
+
+"Krooman know much that white man not know!" replied the giant
+black.
+
+Then, rising his finger, he counted the amazed group of adventurers
+who stood transfixed at the scene.
+
+"One--two--three--four--five go to Bambara," he intoned.  "Come back
+one--two--three.  Two die.  Sikaso, know."
+
+Before any of the astounded party could frame a question or open
+their lips, the huge figure had stalked to the doorway and vanished.
+
+"He'd make a nice, comfortable house-pet that fellow," said Billy,
+who was the first to speak.  "One, two, three, four, five go to
+Bambara," he mimicked.  "Come back one, two, three.  Two die.
+Sikaso know.  Br-r-r-r-r, he gives me the creeps."
+
+They all laughed at Billy's absurd aping of the stately negro, but
+nevertheless none of them felt inclined for more talk that night.
+Somehow, the Krooman had cast a gloom on the party.  Had they known
+how nearly his prophecy was to come to fulfillment they might even
+have been tempted to abandon the expedition.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE WITCH-DOCTOR
+
+
+Bright and early the next day Frank and Harry were up and stirring,
+and the other members of the party were not long in joining them.
+The almost innumerable packing cases and chests containing the
+duffle, ammunition, armament and the sections of the Golden Eagle
+were scattered about the little "compound" or garden of M.
+Desplaines' residence, having been brought ashore overnight by a
+crew of Kroomen.  M. Desplaines appeared while the boys were still
+contemplating their outfit and wondering if it would be possible to
+accommodate it all in the little flotilla which, it had been
+arranged previously, was to take them up the river to the camping
+place from which they were to strike out for the Ivory Mountain.
+
+"I really almost envy your trip," he said, "although it will be
+fraught with danger.  Still you go well armed and provisioned, and
+from what I have heard of you, you are not the sort of boys to let a
+few obstacles upset you."
+
+While they were still talking and waiting for breakfast to be
+announced they were joined by a singular figure.  It was that of a
+white man in rather shabby ducks and crowned, as was M. Desplaines,
+with a huge, white pith helmet.  Over one shoulder he carried a
+green butterfly net and under one arm he had tucked a tin box.
+Round his waist was a leather belt from which hung, in addition to a
+revolver and cartridges, a glass bottle with a wide stopper with a
+chloroformed sponge reposing in the bottom.  It did not need the
+introduction of the newcomer by M. Desplaines as Professor Ajax
+Wiseman, to tell the boys that Dr. Wiseman was a naturalist.
+
+"My dear professor, what are you doing here?" exclaimed M.
+Desplaines as soon as the introductions were over.
+
+"I arrived this morning from Grand Bassam on a coasting schooner,"
+replied the professor, carefully setting down his tin box.  "I have
+a remarkable specimen of the Gladiolus Gorgeosi in there," he
+remarked importantly.  "I am contemplating a trip into the interior
+via the Bia River and came to you to see if you could arrange
+transportation."
+
+M. Desplaines looked at the boys.
+
+"These young men have engaged the steam launch, to tow their
+expedition up the river," he said hesitatingly; "they are going on a
+hunting trip, into the interior, and have, I venture to say, one of
+the most complete outfits I have ever seen."
+
+The naturalist looked wistfully at Frank.
+
+"I suppose there would not be the least objection to my availing
+myself of your assistance in getting up the river," he said,
+blinking behind his spectacles like an old bat who has unexpectedly
+emerged into the sunlight.  "I have only two canoes and as I carry
+my own attendant I shall be no trouble."
+
+"We shall be delighted to accommodate you," rejoined Frank heartily,
+"but I shall have to place one restriction on you.  When we reach
+our destination we must part company as we have work to do of a
+confidential nature.  Our employer, Mr. Barr--"
+
+"Old Luther Barr," burst out Professor Wiseman suddenly.
+
+"Why, yes," rejoined Frank, rather taken aback, "you know him then?"
+
+"I--I have heard of him," replied the other with a slight hesitancy
+which was, however, so faint as to be hardly noticeable.  The voice
+of Madame Desplaines summoning them to breakfast broke off any
+opportunity for further questions on a matter that plainly, for some
+strange reason or other, seemed to have heartily interested--even
+disturbed--the naturalist.  Frank felt troubled for a moment at the
+idea of having let Professor Wiseman form a portion of their party
+even for a short distance.  But he dismissed the idea almost
+instantly.  The queer expression that passed over Professor
+Wiseman's face at the mention of the ivory trader's name might have
+simply been due to astonishment at hearing it again.  Still Frank
+decided to keep an eye on Professor Wiseman.
+
+The conversation at breakfast naturally enough dealt with the little
+known country the boys were to penetrate.  Then it was for the first
+time that they heard mention of the mysterious tribe of the Flying
+Men who were reported to be equipped with rudimentary wings--like
+those of an undeveloped bat with which they managed to flit from
+tree top to tree top like true flyers.
+
+"Oh, come," laughed Billy, "I've heard of tailed men and white
+Africans with red top-knots like Lathrop, but a race of winged men
+is coming it too strong."
+
+"Laugh if you like," declared Professor Wiseman who had brought up
+the subject, "but some time ago I articulated a skeleton brought me
+by an Arab slave trader and found extending from the shoulder blade
+two distinct bony frames which had in life apparently been covered
+with a thin fleshy substance of leathery like tenacity stretching
+thence to the wrists.  I asked the slave trader where he had found
+the skeleton," went on the savant, "and he told me he had come
+across it at the foot of a giant silk cotton tree in the Bambara
+country."
+
+The boys exchanged glances.  It was to the Bambara country--the
+country of the legendary Flying Men--that they were bound.
+
+"Is any more known of this tribe?" inquired Frank.
+
+"Very little except what you can pick up from the natives, which is
+little enough," replied Professor Wiseman, "they seem to have a
+dislike to speaking of the Flying Men--to whites at any rate.  I
+think, too, they fear them.  Report has it that they live in
+cave-like holes in the side of a giant, black basalt cliff reached
+by a subterranean river.  They reach the ground by taking short
+flights from the holes they live in and regain the cliff dwellings
+by means of rope ladders formed of twisted creepers."
+
+"Then they cannot fly upward?" asked Frank.
+
+"It would seem not," replied the naturalist, "their wings only serve
+as gliders.  Possibly once in the remote ages they could fly as well
+as great birds but with the course of the ages and disuse their
+wings have dwindled."
+
+As may, be imagined the idea that within a short time they were to
+be in the country of the mysterious tribe caused a tremendous stir
+among the boys and when after breakfast their strange friend of the
+night before, Sikaso, appeared they at once overwhelmed him with
+questions.  But strangely enough Sikaso made no reply to their eager
+queries.
+
+He shook his great bead and seemed to be embarrassed, if not by fear
+at any rate by reticence.
+
+"In Misoto Mountains many strange Ju-jus (fetishes)," he said in an
+awed tone, "Misoto Mountains no good for white boys--white boys stay
+away."
+
+"Not much," chimed in Harry, "that's just where we are going."
+
+"You go Misoto Mountain," said the giant black in an astonished
+tone.
+
+"That's what we are," exclaimed Lathrop.
+
+The black gazed at the ground and drew a small circle on the dust
+with his toe.  In the center of it he made a cross.
+
+"That my dukkeri (fate)," he said slowly, "you go, Sikaso he go too.
+I see it in the smoke."
+
+"Saw it in the smoke?" repeated the amazed boys.
+
+"In smoke of Ju-ju fire I see it written.  I see five go, three come
+back, in smoke too.  I have spoken."
+
+He stalked off as I suddenly as he had the night before and left the
+boys to gaze in a bewildered way after his huge figure as it swung
+down the road.
+
+"That fellow's the best disappearer I ever saw," said Billy Barnes
+at length.
+
+"I wish he'd stop that stuff about 'five go three come back,"' said
+Lathrop, "it gets on your nerves."
+
+"What could he have meant by seeing it in the smoke?" asked Harry
+bewilderedly.
+
+"Just this," broke in a quiet voice behind them.  It was Professor
+Wiseman, who had glided up to them as silently as a cat.  "It is a
+common trick among the witch doctors--of whom our friend yonder
+seems to be one--to divine events by means of the smoke from a fire
+built to the accompaniment of special incantations."
+
+"Well, that's cheerful," commented Billy, "but tell us, Professor,
+how often do they hit it right?"
+
+"Nine times out of ten, young man," said Professor Wiseman
+impressively fixing Billy with his gaze just as he would have
+impaled a bug or grasshopper, "and the tenth time they come so near
+the truth as to be uncomfortable."
+
+"I have heard of such things, but I always put them down as
+impossibilities," gasped Frank.
+
+"Just travelers' tales," said Billy.
+
+"There are many things for the young to learn in Africa," remarked
+Professor Wiseman coldly and gazing at Billy with squashing
+intentness; "the young do not believe many things merely because
+they are young--and foolish."
+
+"Gee! that was a nailer for fair," said Billy afterward.  "I felt as
+if the Doc was running a big blue pin through me and sticking me on
+a bit of cork,"
+
+That morning, as the start for the interior was not to be made till
+the next day, M. Desplaines asked the boys if they would care to try
+a little fishing at the foot of the famous Jumbari Falls which lay
+on a branch of the Bari river a short distance from the town.  Of
+course the boys assented eagerly, but as it was found that only
+Frank and Harry were expert canoeists, it was agreed that the others
+should fish from the bank while the two young leaders trolled their
+lines from a native built craft.  This canoe was kept at the falls--to
+which they tramped the two miles overland by a narrow trail.
+
+The falls were a magnificent sight.  From a dark red rock, fully two
+hundred feet in height, a great volume of water poured its roaring
+current into a boiling pool below.  The cliffs shot up sheer on all
+sides and were covered at the bottom with luxuriant green growth
+like seaweed, while higher up, ferns, as big as rose-bushes at home,
+and trees of a hundred varieties clung wherever they could find a
+root-hold.  As the party arrived at the top of the ravine and gazed
+down, the uproar of the water was so terrific as to render any
+speech inaudible.  M. Desplaines, who led the party, pointed to a
+hole in the rocks and a second later vanished into it.
+
+At first, consternation seized on the boys who thought that an
+accident had happened, but seeing not hearing Professor Wiseman's
+reassuring laugh and noticing him plunge after M. Desplaines, the
+boys rightly concluded that the aperture was a subterranean entrance
+to the foot of the falls.  And so it proved.  A steep flight of
+steps was cut in a deep cleft of the cliff down to the water's edge.
+A few minutes after they had begun the descent, the little party stood
+on the brink of the whirling pool into which the mighty falls roared
+their thousands of tons of water.  Following M. Desplaines, they
+advanced down the stream to a  point where a bend shut off like a
+rock curtain the deafening uproar of the cascade.  Here a canoe lay
+moored and Frank and Harry stepped into it and shoved off.  Their
+lines and other equipment they had in their pockets.
+
+As they shoved out M. Desplaines shouted something that they did not
+catch and pointed down the stream.  How near the fact that they
+could not hear his words was to come to costing them their lives
+neither of the boys guessed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE POOL OF DEATH
+
+
+"Say, Frank, have you noticed that we are going to have a hard
+paddle back against this current?"
+
+The boys had been fishing about an hour when Harry spoke.  So
+engrossed had they both been pulling in fish of a dozen strange
+varieties and brilliant hues that neither of the lads had noticed
+that the canoe had drifted down stream far from the starting point
+and that in fact when they looked up they were in an entirely
+strange part of the river.
+
+"You are right, Harry," rejoined Frank, as he looked up at the steep
+banks on either side of them, "we have drifted a considerable
+distance.  Come on, out with the paddles and we'll be getting back."
+
+But it was one thing to talk of getting back and quite another thing
+to do it.  The boys, after an hour of paddling, were dismayed to
+find that although their arms ached with the exertion and they were
+dripping with perspiration, they had made hardly any progress
+against the current.
+
+"It's too much for us," gasped Frank.
+
+"What on earth are we going to do?" asked Harry with blanched
+cheeks.
+
+Frank glanced at the shore on either side.  For a minute he had
+entertained a thought of landing and walking back along the beach.
+But there was no beach.
+
+The river boiled along between narrow walls which shot sheer up from
+the water.  There was not even a niche in their smooth surface to
+afford a foothold to a mountain goat.  They were caught in a trap.
+
+The only thing to do was to drift down the river and trust to luck
+to find a landing-place.  In their extremity they shouted at the top
+of their voices to let their comrades know of their plight, but
+their cries were unanswered and they began to wish that they had
+saved their breath to use in the task of keeping the canoe steady in
+the current.
+
+While they had been pondering their situation, moreover, they had
+been swept with almost incredible rapidity down the river.  The
+walls here grew narrower and narrower and the water fairly boiled in
+its narrow confines.  Its dark surface was flecked with white foam,
+and to make matters worse, as the walls closed in the light became
+fainter, till the boys were being carried downward through almost
+subterranean darkness.
+
+In the intense gloom their white strained faces shone out like
+pallid beacon-lights.
+
+"Hold her steady," said Frank in a tense voice as the canoe wobbled
+crazily in the swollen current.
+
+"I'm doing the best I can," gasped out poor Harry desperately plying
+his paddle.
+
+It the canoe was to get broadside onto the current, even for the
+fraction of a second, Frank well knew that nothing could save them.
+It was a terrible situation.
+
+Helplessly they were being borne at dizzy speed to what seemed
+almost certain death--for certain it was that they could not hold
+out much longer.  Already their overstrained muscles were only
+mechanically doing their duty, but before long Frank realized that
+even his-well-trained young body must collapse--and then, what?
+
+Suddenly there was borne to their ears a sound that made both boys
+chill with terror.
+
+It was a mighty roaring like the furious boiling of some giant
+kettle.  A thousand shouting voices seemed blended into one to form
+the music, of this ominous orchestra.  Louder the noise grew and
+louder, as the pass through which the river now tore like a runaway
+race-horse grew narrower and blacker.
+
+What could the awful uproar mean?
+
+They had not long to wait before the truth burst upon them.  They
+were nearing, at what seemed express speed, a whirling, roaring mass
+of waters that shouted at them like some animal calling for its
+prey.  The boys' cheeks blanched as they realized that nothing but a
+miracle could save them from being sucked into this watery abyss.
+
+Desperately they plied their paddles but if they had been useless
+further up the stream they were doubly inefficient now.  If they had
+stroked against the rushing current with feathers they could not
+have had less effect in checking the death rush of the canoe, which
+was tossed along on the racing tide like a chip of wood.
+
+Suddenly the canoe was struck a terrific blow.
+
+Before either boy could realize what had happened they were both
+struggling in the water.  So dazed were they by the mishap that it
+was several minutes before they understood that they were clinging
+to the to the trunk of some huge tree.  It was this trunk that had
+wrecked the canoe and thrown them overboard.
+
+In reality, though, they were little better off now than they had
+been while the canoe was being whirled down the river.  It looked as
+if they had been saved from one death only to face a worse.  With
+all their might they clung side by side.  Dripping wet, half-blinded
+and bruised by the battering they got as the trunk smashed from side
+to side of the narrow passage, the indomitable American pluck of the
+two lads yet held good in this extremity.
+
+"Is it good-by, Frank?" Harry found strength to murmur.
+
+"While there's life there's hope," came Frank's brave reply in his
+favorite axiom.  "We'll live to fly the old Golden Eagle yet, let's
+hope."
+
+There was no time for further talk, even had the boys been in any
+position to consider conversation.  The trunk was rapidly nearing
+the whirlpool--and death.
+
+Small wonder that brave as the boys were a despairing cry burst from
+their throats as they saw what seemed the end of their ride close
+upon them.  It was as if they could feel the breath of the Pale
+Horseman already blowing chilly in their faces.
+
+But suddenly a strange thing happened.
+
+Both boys had closed their eyes and only moved their lips in prayer
+as they saw that inevitably in a few minutes they must be sucked
+into the maelstrom.  Now, however, they opened them in amazement.
+
+The swift rush of the log to which they clung like drowned rats had
+stopped.
+
+It took them only a few seconds to take in what had occurred.  The
+great log swinging one end toward the swirling current had jammed
+clear across the stream and for a time at any rate they were saved
+from immediate death.  In their joy they clasped each other's hands
+warmly but their first rush of relief did not last long.  As a
+matter of fact they were not any nearer safely than they had been a
+few minutes previous.
+
+The log, it was true, was jammed across the stream, but the
+consequent backing up of the impetuous current caused it to rush
+across the boys' refuge in such volumes as to almost sweep them from
+their perches.
+
+It was very evident that they could not hold put indefinitely in
+this position.
+
+Their attention was attracted as they clung to their water-swept
+tree-trunk by a dark object whirling about in the boiling pool.  It
+was swept dizzily round and round in ever decreasing circles toward
+the middle of the fatal vortex.  Suddenly it shot downward out of
+sight, but as it did so Frank had seen something that kindled one
+ray of hope--though a feeble one.  Before the canoe had taken the
+fatal downward plunge it had hesitated for a minute as though caught
+on something; and then the boy leader saw for the first time that in
+the center of the pool there was a rock, although the water that
+submerged it to the depth of an inch or so prevented its being seen
+at first glance.
+
+Frank turned to Harry and told him of his discovery.
+
+"If we are cast into the pool let us make up our minds to get to
+that rock.  Keep your mind concentrated on it.  Don't let the idea
+leave you for a second and perhaps--I say 'perhaps'--we can make
+it."
+
+Harry shook his head despairingly.
+
+"I can hardly keep my grip on this tree.  I don't believe that I
+could possibly manage to swim even a few yards," he groaned.
+
+"You must," said  Frank sharply.  "Don't give in now, Harry.   Stick
+it out."
+
+Then as a sudden thought struck him he continued.
+
+"See here, it's no good our wasting our strength clinging to this
+trunk any longer.  Sooner or later we shall be swept off and the
+longer we wait the less reserve strength we shall have.  Let us
+leave go now and swim for it."
+
+Whatever reply Harry might have tendered to this desperate proposal
+he was spared making, for at that moment a wave of more than
+ordinary force--caused by the backed-up water striking the log--struck
+him full in the face and before he knew it the boy had been washed
+from the tree trunk and was being carried like a straw down the stream.
+
+As Harry felt himself being carried along there was only one thought
+in his mind.  It was not of death.  When death is right upon a man
+or a boy he rarely thinks of it, but casts about for the best means
+of saving himself.  Nor does--as some imaginative writers have told
+us--a man's whole past life come before him at such moments.
+No--the instinct of self-preservation is strongest when a human
+being is in the direst need, and so it was that in Harry's mind one
+thought kept hammering away like the strokes of a tolling bell.
+
+"Try-and-make-the-rock.  Try-and-make-the-rock."
+
+Frank's insistence had done this much.  It had caused the boy to
+recollect the one hope of salvation that the desperate situation
+held out.  As he was swept down the torrent Harry made no effort to
+swim.  It would have been worse than useless and besides he needed
+to husband his strength for the final struggle he knew was upon him.
+
+The next minute he felt a sickening swirling sensation and realized
+that he was in the whirlpool's death-grip at last.
+
+Faster and faster the boy was hurried in ever decreasing circles.
+Dizzy, half-choked with water, blinded and almost exhausted Harry,
+with the tenacity of a bull dog, still clung tenaciously to the one
+idea:
+
+"Try-and-make-the-rock.  Try-and-make-the-rock."
+
+Suddenly, he was flung against a hard substance.  With outstretched
+fingers he clutched at the slimy surface as of what he realized was
+the end of his journey at last.  The great stone was covered with
+slimy weed, however, and his grasping fingers refused to clutch at
+any friendly niche in its surface.
+
+With a despairing cry the boy was being swept in to the terrible mouth
+of the pool when he felt himself seized and pulled up out of the grip
+of the torrent.  He knew no more till he opened his eyes and found
+Frank by his side.  Both boys were on the rock--sitting on it in two
+inches or more of water.  Fortunately in that climate the water was
+not so chilly as to cause discomfort, but this was about the only
+crumb of satisfaction the situation held for them.
+
+"Well done, old fellow," said Frank as Harry opened his eyes.  "You
+had a narrow escape, though."
+
+Harry could only look at his brother gratefully.  How deep was his
+debt of gratitude to him both boys realized without their talking of
+it.
+
+"How did you gain the rock, Frank?" asked Harry.
+
+"When I saw you swept off the tree trunk I slipped off too," replied
+Frank, "and when I felt myself dragged into the pool I struck out
+for the rock.  I confess, though, I didn't have much hope of
+reaching it till I was slammed into it with a blow that almost
+cracked my ribs and knocked all the wind out of me.  I managed
+however to grab hold of a depression in the surface and maintain my
+grip on it.  I had hardly dragged myself up when you were hurled
+against it.  I thought I had lost you, for the water pulled like a
+draught-horse, but I managed to hold on to you and here we are."
+
+"And a worse position we could not possibly be in," added Harry.
+
+"Unless we were in there," retorted Frank pointing, not without a
+shudder, to the whirling open mouth of the pool which had sucked
+down the wreck of their canoe.
+
+"What is it do you suppose?" asked Harry wonderingly.
+
+"The mouth of a subterranean river I guess," replied Frank.  "I have
+read of such things."
+
+"But why didn't Desplaines warn us of our danger," said Harry
+bitterly, "if we ever get out of this I shall tell him my opinion of
+him pretty strongly.  We might have been killed and we may yet."
+
+"He did warn us," replied Frank calmly.
+
+"He did?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I should like to know when?"
+
+"When we shoved off."
+
+"You mean when he shouted something we couldn't catch and pointed
+down the river?"
+
+"That's it."
+
+"I thought he meant there was better fishing down, here," snapped
+Harry indignantly, "what idiots we were."
+
+"Yes; not to notice how we were drifting," rejoined Frank quietly,
+"it's no use to blame Mr. Desplaines for this pickle.  We have only
+ourselves to be angry with.  I don't suppose he ever thought that
+two boys would not notice how they were drifting in a ten mile
+current."
+
+"The point is how are we ever going to get out of it?"
+
+How indeed?
+
+As the boys looked about they saw little to encourage them.  The
+chasm in which they were beleaguered was not more than fifteen feet
+across, but on either side shot up walls of rock so steep and smooth
+that not even a fern could find root on their polished surfaces.
+
+Where the whirlpool sank into the bowels of the earth the walls came
+together at an angle forming a sort of triangular prison.  At the
+top of this trap the boys could see a strip of blue sky and the
+outlines of the graceful tops of some bulbous stemmed palms but
+nothing else.  Once a vulture sailed across the strip and sighting
+the two boys came lower to investigate.  The sight of the carrion
+bird made both of the boys shudder.
+
+"Ugh, he scents a meal, he thinks we're dead already," cried Harry
+disgustedly.
+
+The sound of his voice echoed gloomily among the rocks.
+
+"We're dead already," came back in sepulchral tones.
+
+"I shan't try to wake that echo up again," said Harry in a low tone
+and shivering at the uncanny voice of the rock.
+
+Neither of the boys spoke for a long time.  They sat there silently,
+occasionally standing up to get the stiffness out of their limbs
+till the strip of sky above began to darken to gray.
+
+"Well, here goes!" exclaimed Harry suddenly.
+
+Frank glanced sharply up.  He did not like the wild tone in which
+the words were spoken.
+
+"What is it?" he asked sharply.
+
+"I'm tired of this, I'm going to swim for it," replied Harry with a
+foolish, hysterical laugh.
+
+Frank saw what had happened.  The boy had become half-delirious
+under the mental strain he had undergone.
+
+"Sit down, old fellow," he said kindly, "help will come soon I am
+sure."
+
+"Yes, a steamboat will come sailing down the river and take us home
+in the captain's cabin I suppose," said Harry foolishly.
+
+But nevertheless Frank's stern command to "shut up" and not make a
+foot of himself brought him to his senses and he said no more till
+the stillness was broken by a sudden cry from above.
+
+"Bosses--oh, bosses."
+
+"Ahoy there; castaways!"
+
+Frank looked up.
+
+The cry of joy he gave set the echoes flying in the gloomy canyon.
+
+It was the black face of Sikaso that was gazing down on them and
+beside it was Ben Stubbs' weather-beaten countenance.  Behind them
+were Billy, Lathrop and the rest.
+
+"Hold on there and we'll get you out of that in two shakes of a
+duck's tail," cheerily hailed the old adventurer.  "We guessed you'd
+be here and we brought a rope as long as a man of war's cable with
+us.  Lucky thing we did."
+
+The next minute a long rope of vegetable fiber came snaking down the
+side of the cliff and to one end of it clung Ben Stubbs.  As he
+reached the bottom--the rope being cautiously paid out from above by
+his companions--the old seaman swung himself outward from the face
+of the rock and "in a brace of shakes," as he would have said, stood
+alongside the two boys.  In a second his sharp eye took in Harry's
+wild looks and hysterical greetings and realized what had happened.
+
+"Now, Frank," he ordered, giving the young aviator the end of the
+rope--"catch hold tight and when you are ready give the word."
+
+"But Harry--" gasped Frank, "I can't leave him.  Let him go first."
+
+"I'll bring him up.  He can't look after himself in the shape he's
+in and you are too weak to attempt to help him.  Now no talking
+back.  I'm boss now.  Up aloft with you.  Haul away there!"
+
+The next minute Frank, clinging to the rope, was being hauled
+cautiously up the side of the sheer cliff by careful hands and
+shortly he was in the arms of his friends.
+
+Ben Stubbs--to whom the rope with a weight at the end of it had been
+swung pendulum wise--next appeared at the summit with Harry in his
+strong grip.  But it was a white faced inanimate burden he carried.
+The boy had swooned.
+
+"He'll be all right in a few minutes," said Ben Stubbs as M.
+Desplaines and the others all tried to explain at once to Frank how
+Sikaso had guessed what had happened when the boys did not return.
+The Krooman had led the party by secret native trails to the cliff
+top.  Frank clasped the huge black's hand with real gratitude and
+tears of thankfulness brimmed in his eyes.
+
+"How can I ever thank you," he said.
+
+"Um--white boys keep away Pool of Death, Sikaso much pleased,"
+replied the Krooman turning slowly away with a sad expression on his
+face.
+
+"His own son was drowned in it several years ago," said M.
+Desplaines briefly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A SNAP-SHOT FIEND IN TROUBLE
+
+
+The morning after the events recorded in the last chapter was one of
+these sparkling ones that are occasionally to be met with on the
+West African coast and was the forerunner of a day of great bustle
+and activity for the boys.  With the vitality of healthy youth Harry
+had completely recovered and was indeed surprised to find himself
+feeling so good after what he had been through.  Privately he
+inspected his hair in the mirror to see if it had turned white and
+was secretly much astonished to find it the same color as before.
+
+"I wish mine would turn white or potato color or something," said
+Lathrop, to whom Harry confided his expectation, "this red thatch of
+mine is a nuisance.  At school I was always Brick-top or Red-Head
+and out here the natives all look at my carrot-colored top-knot as
+if they'd like to scalp me and keep it for a fetish."
+
+Both boys laughed heartily over Lathrop's half-assumed vexation.  As
+a matter of fact he had been the butt of many jokes in school on
+account of his blazing red hair and in Africa the natives with their
+love for any gaudy color had already christened him Rwome Mogo or
+Red-Top.  Of this, however, he was fortunately ignorant, as he might
+have been tempted to go out and dispatch half a dozen of them if he
+knew of their term for him.
+
+Down at the river bank, cross the evil-smelling lagoon at the back
+of the town, Frank and Harry had their hands full directing
+shouting, laughing Kroomen how to load up the canoes.  From the
+canopied steam launch that lay alongside the rickety wharf the black
+engineer--an American Negro--watched with great contempt their
+labors, which they enlivened with songs from time to time.
+
+"Them's de mos' good fur nuffingest niggahs I ever did see,"
+remarked Mr. Rastus Johnson--that was his name--with undisguised
+contempt.
+
+Nevertheless by noon the canoes had all been leaded and the
+farewells to the kind M. Desplaines and his family said.  After a
+swift final inspection Frank pronounced everything ship-shape and
+even Doctor Wiseman who had been fussing about as Billy said "like a
+hen with one chicken--and that a lame duck," over his tin cases and
+poisonous looking bottles, announced that he was ready to start.
+The twelve chattering Kroomen who were to go as far as the Bambara
+country with the expedition were seated two in each canoe.  They
+were along simply as camp attendants and packers and would by no
+means go any further than the borders of the Bambara country which
+they said was the dwelling-place of "bery bad man sah."
+
+Just as the little launch, flying the stars and stripes out of
+compliment to the boys, was drawing out into the stream with a long
+blast of her whistle, a tall, black form came racing along the bank
+and with one bound cleared the five feet or so between the launch
+and the shore.  It was Sikaso.
+
+"So you came after all," said Frank, turning to him, after a bend in
+the, river had hidden the waving Mr. Desplaines from sight and they
+were settling down in the launch.
+
+"Sikaso see in the smoke I come--I come.  If I see in smoke I no
+come--I no come," remarked the Krooman.
+
+"He's traveling light anyhow," remarked Billy.
+
+Indeed the giant negro's only bit of baggage was a huge axe, the
+handle of which was dented and scarred as if by many combats.  Billy
+was about to run his thumb along its edge when with a gesture the
+mighty negro waved him aside.  Instead he took Billy's handkerchief
+from the young reporter's pocket and drew it gently along the axe
+blade.
+
+It fell in two pieces on each side of his blade, severed by its
+razor-like edge.
+
+"Sikaso is a good fellow to be friends with when he can make little
+ones out of big ones like that," remarked Billy, picking up the two
+fragments of his handkerchief, "that's a fine way to cut up a
+gentleman's wardrobe."
+
+Bit by bit as the launch drove steadily up the muddy river--from
+whose jungle-grown banks arose a warm, moist vapor--Frank drew from
+the grim-faced old Krooman some of his history.  He had been a
+mighty warrior in the old days, he said, and the weapon be carried
+was his war axe with which he had killed uncounted enemies.  A rival
+tribe, however, had killed his father and mother and driven him to
+the coast with the few survivors of his village.  Here he had
+shipped on an American trading brig for New York where he had picked
+up the knowledge of English he possessed.  He also worshiped America
+as "free man's country."  But Africa had called to him and some
+three years before he had returned on another ship and meant to die
+there, he said.
+
+"Why did you wish to go with us?" asked Frank as the native
+concluded his story.
+
+"It was written so in the smoke, white boss," replied the veteran
+simply.  "The ju-ju in the smoke strong ju-ju.  He knows many
+things."
+
+"Is that the only reason you have for coming?"
+
+"No, boss, I tell you truth," replied the old warrior, "some day I
+find the chief who kill my father and my mother and kill my
+friends."  He glanced significantly at his axe.
+
+"In the Moon Mountains maybe I find him--maybe not.  But some day I
+shall and then--"
+
+He said no more, but as Frank remarked to Harry when the former
+recounted his conversation to his brother later:
+
+"I shouldn't much like to be that man when Sikaso meets him."
+
+The launch and the small flotilla she towed forged steadily up the
+stream all that day and at nightfall drew alongside the bank at a
+spot where a clearing planted with bananas clearly indicated the
+presence thereabouts of a native village.  As soon as the launch was
+moored to the bank the adventurers scrambled out--not sorry of a
+chance to stretch their legs--and looked about them wonderingly.
+They were really in equatorial Africa at last, and even as they
+looked there was a sound borne to their ears that brought home to
+them strongly how very far away they were from old New York.  It was
+a pulsing, rhythmic beating something like a drum and yet unlike it.
+They looked questioningly at Sikaso.
+
+"Tom-tom," said he briefly.
+
+"Is it a friendly village, Sikaso?" inquired Doctor Wiseman.
+
+"Friendly to some--not to all," replied the Krooman, who for some
+unaccountable reason had taken a strange dislike to the professor.
+"Come," he said, intoning to Frank and Harry, "we go see get
+chicken, maybe pork."
+
+"Say, can't we come along, Frank?" asked Billy and Lathrop their
+faces falling.
+
+Frank consulted Sikaso who merely said:
+
+"Little fat white boy, with round, glass four-eyes talk too much."
+
+"Well," laughed Frank, "I think I can promise for him that he won't
+do any talking that will cause any harm this evening."
+
+"Talk too much, indeed," grumbled Billy highly offended, "why at
+home my folks were thinking of having a doctor treat me for
+bashfulness I'm so retiring in my disposition."
+
+As soon as the laugh that this remark of the disgruntled reporter
+had caused had subsided--even old Sikaso giving a grim smile as he
+took in the purport of it--the little party set out down a native
+trail toward the village.
+
+As the tom-tom beating increased in loudness as the village drew
+near, the boys' hearts began to beat a little faster.  At last they
+were about to see a real African village--such as they had read
+about in Stanley's and Livingstone's books--and other less authentic
+volumes.  They almost stumbled on the place as they suddenly emerged
+into a clearing.  It was a strange sight that met their eyes.
+
+Arranged in a circle were fifty huts that resembled nothing so much
+as a collection of old-fashioned straw covered beehives, enlarged to
+shelter human bees.  All about them women and children were
+bustling; setting about getting the evening meal.  Before one hut
+sat a woman, pounding something in a stone pestle--"like the
+drugstore men use at home,"--whispered Lathrop to Billy.
+
+The arrival of the little band created a stir.  The hideous old man,
+with a sort of straw-bonnet, who had been beating on the antelope
+skin drum called by Sikaso a "tom-tom" saw them and instantly picked
+up his instrument and waddled off with as much dignity as his age
+and a much distended stomach would allow him.  The younger men,
+however, advanced boldly toward the party.  Some of them carried,
+spears, others held Birmingham matchlocks of the kind the British
+and French Governments have in vain tried to keep out of the hands
+of the West African natives.  These guns are smuggled in by
+hundreds, by Arab traders who exchange the "gas-pipe" weapons worth
+perhaps two dollars a-piece for priceless ivory, and even human
+flesh for the slave dhows.
+
+"Seesanah (peace)," said Sikaso gravely, advancing in his turn.
+
+"Seesanah," echoed the tribesmen, who evidently recognized Sikaso
+from their greetings.  The boys stood grouped in the background--
+Billy Barnes and Lathrop even viewing with some alarm the advance of
+the savage-looking natives.
+
+"Well, he seems to have fallen in with several members of his club,"
+remarked the irrepressible Billy as old Sikaso and the natives
+talked away at a great rate.
+
+"I'm going to get a picture of some of these niggers when they get
+through," he continued aside to Lathrop.
+
+"What; you brought a camera?" asked the other boy.
+
+"Sure thing," replied Billy, "and if their ugly mugs don't break the
+lens, I mean to get some good snaps."
+
+He drew a small flat folding camera from his pocket as he spoke and
+got it ready for action.
+
+"Do you think Frank would stand for it?  It might make trouble you
+know," said Lathrop.
+
+"Pshaw," retorted the cocksure Billy, "what trouble can it make?  I
+wish I knew bow to say 'Look pleasant, please,' in Hottentot, or
+whatever language these fellows talk."
+
+By this time old Sikaso's 'pow-wow' was over and he motioned Frank
+and Harry forward.  After they had been introduced to the chiefs and
+headmen of the village, the "big chief," a villainous-looking old
+party with only one eye and his legs thrust into a red shirt--into
+the armholes that is, with the rest of the garment rolled round his
+waist--announced he was ready to give fresh provisions for calico,
+red and blue, and several sections of the brass rod that passes for
+currency on the West Coast.  While Frank, Harry and Sikaso were
+bargaining behind a hut, over the price to be charged for a
+razor-backed porker of suspicious appearance the village suddenly
+became filled with an uproar of angry shouts and tumult.
+
+"What can be the matter?" exclaimed Frank, as the boys, followed by
+the old chief and Sikaso, rushed from behind the hut to ascertain
+the cause of the disturbance.
+
+Standing in the center of a crowd of excited villagers was Billy
+Barnes, his helmet knocked off and an arrow sticking through it.  He
+looked scared to death as well he might, for by his side was a
+stalwart young African, brandishing a heavy-bladed spear above his
+head.  At the young reporter's feet lay the ill-fated camera that
+had caused all the trouble.
+
+What had happened was this.  As soon as Frank and Harry and their
+companions had left him and Lathrop alone, Billy had started to
+carry out his determination to take some pictures.  The first
+subject he selected was a serious-faced little baby, innocent of any
+clothing, that sat playing with a ragged dog at, the entrance of one
+of the beehive huts.  He had just clicked the button and exclaimed:
+
+"This will be a jim-dandy," when he felt something whistle through
+the air and the next minute his hat lay at his feet with an arrow in
+it.  In an instant the child's father--convinced that Billy was
+putting Ju-ju medicine on the child--was upon him, armed with his
+big hunting spear and followed by half the village.  Even
+Billy--scared as he was--did not realize how very near to death he
+actually came to being.  Sikaso's shouted words in a native dialect
+caused the tribesmen to fall back but they still muttered angrily.
+
+Stepping swiftly up to the camera Sikaso with a single blow of his
+axe smashed it to pieces.
+
+"Here, that's no way to treat my camera!" Billy was indignantly
+beginning, when Frank gripped his shoulder in an iron-clutch and
+whispered:
+
+"Shut up; if you don't want to make more trouble."
+
+Billy was starting on an angry remonstrance when he caught Frank's
+eye.  The young leader was really angry and Billy prudently
+refrained from saying any more.
+
+As for Sikaso--after demolishing Billy's machine, he turned to the
+tribesmen and addressing them in stately tones said--as he afterward
+translated it to Frank:
+
+"Village fools.  You see there is no magic in the little black box.
+It is nothing but a child's plaything for the fat, spectacled
+idiot."  (This part of the oration Frank did not communicate to
+Billy.)  "You see I have smashed it.  Do I fear?  Do I look now like
+a man in terror of the white man's medicine.  It is nothing.  It is
+broken and gone like the cloud before the wind, like the shadow on
+the mountain side."
+
+The effect of all this was soothing and the boys left the camp, to
+order some of their packmen to bring home the provisions, with light
+hearts.  As for Billy his ears burned by the time Frank got through
+reading him a lecture.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said bravely, "and I won't do it again.  Gee! talk
+about 'press the button and we'll do the rest.'"
+
+"They nearly did it--didn't they," laughed Frank, his good humor
+quite restored.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTIER VII
+
+A TRAITOR IN CAMP
+
+
+It was a week later, and the launch having towed the expedition as
+far up the river as Frank decided was necessary--before they struck
+out into the unknown land of the cannibals, winged men, and the
+ivory hoard--had returned to civilization several days before,
+carrying with it letters from all the adventurers which they felt
+might be the last they would write for some time.  The spot selected
+for the permanent camp was a sort of park-like space covered at its
+edges with masses of manioc and banana bushes.  Beyond towered huge
+tropical trees and beyond these again the blue outlines of the
+distant Moon Mountains in which, according to old Barr's map, lay
+the ivory cache.
+
+It had been a busy week.  The Golden Eagle II had been re-erected
+and her own wireless and the field wireless apparatus put in order.
+As our readers who have followed this series are familiar with the
+manner of setting up the great Chester aeroplane and her fittings,
+it would be tedious to repeat the description of the process.
+Suffice it to say that thanks to the clever simplicity of the
+"knock-down" arrangement, by which the ship could be taken apart and
+set up again, the operation of equipping her for active work was a
+comparatively light one.  The extra gasoline and supplies for the
+camp in general were stored in a separate tent removed from the
+circle in which the boys' tents and those of Ben Stubbs and
+Professor Wiseman were pitched.
+
+There was, too, a newcomer in the camp--a Portuguese named Diego de
+Barros.  He was not a particularly well-favored individual, but he
+bore the reputation of having great power over the natives and of
+being very friendly to the white traders who penetrated into the
+interior.  Once or twice there had been ugly talk about his being in
+league with the Arab slave and ivory traders, but he had managed to
+clear his name and along the Ivory Coast enjoyed the reputation of
+being an honest, reliable man.  He had joined the boys' camp a few
+days before and his manner of coming was this.
+
+While everybody was busy getting things in shape there had come a
+loud hail from the quarters of the native helpers, just outside the
+white man's encampment, announcing that a canoe was coming up the
+river.  All hands had hastened to the river bank to find de Barros
+just putting his foot ashore from the canoe in which two natives had
+paddled him from the coast.  He had with him some bales of cotton
+goods and a few gewgaws of various kinds and was bound, so he said,
+on a trading expedition into the back country.  Further down the
+river he had heard, he explained, that the boys were camped where he
+found them, and he had determined to pay them a visit.  The brief
+stay that the boys had interpreted this as meaning, however, had
+extended itself into three days and still Diego showed no
+inclination to leave.
+
+"If he doesn't move on soon I shall be compelled to ask him to go,"
+said Frank in an annoyed tone to Harry.  "I don't want to be
+inhospitable, but we can't afford to have strangers hanging round
+the camp, there is too much at stake."
+
+Harry agreed with him and the two boys decided to tell the Portuguese
+that evening as tactfully as possible that they were on a private
+enterprise and could not accommodate strangers.  This decision
+arrived at, Frank turned to the steel strong box that was never out
+of his sight and drew from it the precious map of the Moon Mountains.
+Seated at the little camp-table--(the conversation just related had
+taken place in the Boy Aviators' tent)--the two pored over the
+document for hours.  With dividers, compass and parallel rulers Frank,
+who was a skilled navigator, laid out an aerial course that would
+bring them, he calculated, unerringly to the spot marked by a red
+cross where--so old Luther Barr declared--lay the ivory that was to
+save Mr. Beasley from financial ruin and disgrace.
+
+Frank laid his finger on the spot and exclaimed enthusiastically:
+
+"There it is, Harry, and we are not so far from it now.  In a few
+days we shall know whether we are on a wild-goose chase or not."
+
+"Why, no doubt has ever entered your head that the ivory is there?"
+questioned Harry.
+
+"Well, old fellow, you know there are others interested in this
+ivory beside ourselves--Muley-Hassan for instance."
+
+"You think he had got ahead of us?"
+
+"I did not say I thought so, I only say that it is possible that he
+may have done so."
+
+"How could he have got wind of our coming?"
+
+"In Africa there is a sort of underground wire for news," replied
+Frank.  "I have no doubt that hundreds of natives far in the
+interior are by this time apprised of our coming."
+
+Harry looked alarmed.
+
+"That's bad," he said.
+
+"Well, it couldn't be helped: but we may have other enemies nearer
+at hand."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"That I don't like the looks of that Portuguese fellow.  If he got
+wind of what we are doing he would be likely to ruin the whole
+object of our expedition."
+
+"That's so.  We'll have to get rid of him."
+
+"Well, we are going to, and if he won't go for gentle means we'll
+try rough ones."
+
+"Hullo, what's that?" exclaimed Harry suddenly.
+
+The flap at the end of the tent toward which both of their backs had
+been turned had been suddenly drawn aside and in one quick, backward
+glance Harry made out the smiling figure of de Barros standing in
+the doorway.  It might have been fancy, but he thought for a minute
+that the Portuguese had a peculiarly villainous expression on his
+dark, handsome features.
+
+"Ah, senors," he said, as Frank, with a quick movement swept the map
+off the table--but not before de Barros's quick eyes had spied it.
+Fearing to replace the precious chart in the strong box, while the
+Portuguese lingered, Frank tucked it into his pocket.
+
+"Ah, senors, good afternoon," grinned the unwelcome visitor.  "I
+have come to say 'adios.'  I am going up the river to-night and may
+not see you again for a long time."
+
+"I am sorry to have you leave," said Frank with a heartfelt wish
+that de Barros would hasten his departure.
+
+"I knew you would be," smiled the Portuguese, "but it is the lot of
+man to meet and part.  Adios, senors, I go to make ready."
+
+He vanished as suddenly as he had come upon the scene.
+
+"What do you make of that?" inquired Harry.
+
+"I don't know what to think.  I have an idea that he was listening
+to every word of our conversation just now and that he saw the map
+before I had time to sweep it off the table."
+
+Harry looked vexed.
+
+"That's tough luck," he said.  "If he overheard even a part of our
+talk he must realize the object of our presence in Africa.  And," he
+went on, "I don't know a man on the Dark Continent whom I would
+trust less than Diego de Barros, even the little we've seen of him."
+
+"It can't be helped now," said Frank briefly; "come on, let's go and
+put the finishing touches on the good old Eagle."
+
+They worked the rest of the afternoon putting the big aeroplane in
+shape for her flight to the Moon Mountains which it had been
+determined to make the next day.  It was almost dusk when Harry, who
+was working over the engines, asked Frank for the reserve park-plug
+box.
+
+"It's in one of the canoes.  I'll go and get it," said Frank, and at
+once set off toward the river bank for that purpose.  His path led
+through a thick grove of bamboos which hid him from the view of the
+camp after he had traversed a short distance.  As he merged on the
+river bank, whistling softly to himself, the young leader suddenly
+felt himself pinioned by arms that seemed of enormous strength--
+though, as the attack had come from behind, he could not see the
+faces of his assailants.  The next minute he was lying flat on his
+back, bound and helpless with a bit of greasy cloth shoved in his
+mouth for a gag.
+
+"Keep still, senor, and you shall not be hurt;" said a quiet voice
+near at hand, and Frank saw bending above him the sallow features of
+the smiling Portuguese.
+
+"I just have to trouble you for that map I saw you put in your
+pocket, that is all," went on his captor, while the two huge negroes
+who had made Frank prisoner stood to one side immovable as carved
+figures,
+
+"It is lucky for me that you came down to the river bank," grinned
+the Portuguese as he ran his hand over Frank's clothes, to ascertain
+the hiding-place of the precious map of the ivory cache, "otherwise
+I should have had to delay my departure till to-night, and possibly
+have cut your throat while you slept."
+
+Frank felt as if his heart would burst with rage and mortification
+as the greasy, smiling Portuguese deliberately drew out the
+priceless document and gazed at it in triumph.  He laid it on the
+ground beside him while lie resumed his search for other clues.
+
+"That ivory belongs to my master--Muley-Hassan--now," he sneered;
+"did you think for a minute that we would ever let you white fools
+get it back again."
+
+It was well for the Portuguese that Frank's hands were not free
+then.  Had they been the dark-skinned traitor would have had a fight
+on his hands in a few seconds.  But suddenly events took a strange
+turn.
+
+The two blacks uttered a sharp cry of warning as the bushes parted
+and a huge form dashed out, whirling about its head a glistening
+axe.
+
+It was Sikaso!
+
+The next minute would have been Diego's last but that his two
+followers lifted him to his feet and, picking him up like a child,
+ran for his canoe with him.  With a few rapid strokes they were in
+midstream and paddling up the river with powerful strokes while
+Sikaso raged impotently on the shore.
+
+"Oh for one of the white men's fire-tubes!" he sighed, and even as
+he spoke a sharp reminder of the efficiency of these same
+"fire-tubes" whizzed past his ear in the shape of a bullet from
+Diego's revolver.
+
+In a few steps the old black was beside his young leader and with a
+couple of strokes of his keen blade had set him free.
+
+"Quick, Sikaso; the canoes--we must pursue him.  Call the boys and
+Ben while I cast off the canoes.  Quick, we have not a minute to
+lose."
+
+Although Diego in his hurry had not carried off the map but left it
+lying on the ground, still Frank realized that the Portuguese had
+not actually needed the document to aid Muley-Hassan to find the
+cache.  The Arab was no doubt familiar with the location anyway, but
+to head off all danger of the boys getting there first, it was vital
+to stop Diego at all costs.  In a few bounds Frank reached the
+little indentation in the bank where the canoes were kept.
+
+As he gained it he fell back with a groan and, brave boy as he was,
+he leaned weakly against a tree for support as the true extent of
+the crushing disaster that had occurred was borne in on him.
+
+The canoes were gone!
+
+The cunning rascal, Diego, had devised his plan well.
+
+The painters of all the craft had been cut, and by this time they
+were doubtless miles down the stream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A BATTLE IN THE AIR
+
+The consternation with which the news of the loss of the canoes was
+received by the young adventurers may be imagined.  It meant that
+they were cut off from communication with the coast entirely unless
+some unforeseen circumstances arose.   But in spite of the oppression
+that naturally affected them at the first news of their serious loss,
+Frank's confident manner had its effect in restoring some sort of
+hope.  Like the born leader that he was, Frank, the minute he
+recovered from the first effects of his bitter dismay, set about
+cheering up the others.
+
+"We've always got the Golden Eagle," he comforted, "and anyway it's
+likely if no one stops them, that some at least of the canoes will
+drift down the river to the coast.  M. Desplaines will no doubt be
+able to surmise something serious has happened when he hears of
+their arrival and will send aid.  In the meantime we have to
+consider what we are to do about the ivory cache."
+
+As a matter of fact, as the boys learned later, none of the canoes
+ever reached the coast, being intercepted by river-tribes.
+
+"I vote for going ahead," cried Harry, catching the optimistic note
+that his brother's words conveyed.
+
+"That's the stuff," cried the young leader, "that is exactly what I
+was going to propose."
+
+"How about you, red-top?" asked Billy turning to Lathrop.
+
+"Of course I'm on," was the reply.
+
+"I hate to dash your enthusiasm," said Frank, "but you fellows must
+see that it is impossible for all of us to go.  My plan is to take
+Ben Stubbs along and leave you fellows and Sikaso here to guard the
+camp.  Then, too, there is the possibility of a relief expedition
+arriving as soon as they discover that we have lost our canoes."
+
+Old Sikaso leant apart on his mighty war-axe.  He seemed to regret
+heartily that he had not had an opportunity of testing its metal on
+the head of the knavish Portuguese.
+
+"What do you say to that plan, Sikaso?" asked Frank, who already
+placed a high value on the old warrior's judgment.
+
+"That it is good, my white brother.  Sikaso will stay with the
+four-eyed one and the ruddy-haired one and we will see that no harm
+comes to the camp of the young white warriors."
+
+"It is well," replied Frank, who was falling into a trick of
+addressing the stately Krooman in the same grandiloquent fashion as
+the latter was in the habit of using, "I place my trust in you."
+
+"Hum," snorted Billy, "four-eyes and red-top that's a nice
+combination for you!  I'd like to do something to show that old chap
+that we can do just as much as anyone else when it comes to a
+show-down."
+
+This remark, however, was made sotto voce to Lathrop, as Billy
+really stood in great awe of the six foot-two of ebony flesh and
+muscle that was Sikaso.
+
+But Stubbs was delighted at his selection to accompany the boys in
+their aerial dash for the ivory cache.  He spent half the night by
+lantern light pottering about the great craft and stocking her up
+with provisions and equipment for the journey.  By the time he had
+finished it was almost midnight and he turned in to join the boys in
+the land of dreams where Frank and Harry, and doubtless the others,
+too, were already busy shooting down Diegos and hippopotami and
+flitting through the air above the great African forest and
+performing all sorts of wonderful feats.
+
+At dawn everybody was up and about and after farewells had been said
+the Chester boys and their sturdy old companion clambered into the
+chassis of their craft.  Frank had already laid out his course,
+which lay about two points west of north.  The boy calculated that
+this direction would bring them within a few miles at any rate of
+the cache.  To find it they would have to trust to persistence and a
+modicum of luck.
+
+Old Sikaso, who had, of course, never seen anything even remotely
+resembling an aeroplane, stood apart from the excited group
+clustered about the big craft and gazed at it with astonishment, not
+unmixed with awe.  The other Kroomen--the packers and camp-workers,
+however, gathered close about the machine and the boys had a lot of
+trouble keeping their busy fingers from unscrewing nuts and
+loosening turnbuckles.
+
+"Anything more like a pack of monkeys on a picnic I never saw,"
+exclaimed Billy as for the twentieth time he chased a long, skinny
+native away from the propellers, where he would have assuredly been
+decapitated if he had remained till the engine was started.
+
+A few turns with the clutch thrown out showed the engine was running
+as true as on the day the Golden Eagle made her trial trip.  The
+muffler was cut out and the effect of the wide-open exhaust on the
+Kroomen was magical.  Within a second from the time that Harry threw
+in the switch and the gatling gun uproar of the exhaust made itself
+manifest, not a solitary one was to be seen.  From the greenery of
+the jungle that rimmed the clearing, however, their frightened faces
+could be seen peering, like some strange sort of fruit among the
+tropical growth.  Only old Sikaso stood his ground.
+
+But even that stolid old warrior grasped his great war-axe a little
+tighter and stood erect as if about to face an unknown enemy as jets
+of blue flame and smoke shot from the detonating exhaust.
+
+"All ready, Harry?" cried Frank to the younger boy who was at his
+old station by the engines.
+
+"Ay, ay!" came the response in a hearty tone.  "Then let her go."
+
+With a quick movement Frank threw in the clutch.
+
+The mighty propellers began to beat the air with the whirring sound
+of a swarm of gigantic locusts in full flight, and after a short run
+the great aeroplane took the air in a long graceful rising arc.
+Half an hour later, to the watchers in the camp, she was little more
+than a speck against the sky.
+
+Frank, his eye constantly on the compass, kept the ship on a true
+course for the Moon Mountains which, now that they were flying far
+above the dense forest region, lay a rugged mass of blue and brown,
+piled like some giant's playthings--on the northwestern horizon.
+
+Even from the distance at which the boys viewed them they conveyed
+an almost sinister impression in their rugged shapes.  Their harsh
+outlines cut the sky in a serrated line like the teeth of a huge
+saw.
+
+"Look, look, Frank!" shouted Harry suddenly as they were passing
+high over a small clearing.
+
+Both Frank and Ben peered over the side in answer to the boy's
+excited hail.
+
+Far below them was a strange sight.
+
+In the center of the clearing were four huge African elephants
+solemnly conducting a sort of Brobdingnaggian game of tag.  One of
+the great beasts would tap the other with its trunk and then would
+scamper away till it in turn was "tapped" by a blow that would have
+swept a small regiment off its feet.
+
+Frank pushed over a lever and swung the ship in a circle so that
+they might watch the great animals to better advantage.  Suddenly
+the boys saw one of the elephants, evidently seized by sudden rage,
+start goring one of its companions with its huge tusks.  The
+attacked animal had no chance, and but for the boys would speedily
+have been killed.
+
+"I'm going to give that big bully a shot," exclaimed Harry, and he
+got out one of the heavy rifles from the rack under the starboard
+transom.
+
+"Wait, I'll drop a bit," said Frank.
+
+In response to his manipulation the aeroplane dropped till she
+hovered not more than two hundred feet above the great animals.
+Then a strange thing happened.  The shadow of the craft fell upon
+the center of the clearing in front of the dueling beasts and the
+on-looking pachyderms, and as it did so the bully stopped goring its
+mate and gave a snort of astonishment.
+
+Its note of surprise quickly changed to a loud trumpet of terror as
+the great pachyderm saw swooping above it what must have appeared to
+it an aerial inhabitant even larger than itself.  Its note of fright
+was echoed in a chorus that sounded like an assemblage of cracked
+trumpets as the others also sensed the impending danger.
+
+"Now let him have it," shouted Frank.
+
+Harry's rifle cracked and the big bully staggered.  Twice more the
+boy fired and the huge creature staggered on to its knees and then
+with a mighty groan rolled over on its side.  The others, even the
+wounded one, had made off as soon as they had caught sight of the
+hovering Golden Eagle.
+
+Even from the height at which they were the boys could see that the
+dead animal had an enormous pair of tusks, no doubt extremely
+valuable.
+
+"We ought to have them there figure-heads," commented Ben Stubbs.
+"What do you say if we drop down and get them?"
+
+Frank looked at his watch.  It was half-past nine.
+
+"We cannot be more than a hundred miles now from the foot of the
+range," he said, "and I suppose we have plenty of time.  We might as
+well drop and get them as let some native tribe have the find and
+then get skinned out of them by an Arab trader."
+
+As he spoke the boy set the planes for descending and the Golden
+Eagle settled down--after a few minutes rapid falling--fairly in the
+center of the clearing.  It was almost a fairylike spot.  On every
+side it was hedged in by the densest jungle vegetation, the solid
+walls being broken here and there by elephant paths leading off into
+the green tangle.
+
+The little glade in which the Golden Eagle had settled was covered
+with short, yellow grass and had been trampled almost bare of
+vegetation, apparently by the gambols of countless generations of
+elephants.
+
+"This must be one of the elephant playgrounds I have read about,"
+exclaimed Harry, looking about him.
+
+"No doubt it is," replied Frank.  "But look at those tusks, why
+there's ivory enough there alone to give us all a nice wad of pocket
+money."
+
+Ben Stubbs, with one of the small axes, at once set about hacking
+out the dead elephant's huge tusks and a long job it was.  Finally,
+however, he managed to cut them free and clear and the boys loaded
+them into the aeroplane.
+
+"Now we are all ready for a fresh start," said Frank as they
+clambered in after him and settled down in their places; but a
+startling interruption occurred.
+
+With a wild yell, that struck a sudden chill to the heart of every
+one of the little group, a band of beings that at first sight looked
+like nothing so much as huge gorillas, burst from the forest on
+every side.
+
+Their heads were misshapen and flat and their protruding lips were
+daubed with white and red clay which gave them a ghastly unearthly
+look.  From their ears hung huge ivory pendants.  They carried
+elephant skin shields and were armed with spears and bow and arrows.
+As if they did not consider themselves sufficiently hideous, several
+of the tribe had cut their faces in long stripes and the hardly
+healed scars of these wounds rendered their already sinister faces
+terrifying indeed.
+
+Desperately Harry threw over the wheel and the engines started
+faithfully to respond but not before half a dozen of the savages had
+thrown themselves on to the aeroplane.
+
+Their weight held her down although she scudded over the ground; and
+in the meantime the other natives started pouring a shower of arrows
+and spears into her.  Fortunately none of these struck the boys
+although Frank felt an arrow whiz through the loose sleeve of his
+shirt.
+
+"Get those fellows off or I can't get the ship up," he yelled.
+
+Harry and Ben Stubbs fired their automatics into the clinging mass
+of savages.
+
+Two dropped and the aeroplane began to rise but the others
+desperately clung on.
+
+"Get 'em off," shouted Frank, as he desperately strove to raise the
+air-craft.
+
+As he spoke he fell back with a cry of pain.
+
+An arrow had struck him on the shoulder inflicting a painful wound.
+
+Like a flash Harry took in the situation and leaped to the steering
+wheel.  As he did so the savage with whom he had been contending
+clambered clear into the chassis.  At the same instant Ben Stubbs'
+revolver dispatched the last of the men clinging to the planes and
+the Golden Eagle began to rise.
+
+As she shot upward the savage who had climbed into the chassis gave
+a wild shriek of real terror.  But his outburst didn't come before
+he had made a savage lunge at Ben Stubbs with a short heavy knife.
+The solo adventurer dived under the black's arm and struck it upward
+as he lunged and the weapon went whirling groundward out of the
+air-ship.
+
+With a cry of despair the savage rushed to the edge of the car and
+was about to throw himself into empty air when Ben leaped forward to
+try to restrain him.
+
+But it was too late.
+
+As the boys' sturdy companion gallantly attempted to save the
+savage's life a flight of arrows whizzed up from below.
+
+With a groan the man on the edge of the car pitched forward into
+open space, pierced to the heart with an arrow sped by one of his
+own tribesmen.  Down he shot like a stone to the earth below, while
+the Golden Eagle--as if rejoicing in her escape, shot upward and
+onward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE VOICE OF THE MOUNTAIN
+
+
+Frank's wound fortunately turned out to be nothing very serious--
+though painful enough--and after it had been treated with
+antiseptics from the medicine chest he declared that, aside from the
+stiffness and soreness, he felt no ill effect.
+
+"Those fellows certainly gave us a sample of what we may expect,"
+remarked Harry, examining the hole in his shirt where the arrow had
+ripped through.
+
+"It was quite as narrow an escape as I care to experience," agreed
+Frank.  "How about you, Ben?"
+
+"Wall," said the old adventurer, "I don't know as how I think that
+kind of excitement is as beneficial fer the health as the rest
+cure."
+
+Meanwhile the Golden Eagle, plowing through the clear African air at
+fifty miles an hour, rapidly drew nearer and nearer to the
+mysterious Moon Mountains.
+
+As they neared the range the extraordinary character of it was
+revealed more and more clearly.  Seamed with deep gloomy abysses and
+almost bare of vegetation, except a few scanty groves of palms and
+the hardier tropical trees, they seemed indeed fitted to be the
+theater of dark mysteries and the haunt of savage tribes.
+
+"Well," exclaimed Harry, as be scrutinized the strange mountain mass
+through the glasses, "I should say that if those Winged Men are to
+be found anywhere, here is where they'd reside."
+
+"I should think they'd use their wings to get out--a nastier looking
+lot of mountains I never saw," was Ben's reply.
+
+Frank made no comment, but the sinister character of the mountains
+they were so rapidly approaching impressed itself on his mind
+nevertheless.  Eagerly he scanned the range for the first sign of
+"The Upturned Face."  Harry and Ben, too, gave quite as eager
+scrutiny toward the discovery of this striking mark of the ivory's
+hiding-place.
+
+All at once it shot into view with a suddenness that made the boys'
+beads swim.
+
+It was as clear as daylight.  The line of the mountain for which
+Frank had the Golden Eagle II now directly headed was unmistakably
+the outline also of a hawk-nosed facet.
+
+If the mountains themselves had an evil, menacing look, the stone
+face possessed this same quality in an infinitely greater degree.
+
+"Well, if we've got to go looking for ivory right under that face
+the sooner we find it the better," exclaimed Ben.  "I'd hate to be
+shipmates with the fellow who sat for that portrait."
+
+"No human being ever sat for it, Ben," laughed Frank; "it's a mere
+freak of nature which has so disposed the mountain mass at this
+point as to give the semblance of what the map-maker terms The
+Upturned Face."
+
+"Well, if I had a mug like that I'd turn it down instead of up
+before some one did it for me," was Ben's comment.
+
+The Golden Eagle landed on a plateau about halfway up the mountain,
+beneath the upturned face.  It made an almost ideal camping-place,
+considering the rugged nature of their surroundings.  In one part of
+it a small grove of bananas and palms had taken root, and their
+smiling greenery offered a refreshing contrast to the dark
+oppressive gloom of the giant rock masses piled all about.  From the
+center of this oasis in the rocky range bubbled a tiny spring of
+water as clear and cold as if it had been filtered and iced.
+Frank's first act was to send out a wireless to the River Camp,
+telling of their arrival.
+
+"Well, thank goodness, we've got something green and pleasant to
+look at," remarked Ben, as they set about transforming the chassis
+of the Golden Eagle into a comfortable tent by means of running up
+the canvas curtains on the aluminum frames provided for that
+purpose.  Thus equipped, the chassis served the uses of an improved
+tent, as the floor was well above the ground and out of all danger
+of the unwholesome, vapors rising from the ground and also the
+scorpions and other reptiles.
+
+But if the oasis itself was a pretty spot, it was made doubly so by
+the contrast it afforded to the scenery surrounding it.  On all
+sides shot up frowning walls of rugged black rock which seemed to
+have been torn and ripped in some remote period by a terrific
+convulsion of nature.  In places, too, the rock masses seemed to
+have been seared by subterranean fires.  Frank gazed upward at the
+terrific character of the scenery about them.
+
+"We shall need the rope-ladder," he announced suddenly after a long
+silence.
+
+"The rope-ladder?" inquired Harry, "what for?"
+
+Frank laughed.
+
+"I mean the rope-ladder we use in the Golden Eagle.  As you know,
+the only way to locate the cache is to strike a direct line down
+from the nose of the upturned face.  That will bring us to the small
+cairn or pile of rocks that marks the Arab's hiding-place."
+
+"He could hardly have chosen a better," remarked Harry.  "Who would
+ever guess, unless they had the key to the mystery, that these
+mountains held such a fortune in tusks."
+
+The rest of that day was spent in overhauling the outfit which they
+would need to use on their expedition of the morrow.  Luckily the
+boots they wore had been fitted with "hob-nails" so that they were
+ideal for the tough climb that they had ahead of them.  Each member
+of the three was to carry a pick and of course they all were to be
+armed, carrying several rounds of ammunition each in their
+cartridge-belts.
+
+That night after a supper of fried ham, canned corn and pancakes--all
+cooked by the skilful Ben over a fire of wood collected from the
+little grove--Frank sent out a wireless to the members of the camp
+on the river bank and felt much reassured when Lathrop's "All
+well--good luck," came back through the air.  It was delightfully
+cool on the mountain-side after the oppressive fetid air of the
+river and its neighborhood, and as Ben had remarked before they
+turned in:
+
+"Fine weather for sleeping."
+
+But sleep would not come to Frank.  He tossed and turned on his
+transom bed and several times gazed out into the night through the
+canvas curtains.  An unaccountable feeling of unrest possessed him.
+Could they get the ivory out of the cache before Muley-Hassan and
+his band arrived by land?
+
+Fast as they had traveled through the air Frank realized that the
+Arab, who doubtless by this time had been informed by the
+treacherous Diego of the boys' bold dash, would push on at furious
+speed in order to head them off.  That he would come accompanied by
+a well-armed band Frank could not doubt.  He and Harry and Ben could
+only put up a feeble resistance against such an attack.  There was
+only one chance to secure the ivory and that was to get at it before
+the Arab arrived.  It all depended then on how quickly they could
+find the cache. Frank lit the lantern and shielding it so that it
+would not strike in the eyes of his sleeping brother, drew out the
+map and scanned it attentively.
+
+Yes, here were the directions written in the queer hand of
+Muley-Hassan's follower.
+
+"A line from the nose straight down to the cairn of stones."
+
+It seemed simple enough and certainly the nose of the Upturned Face
+was as clearly to be made out as a ship at sea. But Frank had been
+too long trained in the hard school of adventure to underestimate
+the difficulties of any piece of work.  They faced a hard job and
+none realized the fact better than the young leader.
+
+At last he blew the lantern out and once more composed himself to
+sleep.  He was just dozing off when a sufficiently startling
+interruption occurred.  One which drove all further thoughts of rest
+from his head.
+
+It was an extraordinary sound that brought the boy out of his bed
+with a bound and caused him to clutch his revolver with a heart that
+beat loud and thick in spite of himself.
+
+Clutching his weapon the boy rushed to the door of the chassis tent
+and gazed out.
+
+There was a bright moon which threw into inky blackness the
+depressions of the rugged mountains and threw up their projections
+into a blue glare.  It was almost as light as day under that
+wonderful African moon.  Had there been any one near the boy must
+have been able to see them.
+
+But look as he would there was not a soul in sight.  All about him
+stretched the barren frowning mountains sleeping under the moon.
+
+But the sound that he had heard?
+
+There was no mistaking it.  It had been too like the low humming of
+a human voice for him to have been misled.  Perhaps he had been
+dreaming?
+
+But as if to give the lie to any such supposition the strange sound
+that had so alarmed him at that moment made itself manifest once
+more:
+
+"A-hooo-A-AH-HOOO-00-a-ho-ho-ho-o-!"
+
+It started softly and gradually ran up the scale till it reached a
+crescendo shout and then died out in a soft sound like a woman's
+wail.  Heard anywhere the sound would have been alarming enough, but
+coming as it did in the midst of these unknown, mysterious Mountains
+of the Moon it struck a chill to the boy's heart and caused his
+scalp to tighten in a manner that even the bravest man or boy in the
+world would have had no reason to feel shame over.
+
+A human enemy, a foe he could see, Frank would have faced with iron
+nerve; but this strange wailing noise coming from what quarter of
+the compass he could not judge--was so uncanny that he was really
+disturbed.  He bounded into the chassis and roused Ben and Harry.
+He had hardly whispered to them the extraordinary intelligence when
+again the voice arose.
+
+"A-ho-ho-h-o-o-o-A-h-hoo-ho-AH-HO-HO-O-O-O-AH-ho-h-o-o-o-o-o-o!"
+
+"Well, who?" roared Ben angrily, "come out and show yourself, you
+human hyena, and I'll put so much lead in your system you'll be
+worth a nickel a pound.  Come, you old Ah-Hoo, and I'll show you who
+I am quick enough--shiver my topsails!"
+
+But the only reply to Ben's tirade was the dismal echo of his voice
+among the rocky chasms.
+
+"Shiver my topsails!" roared the echo and then the hills bandied the
+cry about from ridge to ridge till it died out in a whisper:
+
+"My topsails!"
+
+"Hum," remarked Ben, "I don't think I'll talk so loud around here.
+There seem to be a lot of folks listening.  Such a dreary hole as
+this I never--"
+
+"Never," sighed the echoes, "--never."
+
+"Here, I can't stand this," cried Harry.  "I'm going to send a
+bullet up there the next time that fellow starts 'Ah-hooing."'
+
+But as the strange mournful cry rang out once more the boys paused
+in bewilderment.
+
+There was no locating the sound.
+
+It seemed to fill the air.  To come from every quarter of the
+compass at once.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE ARAB'S CACHE
+
+
+The mysterious cries were not repeated that night although the boys
+laid awake till daylight listening for any repetition.  No theory
+they could advance, although these ranged all the way from cannibals
+and gorillas to ghosts, had any effect on the solution of the
+mystery.  They finally agreed to trust to solving it in some chance
+way, and like sensible boys did not continue to worry themselves
+over the unsolvable.
+
+Frank's first action was to send out a wireless to the river camp
+and to his great relief he found that events there were still
+proceeding with the same regularity as before.  Nothing had occurred
+to mar the even life of the young adventurers left behind.  This was
+the tenor of the message, but there was something about it that
+worried Frank.  Lathrop, he knew, was an expert wireless operator,
+but the sending that he performed that morning was so jerky and
+irregular that the rankest amateur might have done better.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked Frank sharply after the sending had
+become even more unskilled and shaky.
+
+There was no answer; which caused Frank a vague feeling of
+apprehension.  He speedily drove this impression from his mind,
+however, with:
+
+"Pshaw! the sleepless night I passed has made me nervous."
+
+After breakfast there was so much to be done that there was no more
+time to waste on gloomy forebodings and the boys started, as soon as
+the camp had been put in order, on their expedition up the
+mountain-side to the Upturned Face--which was to be the starting
+point for the uncovering of the secret ivory hoard.
+
+The climb was quite as stiff as Frank had anticipated and, laden as
+they were with the rope-ladder and the other equipment, it was
+rendered even tougher.  All three carried water-canteens covered
+with wet felt, containing half-a-gallon each.  Frank had insisted on
+this as it was doubtful if they could find water at the summit of
+the mountain.
+
+As the sun rose higher in the sky and beat down on the bare rock
+ridges over which the adventurers were making their way, it became
+as uncomfortable as any expedition on which the boys had ever beer
+engaged.
+
+"Talk about New Mexico or Death Valley," exclaimed Harry, "I feel
+like a piece of butter rolled up in a paper and I've melted."
+
+"I feel like a Welsh rarebit myself," laughed Frank, "how about you,
+Ben?"
+
+"I feel like a pot of boiling tar with a fire lighted under me,"
+growled the veteran angrily; "consarn these rocks, I'd give a whole
+lot for a bit of that shade we left behind us."
+
+Despite the discomfort and the heat, however, they struggled on up
+the mountain-side, frequently using the rope-ladder to get over
+rough places, and at about noon they stood beneath the steep rock
+cliff that formed the nose of the upturned face.
+
+It was easy enough then to reach a spot below the tip and Frank,
+with a long cord he had brought for the purpose, laid out a straight
+line from the point down the southern slope of the mountain-side.
+While they were busy about this they were startled by a repetition
+of the same strange cry, half-warning, half-savage, that they had
+been so alarmed by the night before.
+
+"A-ho-o-o-o-AH-H-O-O-O-a-h-o-o-hoo-o-o-o-o!"
+
+"Great Scott," yelled Harry, "what on earth do you think of that?"
+
+Frank--considerably startled himself--had, however, made a
+determined effort to ascertain the source of the sound as it rose
+and fell in its strange cadence.
+
+"I've got it!" he shouted; now with a cry of triumph.
+
+"Got what?" cried Harry, as if he feared his brother had suddenly
+become infected with some strange complaint--"rabies or the pip?"
+
+"The noise--I mean I know where it comes from," cried the excited
+boy.
+
+"Where?" chorused Ben and Harry.
+
+"From somewhere about the Upturned Face," cried Frank triumphantly,
+"Hark!"
+
+The strange wailing cry rang out once more.  They all listened
+intently.
+
+Sure enough it seemed to proceed from the sinister countenance
+carved in the living rock above them.
+
+"Well, here's where we end this mystery for all time," shouted
+Frank, drawing his revolver, "who is game to follow me?"
+
+Of course Harry and Ben rushed to his side, and while the echo of
+the mysterious cry was still sobbing and sighing among the crags
+they dashed back up the mountain-side utterly oblivious now to the
+heat or anything but their determination to discover who or what had
+uttered the extraordinary cry.  The side of the nose--or the nostril
+so to speak--was formed of a wall of rock fully twelve feet in
+height.
+
+"You fellows give me a boost up there and I'll travel right along
+the face till I find out where the racket comes from."
+
+On Ben's strong shoulders Frank was soon hoisted up to a height
+where he could lay hold of a projecting bit of rock and shin himself
+up on to the top of the nose.
+
+"Look out he doesn't think you are a fly and try to brush you off,"
+laughed Harry from below.
+
+"No danger of that," shouted back Frank, "unless I lit on him in the
+Golden Eagle."
+
+The surface of the face was as remarkable as its profile.
+
+Apparently some forgotten tribe had at some time or other been
+struck by the facial outline of the rocks and had cut into the flat
+surface, which was upturned to the sky, eyes and a mouth, the latter
+well provided with teeth, in each of which was drilled a tiny
+triangular hole.
+
+While Frank was puzzling over the meaning of these apertures there
+came a repetition of the weird cry, but this time the lad was so
+startled that he almost lost his balance and fell backward.
+
+The call seemed to proceed from his very feet.  Then, all at once,
+he realized what it was.
+
+The strange sounds proceeded from the mouth of the stone face.
+
+Frank ran to the edge of the steep declivity that formed the nose.
+
+"Say, Harry, and you too, Ben, examine the surface below there very
+carefully for any holes.  They will probably be small ones and in a
+row."
+
+"None this side," announced the searchers after a lengthy quest.
+
+"Try the other," ordered Frank.
+
+They did so and after a few minutes of careful scrutiny Harry
+shouted that they had found a row of small holes pierced in the rock
+just below where Frank stood.
+
+"Then we have solved the mystery of the voice," exclaimed Frank.
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded Harry.
+
+"That it is nothing more or less than an arrangement of holes
+through which, when the wind blows in a stiff puff, air is forced
+with violence enough to cause the cry that disturbed us so much last
+night," was the reply.
+
+This indeed was the solution, and had the boys known it there are
+many such rocks in Africa, carved out by some forgotten race, and
+the weird cries that the vent-holes give out in the wind doubtless
+acted as a powerful "fetish" to keep away troublesome enemies.
+
+"No wonder the niggers down below don't come near the Moon
+Mountains," said Harry, as they all buckled over the simple
+explanation of the phenomenon that had caused them so much alarm.
+"I wouldn't care to, myself, unless I knew just what made that cry."
+
+"It certainly was as depressing as anything I ever heard," said
+Frank, "and now having solved the great mystery--let's get back to
+work."
+
+The three adventurers went at the job with a will.  The line was
+about a hundred feet long and the method of procedure was this:
+Frank tested the straightness of the line, as accurately as possible
+with his eye, while Ben and Harry carried it stretched between them.
+The end of each hundred feet was signalized by a stone, and Harry,
+who was at the end of the line, carried his end to this mark before
+they laid out a fresh hundred feet.  In this way they must have
+measured off very nearly half-a-mile of the mountain-side when Frank
+gave a sudden sharp cry and pointed to a depression in the dark
+range immediately below them.  As the others looked they echoed his
+cry and gave a dash forward.
+
+Directly beneath them, about in the center of the little dip, was a
+cairn of rough stones perhaps four feet in height.  In a few bounds
+they had reached the pile, which they knew meant the discovery of
+the ivory cache and the end of the most difficult part of their
+expedition.  Little did they imagine the amazing things that were
+yet to happen to them and of which they were but on the threshold.
+
+"Good Lord, look at that, boys!" exclaimed Frank, as they stood at
+the foot of the cairn.
+
+There was a good reason for the boy's exclamation.
+
+Distributed around the base of the pile were a dozen or, more human
+skulls.
+
+"Are they those of white men?" asked Harry in an awed tone.  Frank
+shook his head.
+
+"No, they are those of negroes I believe," he replied after a
+careful examination, "and I imagine that Muley-Hassan killed them
+after they erected the cache so that they would not be able to
+spread the knowledge of its whereabouts to any of the marauding
+tribes who might even brave the ghostly voice when such a great
+treasure of ivory tempted."
+
+A shout from Ben, who had been walking round the pile examining it
+from every view-point interrupted them.  They looked up and saw the
+old adventurer pointing to the mountain summit where it cut the sky.
+Outlined against the deep azure was the object that had caused his
+exclamation.  It was the figure of a man that had apparently been
+watching them intently.
+
+But as they gazed the strange, crouched form suddenly vanished.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE AGE OF SIKASO
+
+It was late afternoon of the day that Frank, Harry and Ben had left
+the River Camp.  Lathrop, Billy, Barnes and old Sikaso had wandered
+into the jungle with their rifles, intent on bringing down some sort
+of game to replenish the camp larder.  For hours they tramped about
+in the thick jungle and a fair measure of success had fallen to
+their rifles.  Shortly before sundown the trio met in a glade not
+more than a mile from the camp and compared notes.  To Billy's gun
+had fallen a plump young deer and Lathrop had brought down, not
+without a feeling of considerable pride, a species of wild hog which
+Sikaso proclaimed with a grunt was "heap good."
+
+Flushed with triumph and carrying their own bag, the young hunters
+set out for the camp, arriving there at dusk.  As has been told, it
+was not long after that that Frank's wireless from the Moon
+Mountains winged its way through the air and Lathrop was able to
+flash back in response an "all-well" message.  The boys turned in
+early, Billy and Lathrop to their tent and old Sikaso to the rough
+shelter he had contrived for himself and which he declared was far
+more comfortable than any tent.  Like a wild beast the savage old
+warrior disliked to have anything approaching a roof over him.  It
+appeared to savor too much of a trap of some kind.
+
+Billy might have been asleep five hours or so and it was approaching
+midnight when he heard a noise outside the tent door and a second
+later old Sikaso announced his presence by a whispered:
+
+"Awake, Four-eyes, there is danger."
+
+"What do you mean, Sikaso," demanded the half asleep reporter,
+"danger to our friends?"
+
+"No; to us, and here and soon," was the disquieting response,
+"arouse your friend.  We have no time to lose."
+
+Billy was wide awake now and made a motion as if he would light the
+lantern.
+
+Sikaso stopped him with a quick gesture.
+
+"Do not light the lamp, my white brother," he whispered in the same
+tense tones, "to do so would be to reveal to those who are now
+approaching that we are awake and expect them.  Rather let us
+pretend that we are unaware that they come and spring upon them like
+the leopard when she is least expected."
+
+"Yes, but--" exclaimed Billy in a bewildered tone, "what do you
+mean, Sikaso, what enemies are coming?  How do you know that they
+are approaching?"
+
+"I have seen it in the smoke," was the somber reply; "the smoke
+never lies.  After I lay down on my skins I could not sleep, I felt
+there was danger approaching us.  From where I knew not.  So I made
+the "fetish" fire.  In it I saw a band of men coming toward us down
+the river and at the head of them was a dark man--a man you know
+well, my white brother with the four eyes."
+
+"Diego!" exclaimed Billy divining the other's thought.
+
+"Yes, Diego; cursed be the day that my war-axe did not cleave his
+ugly skull; but beside Diego there is another.  Hearken to the words
+of Sikaso, the elephant in his rage is not more merciless, the
+serpent not more cunning, the crocodile not more savage in onslaught
+than this other.  He is Muley-Hassan, the Arab, and the deeds he has
+done, my brother, when recounted turn strong men's blood to water."
+
+Small wonder that Billy, as he hastily roused Lathrop, felt a
+shudder run through him.  He had heard enough from Frank of the ways
+of Muley-Hassan to know that they could not well fall into the hands
+of a more pitiless foe and that now, with the Golden Eagle gone and
+the Boy Aviators already at the ivory cache, it was probable that
+the slave-dealer's rage would render him even more savage than was
+his wont.
+
+In a few rapidly whispered words Billy apprised Lathrop of the
+situation.  Like Billy, the other boy had no lack of pluck but his
+heart sank, as had his companion's, as he sensed the full meaning of
+Sikaso's warning.
+
+"But perhaps the smoke was mistaken," he said eagerly, willing to
+grasp even at that straw of hope; but the old warrior's answer
+dashed his aspirations to the ground.
+
+"The smoke is never mistaken," he said simply; but with such calm
+conviction that the boys, despite themselves, realized that the old
+Krooman had really the knowledge of grave peril approaching.
+
+"Had we not better arm the other Kroomen?" asked Billy anxiously.
+
+"It would be useless," was Sikaso's reply, "they are cowards.  At
+the first sight of blood they would run to the forest like the sons
+of weaklings that they are."
+
+"We must rouse Professor Wiseman at once," cried Billy.
+
+"It is well," muttered Sikaso, "we shall need every man who can hold
+a rifle to-night but the professor is old, my brothers, and his
+heart is as a woman's."
+
+"Well, he'll have to fight," said Billy with bloodthirsty determination.
+"I for one am not going to stand calmly by and have my throat cut, or
+worse still be taken prisoner by this old Muley-Hassan."
+
+Old Sikaso glanced approvingly at him.
+
+"Well spoken, Four-eyes," said he; "spoken like a son of a warrior."
+
+Billy's ears tingled at the compliment, which was really in the old
+African's opinion the highest that could be paid to a man or a boy,
+and hurried off to wake "the bugologist" as be disrespectfully
+termed the professor.  To his surprise, for he more than half
+expected an outbreak, Professor Wiseman did not appear particularly
+concerned at the news that Diego, and Muley-Hassan were--as the boys
+had every reason to believe--at that moment advancing on the camp.
+
+"I will dress myself with all alacrity," he said, "and join you in
+your tent, but I must say I don't believe in all this witchcraft."
+
+"Will this Muley-Hassan be well armed?" asked Billy, in a voice
+which was rather shaky, of their black friend.
+
+"Plenty rifles," was Sikaso's brief reply.
+
+"Don't you want a rifle or at least a heavy caliber shotgun?" asked
+Billy.
+
+The old warrior laughed and swung his mighty axe round his head till
+the blade flashed like a continuous band of steel and the air
+whistled at the cleavage of the sharp edge.  Then he began to sing
+softly a war-song which may be roughly rendered in English thus:
+
+  "At dawn I went out with my axe into the red fight;
+  Like the grass before the fire, like the clouds before the wind,
+  I drove them.  I, Sikaso, I drove them.
+  There were rivers that day; but the rivers were red.
+  They were the rivers of the blood of my enemies;
+  With my war-axe I killed them.
+  This is the song of mighty Sikaso, and his terrible axe of death."
+
+Although the boys of course did not understand the words, the fierce
+voice in which the old warrior intoned the chant made them realize
+what a terrible foe he was likely to prove in battle.  But now as
+Sikaso brought his song to a conclusion and rested his axe on the
+ground, leaning on its hilt, he suddenly stiffened into an attitude
+of close attention.
+
+"Hark, my white brothers!" he cried, "the war-eagles are gathering
+for the slaughter."
+
+But the slight sound the keen ears of the savage had caught without
+difficulty was longer in making itself manifest to the two white
+boys.  After a few minutes of listening, so intense as to be
+painful, they likewise, however, distinctly heard the regular,
+rhythmic dip of paddles coming down the river.
+
+"There are six war canoes full of them," announced, Sikaso, with
+almost a groan, after he had given close attention to the sounds.
+"Alas, my white brothers, there is little use of our giving battle."
+
+"Well, I for one am not going to give up without dropping a few of
+the cowardly wretches," cried Billy.
+
+"Nor I," echoed Lathrop, enthused by Billy's brave example.
+
+The old warrior's eyes kindled as he gazed at the two brave young
+Americans, each clutching his rifle and waiting for the moment to
+arrive when they could use them.
+
+"If we only had had time to throw up a stockade, my brothers, we
+might have driven them off yet," he cried.
+
+"Well, we'll give as good an account of ourselves as possible,"
+declared Lathrop.
+
+And now began what has been acknowledged to be the most trying part
+of any engagement, from a duel to a battle--the waiting for
+hostilities to begin.  It seemed that an interminable time had
+elapsed from the moment that they heard the first "dip-dip" of the
+paddles to the sharp crack of a twig sounded in the jungle directly
+ahead of them.  The snapped branch told them that the enemy's
+outposts were reconnoitering to see that the camp was actually, as
+it seemed to be, wrapped in sleep.
+
+Apparently the scout, whoever he was, was soon convinced of the fact
+that the adventurers were slumbering, for he advanced boldly from
+the dark sheltering shadows of the jungle and emerged into the
+bright moonlight which flooded the clearing in which the camp stood.
+
+Billy raised his rifle to his shoulder and the next minute would
+have been the savage scout's last had not old Sikaso sternly seized
+and lowered the weapon, saying in a tense whisper:
+
+"The time is not yet ripe, my brother.  To fire now would be
+unnecessarily to give the alarm.  Wait until they are massed thick
+and then fire into the bodies of the Arab dogs."
+
+The scout didn't waste much time in reconnoitering.  After a short
+time spent in peering about he dived once more into the forest and
+Billy whispered to Lathrop:
+
+"Now it's coming, old man."
+
+And come it did.
+
+Five minutes after the scout had dived back into the forest a dozen
+dark forms crept from the bush and stealthily advanced toward the
+tent.
+
+The leader had reached the door and Billy was frantically imploring
+old Sikaso to let him shoot when an appalling shriek rent the air.
+
+The old Krooman's axe flashed once in the moonlight and the leader
+of the attacking party lay dead at the tent door, severed almost to
+the chest.
+
+There was not a second's time, however, to take in what had
+happened.  In a flash the whole horde was upon them, and Billy and
+Lathrop began firing desperately into the mass of foemen who
+appeared to spring from every side of the clearing at once.
+
+Even in this extremity a strange thought flashed across Billy's,
+mind:
+
+"Where was Professor Wiseman?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+IN THE HANDS OF SLAVE-TRADERS
+
+
+The ebon form of the Krooman giant seemed everywhere at once.
+
+In the moonlight his terrible axe flashed incessantly and every time
+it fell a shriek or a muffled groan showed that it had found its
+fatal mark.  The huge form of the warrior black seemed, however, to
+bear a charmed life.  Again and again one of the attacking force
+would fire at him, but the bullets seemed to be warded off by some
+supernatural force.  He was immune alike to bullets and arrows--with
+which latter the natives attached to Muley-Hassan's force battled.
+
+Billy and Lathrop fought with unflinching courage, pouring out a
+leaden hail into the onslaught that again and again seemed as if it
+must drive the attacking force back.  But fighting at such
+desperately uneven odds could not in the nature of things last long.
+There came a minute when Billy, turning to reload, found that before
+he could snatch up a handful of cartridges a huge Arab was on top of
+him.
+
+Lathrop's clubbed rifle struck the fellow helpless the next minute
+and sent his long, cruel knife with a ringing crash to the floor.
+
+Before Billy's half breathed "Thanks, old man," had left his lips,
+however, another of Muley-Hassan's followers had rushed in and the
+moment would have been Lathrop's last but that Billy drove his fist
+into the fellow's face with a crashing blow that knocked him on the
+top of his fallen comrade.  It was hand-to-hand fighting then with a
+vengeance.  Billy seized hold of the muzzle of an Arab's revolver as
+it was thrust into his very face, and twisted it upward as it was
+discharged.  Seizing up a camp chair Lathrop swung it round his head
+like a club and scattered the brains of a native follower of
+Muley-Hassan.
+
+But strategy was to put an abrupt end to the fight even if it could
+have continued much longer.
+
+Billy was bleeding from a cut over the forehead which blinded him,
+and Lathrop had got two nasty knife thrusts, one in the arm and the
+other in the fleshy part of the calf of his leg, when they were
+suddenly attacked from the rear by half-a-dozen slavers.  The next
+minute, wounded and bound, they were as helpless as two captured
+puppies.
+
+The fight was over, but the Arabs had come out of it with a badly
+crippled force.
+
+Of the twenty-five men who had attacked the adventurers' camp ten
+had been killed outright and half a dozen others so badly wounded
+that they could not move.  Hardly one of them had not received some
+minor injury, and the very fact that they had made such a poor
+showing against two American boys and a Krooman armed only with an
+axe, filled Muley-Hassan with savage rage.
+
+Furiously the slave-dealer ordered the two boys brought before him.
+A huge fire had been lighted by his followers and in the glare cast
+by this he received them.  It was a wild scene and the two boys
+hardly knew whether they were awake or dreaming, as they were
+roughly hustled into the presence of their captor.
+
+Diego de Barros, his cruel, thin lips curled in a sneer that showed
+his yellow teeth, stood by the side of Muley-Hassan, the latter a
+tall determined-looking man with a crisp, curly black beard and a
+sinister cast of features.  A long burnoose of white, worn after the
+Arab style, hung from his head and framed his dark features, which
+were just then overspread by a frown as black as thunder.
+
+Outside the circle of firelight lay the bodies of the victims of the
+Krooman's axe and the boys' bullets.  All who could do so of
+Muley-Hassan's followers were gathered about him, as the two young
+Americans were brought face to face with the man they had such good
+reason to fear.
+
+"So these are the young Americans?" he asked as Billy and Lathrop
+returned his hawk-like gaze unflinchingly.
+
+"No, sir," spoke up Diego, "they are not.  Wiseman has just told me
+that the Chester boys have flown in their air-ship and these are the
+cubs left behind to guard the camp."
+
+At Wiseman's name mentioned in such a connection both the boys
+started.
+
+"What! they have gone?" thundered the Arab chief.
+
+"Yes, sir," stammered Diego, his coward nature aroused at the sight
+of his superior's fury.
+
+"And by this time they are rifling the ivory cache.  That fool
+Wiseman shall pay dearly for this.  Bring him to me," shouted the
+Arab.
+
+Desperate as was the boys' position they could not restrain a start
+of amazement as Professor Wiseman, his face pale as ashes to his
+very lips, came tremblingly forward.
+
+"You were attached to this boys' camp to prevent by all means their
+sailing till I attacked the camp and made them prisoners, were you
+not?" demanded Muley-Hassan angrily.
+
+Wiseman stammered something in reply.
+
+"You are a coward as well as a fool," went on the slave-dealer, a
+cruel sneer breaking over his face; "but you have blundered for the
+last time.  Take this fool away and kill him!" he ordered, turning
+away as if there was an end of the business.
+
+Pitiful cries broke from the lips of the unhappy professor as he
+heard his death-warrant thus pronounced.  He threw himself on his
+knees and begged and pleaded in a loud screeching tone for a little
+more time.  But the chief was obdurate.
+
+"Take him away," was all he said, and his men, not daring to disobey
+his orders any longer, fairly dragged the unfortunate prisoner
+toward the river bank.  There was a short, sharp scream that chilled
+every drop of blood in the boys' bodies and then a splash.
+Professor Wiseman had paid the price of his treachery.
+
+It was not till long after that the boys heard the full measure of
+his villainy.  How posing as a naturalist he had wandered up and
+down the Ivory Coast for years acting as the secret agent of
+Muley-Hassan and making arrangements for the smuggling of slaves and
+illicitly procured ivory out of the country.  He was too
+accomplished a rascal to be suspected and his learned appearance
+made it still more improbable that he should be engaged in any
+illegal trafficking.  It was small wonder, too, that he had started
+when Frank mentioned the name of Luther Barr, for it was Luther Barr
+whom he had betrayed to Muley-Hassan and advised him of the
+whereabouts of the wily old New Yorker's ivory cache.  As soon as he
+heard Frank mention the name he had of course surmised that the
+pretended hunting expedition was merely a blind to cover a bold dash
+to recover the ivory, though how they were to discover its
+whereabouts he could not imagine till, by prying and listening, he
+learned that they had a map of the locality of the stolen stuff.
+
+He had then dispatched native canoe-men to Muley-Hassan and apprised
+him of the coming of the boys, and Diego had been at once sent out
+by the Arab to secure possession of the map if possible and, failing
+that, to destroy the boys' canoes.  That the aeroplane would also
+have been put out of commission there is little doubt, if Diego or
+Wiseman could have found an opportunity.  The brutal Arab could then
+have disposed of the expedition at his leisure.  But the Golden
+Eagle II was too closely guarded for the two spies to be able to
+harm it.
+
+The Kroomen porters attached to the camp had, as old Sikaso had
+forecast, fled into the jungle at the first attack of the Arab's
+followers and they did not put in an appearance till long after the
+marauders had left the camp.
+
+But what puzzled the boys, as they stood facing the Arab with
+Professor Wiseman's scream still ringing in their ears, was "What
+had become of the old warrior."
+
+He could not have turned traitor.  His valiant behavior in the
+skirmish made that impossible to consider a minute.  But it was
+equally certain that he was nowhere to be seen.  What could have
+become of him?  A dread that he was dead oppressed both boys as they
+stood there waiting for the Arab to speak.
+
+Muley-Hassan seemed to be considering.
+
+He twisted the ends of his jet-black mustaches like a man lost in
+thought, and the firelight playing on his bold reckless features
+showed there an expression of deep perplexity.  But it was no
+question of mercy that was agitating his mind.
+
+It was whether he would kill the boys right there or sell them into
+slavery.
+
+To his money-making mind the latter idea commended itself.  Two
+strong youths such as they were would fetch a good price anywhere,
+and so it came about that Billy and Lathrop--who had fully expected
+to share the Professor's fate--were flung by no gentle hands into
+their bullet-riddled tent and left to pass the night as best they
+could.  Two men were posted to watch them and a rough cuff on the
+head rewarded Billy's single attempt to speak to Lathrop.
+
+The next day at dawn the camp was the scene of great activity.  The
+dead were carried into the forest a short distance and buried, while
+the wounded were attended to with such rough surgery as Muley-Hassan
+knew.  In this work Diego, his lieutenant, who seemed to be a  sort
+of Jack-of-all-trades-outside of his regular occupation of
+scoundrel-aided him; bandaging the, cuts and extracting the bullets
+of his companions with some skill.
+
+The boys were then given to eat some sort of stew in a big wooden
+basin and being just healthy American boys and not heroes of romance
+they ate heartily of the compound and felt better.  Muley-Hassan
+himself examined the cut on Billy's forehead and Lathrop's two
+wounds and pronounced them mere scratches.
+
+Just as it appeared that a start was about to be made the signal
+bell of the wireless rang.  As our readers know it was Frank
+signaling from the Moon Mountains.
+
+A sudden idea seemed to strike Diego at this.  He called
+Muley-Hassan aside and talked earnestly with him for a few seconds,
+then he came up to the boy and demanded fiercely which one of them
+it was that understood wireless.
+
+Lathrop replied that he did, and the next minute wished that he had
+bitten out his tongue before he had admitted it; for Diego, in a
+rough tone, ordered him to sit down at the instrument and reply that
+all was well at the River Camp.
+
+"And, mind you, youngster--no tricks," he said savagely, "or I'll
+kill you as dead as mutton.  I understand the Morse code myself and
+can tell what you are sending; and send slow so that I can get every
+letter."
+
+Lathrop was in a quandary.  To refuse to sit down at the instrument
+meant instant death.
+
+He could tell that by the look in Diego's eyes and from what he had
+seen of him he knew he would not stop at a little thing like a
+murder to drive home a point.
+
+The question was, did the man really understand telegraphy?  If he
+didn't and was only, bluffing Lathrop determined to inform Frank of
+the true state of affairs.  Otherwise it would do neither himself
+nor the others any good to try to trick Diego.
+
+With a prayer on his lips that the Portuguese might not have been
+stating the truth about his knowledge of wireless the boy started to
+send.  He had in his mind the message he would try to get through:
+
+"We have been attacked.  Get help and follow us."
+
+But he had hardly tapped out with a hesitating finger the first word
+of his message when he felt a bullet whiz by his ear and the report
+flashed so close to him that it deafened him and scorched his skin.
+
+"Thought I was bluffing did you, eh?" sneered the Portuguese, "come
+now, no tricks; send out what I tell you or the next bullet will
+come closer."
+
+And so it came about that the queer hesitating message that Frank
+received at Moon Mountains was sent out.
+
+Immediately it was dispatched Muley-Hassan gave the order to advance
+and his ragged followers, carrying the worst wounded in improvised
+litters, set out toward the northwest.
+
+"We are going to the Moon Mountains," whispered Billy to Lathrop,
+"at least it looks that way.  I overheard Muley-Hassan say to Diego
+that we'd have to hurry to get the ivory--"
+
+Lathrop's reply was cut short by a scene that sent the angry blood
+to both boys' faces.
+
+Before the camp was abandoned for good and the plunge into the
+forest began, Muley-Hassan gave a sharp order and directed several
+of his men set about demolishing the camp.  Diego himself smashed
+the field wireless of which Frank and Harry had been so proud.  He
+hacked it to atoms with one of the heavy axes.  The tents and
+provision boxes were next piled in a heap and set in a blaze.
+
+As the column of dark smoke rose from the ruins of the once happy
+camp into the clear sky the order to advance was given and the train
+once more moved forward.
+
+They had hardly deserted the clearing before, from the river bank,
+half a hundred wild figures appeared.
+
+They were similar in appearance--only even more wild-looking than
+the savages fought off by Frank, Harry and Ben the previous day.
+Like the others their slashed and scarred faces and clay-daubed lips
+showed them to belong to one of the fierce cannibal tribes of the
+Bambara region.
+
+Their leader, a tall, thin savage of exceptionally repulsive
+appearance, motioned with his fingers to his thick lips for absolute
+silence among his followers.
+
+Clutching their great broad-headed war-spears the next moment the
+savages slipped into the forest in the direction the Arab and his
+band had gone.  Steadily they advanced with the quiet stealthy tread
+of panthers on the track of their prey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+GORILLAS--AND AN AERIAL TOW-LINE
+
+
+The mystery of the man on the hill bade fair to be an unsolved one,
+for although the boys watched for some time with considerable
+anxiety he did not reappear.  This feature of the incident set them
+to comparing notes and they found that their impression of the
+apparition differed considerably.  Both Frank and Harry were ready
+to swear that he was a black man, while Ben Stubbs was equally
+convinced that his skin was of a reddish hue.  All three, however,
+agreed that he was weaponless so far as could be seen, and his
+attitude appeared to be more one of interested curiosity than of
+actual hostility.
+
+"Well, there's no use wasting time in speculation," said Frank at
+last, "more especially as it does not look as if we can get any
+nearer to solving the problem in that way.  The thing to do now is
+to get at the ivory and that as quickly as possible.  If that man is
+the forerunner of a band that means to attack us, it is all the more
+reason that we should get a move on."
+
+"Right you are, Captain," assented Ben, "and here goes!"
+
+With a mighty swing of his pick the former prospector dislodged a
+pile of the rough stones of which the cairn was composed and the
+boys, too, laid on with a will.  In an hour or so all that was left
+of the once lofty cairn was a few big rocks.
+
+Excitement ran fairly to fever heat as the last obstruction that lay
+between the adventurers and the ivory hoard was cast aside.
+
+In a few minutes now, if all went well, they would be in possession
+of the treasure. More than once as they worked, Frank drew his
+field-glasses out of their case and scanned the surrounding
+wilderness of rocky chasms and swept the green jungle that lay
+stretched like an emerald ocean far below, but each time he replaced
+them with a sigh of relief.  So far there was no sign of any rivals'
+approach, although Frank well knew that by this time Muley-Hassan
+must be upon his way to contest the boys' claim to the ivory.
+
+As the last stone was chucked aside with a mighty heave by the
+combined forces the perspiring adventurers broke into a hearty cheer.
+
+Beneath it was a wooden trap-door which had a ring placed in the
+middle evidently for the purpose of lifting it.  Frank gave it a
+heft, but the weight was too much for even his wiry muscles; but
+when Ben and, Harry assisted him the door gave with a jump that
+threw them all to their feet.
+
+Scrambling up in a second they rushed to the edge of the hole
+revealed by the uplifting of the wooden cover.  What they saw showed
+them instantly that their wildest hopes had not been overdrawn.
+There, at their feet, lay a king's ransom in yellow ivory.
+
+From the hole rose a fetid, sickening odor that at first was almost
+overpowering.  It came from the rotting flesh that still adhered to
+the roots of many of the huge trunks.
+
+With a cheer Harry was about to spring down into the aperture when
+Frank, with a quick exclamation, drew him back.
+
+"Jump back for your life!" he shouted.
+
+Harry was accustomed to obeying his brother in everything, and jump
+backward he did with an agility that would have done credit to a
+gymnast.  Before he could ask a question Frank's revolver cracked
+and a little spit of dust shot up almost at his very feet.
+
+There lay a tiny snake viciously wiggling about in its death agony,
+pierced through by Frank's bullet.
+
+It was a rock adder--one of the deadliest of African snakes.  Barely
+more than three inches in length, and a dull gray in color, it was
+small wonder that Harry in his excitement had not seen it as he was
+about to jump almost upon it.
+
+"We shall have to be careful," said Frank, as he kicked aside the
+still writhing body of the disgusting looking reptile.  "There is
+just a chance that Muley-Hassan, with the cunning of an Arab, may
+have put several more of those customers in here to guard his
+ivory."
+
+It was therefore cautiously that the boys proceeded to work at
+getting the ivory out of the hole and although they killed three
+more of the venomous reptiles it seemed more probable that they had
+got in by accident than that the Arab slave-dealer had deliberately
+placed them there.  By mid afternoon a big pile of ivory lay ready
+for transportation to the Golden Eagle Il and only a few more tusks
+remained in the hole.
+
+"How are we ever going to get the tusks down the hill to the Golden
+Eagle II?" asked Harry as he gazed at the formidable pile.
+
+"I have a better plan than that," replied Frank, "we will bring the
+Golden Eagle II here."
+
+"What?" gasped both his listeners.
+
+"Why not?  It will be a ticklish job to land her on this spot, but I
+think I can do it.  I mean to try anyhow."
+
+"You are risking breaking up the ship," objected Harry.
+
+"On the other hand, if we don't get this ivory out of here in jig
+time Muley-Hassan will be here with a big force and we shall
+assuredly all have our throats cut."
+
+This argument proved insurmountable, and while Ben was left by the
+ivory Harry and Frank hurried down the steeps to the plateau on
+which they had left the Golden Eagle II.  It was the work of a few
+minutes to tune her up.  In a brief time from the moment they had
+left the ivory cache, considering the clamber they had had, the boys
+were in the air and headed for the spot where they had left the
+hoard.
+
+But as they rose into the air they were startled by the sound of a
+shout and then another and another, then carne a volley of shots.
+
+What could be the matter?
+
+The shooting evidently was taking place at the spot where they had
+left Ben to guard the ivory.
+
+Muley-Hassan! was the first thought that shot through Frank's brain.
+
+The next minute, however, he dismissed the idea as absurd.  The
+Arab, even by the swiftest marching, could not have reached the Moon
+Mountains in such record time unless he also had an air-ship, which
+Frank knew was impossible.
+
+As the ship soared higher and rushed straight as an arrow through
+the air to the ivory cache a strange sight was revealed to the two
+young voyagers.  High up on the mountain-side they could see Ben
+struggling with what appeared to be dozens of naked savages.  The
+boys could see his gallant resistance as he swung his clubbed rifle
+again and again at his savage opponents.  Several of them lay dead
+on the ground about him, but those that remained were attacking him
+with what seemed demoniacal fury.
+
+"Good Lord," gasped Frank, "what on earth can have happened?"
+
+"They're cannibals!" gasped Harry.
+
+"No--no," exclaimed Frank hastily, "they're--give me the glasses
+quick, Harry--that's right--I thought so.  They're not savages, but
+worse almost."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"That they are gorillas!"
+
+At her utmost speed the big aeroplane bore down on the scene of the
+unequal combat between Ben Stubbs and the savage beasts.
+
+The boys could see that one of the brutes had seized their stalwart
+companion's rifle from him and with incredible strength had broken
+it in half as if it had been a wooden toy.  The next minute Harry's
+rifle spoke and the gorilla that had just performed the miraculous
+feat of strength fell dead.  With a shriek of rage the others turned
+to see whence came this new enemy.
+
+At the sight of the great aeroplane bearing down upon them they at
+first started to flee with howls of terror, but the next minute they
+rallied and with low growls of rage, that bared their cruel fangs,
+they deliberately waited to see what this strange object might be.
+
+This gave Ben a brief respite and he occupied it by reloading his
+revolver.  The boys were delighted to see by this that their brave
+comrade was not seriously injured.
+
+But now the Golden Eagle II was ready to settle and Frank, guiding
+his aerial steed with one hand, grasped his revolver with the other,
+for it was evident that the rush would come as they struck the
+ground.  And come it did.  As the wheels of the aeroplane struck the
+earth and Frank threw in the brakes sharply crashing into a rocky
+wall, with a howl of defiance the whole horde of man-like brutes
+rushed down on the air-craft with wicked rage in their spiteful
+little red eyes.
+
+The leader of them, a huge "old man" gorilla, brandished an immense
+stone which he hurled with vicious energy at the new arrivals.
+Luckily it fell short of the air-ship or it would have crashed
+through the plane covers and have seriously crippled, if not ruined,
+the air-ship.
+
+The boys' rifles cracked simultaneously and two of the attackers
+rolled over, with horrible human-like cries, but the leader, the bad
+"old man," was still in the field.  As he saw his fellows fall he
+gave a mighty yell of rage and hatred that seemed to come from the
+depths of his hairy chest, and beating rapidly on it, as if it were
+a war-drum he rushed straight at the aeroplane.
+
+"Don't let 'em get near the engines," was all Frank had time to
+shout before the avalanche of hairy, ill-smelling brutes was upon
+them.  Some of them had armed themselves with rocks which they
+hurled with ferocious force.  Others used nothing but their bare
+hands.  Some of them, wounded as they were, fought with added
+fierceness.  Desperately the boys fought them off and when the
+magazines of the rifles and revolvers were emptied they fell back on
+their hunting knives.
+
+Frank had made a furious lunge at the "old man" and missed him by a
+hair's-breadth when he felt two great hairy arms encircle him from
+behind and the hot breath of one of his horrible opponents whistling
+savagely in his ear.  He tried to lunge backwards at the creature,
+but toppled over and fell sprawling.  In a flash the "old-man"
+gorilla was on him when Ben's revolver cracked and the "old-man,"
+badly wounded, sprang high into the air and rolled over and over,
+clutching his head with both his huge hands and screaming in an
+agonized manner.
+
+The fall of their leader seemed to discourage the others.  They
+fought on for a while but it was half-heartedly.  The boys had had
+time in the brief pause that followed the killing of the "old-man"
+to reload, and with their rifles newly charged they were in position
+to make terrible reprisals on the gorilla band for the mischief they
+had wrought.  The monsters evidently were about to quit the battle
+when suddenly a cry rang through the air that ended the fight more
+abruptly than even the boys' bullets could have done.
+
+"Ah-o-o-o-o-AH-O-O-O-O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!"
+
+It was the voice of the mountain once more.
+
+With yells of dismay and terror the remainder of the gorilla band
+instantly dashed up the rocky mountain-side dragging with them, in
+grotesquely human fashion some of their wounded.  Several of these,
+however, still lay on the ground and the boys put them out of their
+misery with a few well-directed shots.  A pathetically human look
+lingered in the eyes of some of the injured gorillas and Harry burst
+out with:
+
+"This is awful work.  I'd rather fight a dozen bands of cannibals
+than have to do this."
+
+"And yet," replied Frank, "if we hadn't killed them they'd have
+killed us."
+
+At last the unpleasant work was over and the ivory was rapidly
+loaded into the aeroplane.  But here an unanticipated difficulty
+manifested itself.  Obviously the aeroplane would be too heavily
+laden if she attempted to carry all or even a good part of the
+ivory.
+
+"Now we are stuck," cried Harry.
+
+"Hold on," exclaimed Frank with a smile, "I anticipated this.  We
+are going to turn the Golden Eagle into a tow-boat."
+
+"A tow-boat?"
+
+"That's what I said."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+Frank, in reply, bent over the stem-locker of the aeroplane and drew
+out what Harry instantly recognized as the silk envelope of an
+experimental dirigible they had built the year before.
+
+"Now then," said Frank, "give a hand here."
+
+They all three pulled and hauled till the envelope was spread level
+on the ground, all folds and creases having been carefully shaken
+out.
+
+"Well," said Harry, "this would carry an awful weight of ivory, but
+how are you going to inflate it?"
+
+"With these cylinders," was the answer as Frank opened the
+store-room below the floor of the Golden Eagle and pointed to a
+dozen cylindrical steel receptacles.  "They contain more than enough
+pure hydrogen gas at a high pressure," he explained, "to inflate the
+bag."
+
+In his enthusiasm Harry waved his helmet and Ben did the same.
+
+"An aerial express, hurray!"
+
+The inflation hose was soon connected to the first of the cylinders
+and with a hiss the gas rushed into the bag when a turn of the
+wrench set free the precious stuff.  Slowly the big yellow envelope
+swelled and assumed shape until by the time the last cylinder was
+empty it was tugging and straining to rise.  But the boys had
+weighted it down with rocks and pegged its net ropes to the ground.
+
+The ivory was loaded into a sort of rope basket, like those used to
+hoist cargo aboard a ship, and in a short time, so quickly did they
+work, they were ready for the air, so far as what Harry called "the
+airbarge" was concerned.
+
+"We shall have to strip the Eagle," decided Frank, when the
+inflation job was finished.
+
+"Of everything that we can spare," added Harry, setting to work at
+once to rip the transoms and detach the bolts that held the heavy
+wireless apparatus in place.  As he did so, Frank was moved by a
+sudden thought.
+
+"Hold on a second, Harry," he shouted, "I'll call up the river camp
+before we cut off all communication."
+
+Rapidly he sent out the call.  Again and again his nervous finger
+agitated the key--but there was no response.
+
+"They--they don't answer," gasped Frank at last--heavy anxiety in
+his tones.
+
+"Oh, Frank, do you think anything serious is the matter?" cried
+Harry.
+
+"It may only be that the apparatus is out of order," replied the
+elder brother seriously; "but it looks bad.  That field wireless was
+in prime condition and it would be next to impossible for them to
+fail to receive our call."
+
+"Well, there is only one thing to be done," remarked the practical
+Ben Stubbs.
+
+"And that is--?" queried Harry.
+
+"To get back there as soon as possible, for if they need us they
+need us dern bad," was the energetic reply.
+
+Half an hour later the Golden Eagle, stripped of all her heavy gear
+and only carrying just enough gasoline to get her to the river camp,
+where the adventurers expected to find a reserve supply, rose slowly
+into the air with her queer tow tugging behind on the wireless
+ground rope.  The boys had cached the wireless apparatus and the
+other gear, to be called for at some more opportune time.  To their
+great regret, also, they had had to leave some of the ivory behind
+them.  But the majority of what they did not dare trust to the
+gas-bag they carried in the chassis.  Luckily for them there was
+hardly a breath of wind and the novel carrier towed well.
+
+As the occupants of the great aeroplane gazed back at the sinister
+Moon Mountains as they fast faded out--they saw silhouetted against
+the evening sky a dark figure.
+
+It was recognized at once as one of the beaten gorillas scouting to
+see if the terrible white men had really gone.
+
+"There's the man we saw this afternoon," laughed, Frank, as with
+rapidly beating propellers the Golden Eagle II winged her way with
+the convoy toward the River Camp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+AN ESCAPE--AND WHAT CAME OF IT
+
+
+From the pace at which Muley-Hassan's band traversed the jungle
+paths it was evident to the two young captives that there was
+imperative need in Muley-Hassan's mind of arriving somewhere at a
+set time.  The usual noonday rest, which even the avaricious
+slave-trader was in the habit of taking, was not observed and the
+travelers pressed straight on.  Lathrop and Billy were almost ready
+to drop with fatigue when that evening, just at dusk, they arrived
+at the bank of a muddy river which Muley-Hassan, impatient as he was
+to proceed, decided it would be unwise to ford till daylight--when
+they could look for a good crossing place.  At the spot which they
+had halted, the stream--swollen apparently by rains in the
+mountains--roared between its banks, in a dark chocolate-colored
+flood.
+
+Muley-Hassan himself was the only one of his band provided with a
+tent, or anything resembling one, and the boys shared the common bed
+of the rest of the party--which was the ground.  A more unwholesome
+resting-place in Africa, particularly on the steamy, swampy banks of
+a river, could hardly be imagined.  So indeed Muley-Hassan seemed to
+think, for after a short time, during which the boys vainly tried to
+secure some sleep, he ordered Diego to provide them with blankets to
+place between themselves and the bare earth.
+
+"I expect to get a good price for them eventually," he said, "and I
+don't want to lose them unless I have to."
+
+As the boys' wrists and ankles were bound with tough grass while
+there was no particular attempt made to watch them, and soon the
+snores of the camp bespoke that it was at rest.  Then it was that
+Billy whispered to Lathrop.
+
+"Now's our time to try for it!"
+
+"Try for what?" whispered back Lathrop in an inert tone.
+
+"To get away."
+
+"What!"
+
+"I mean it.  I found a sharp stone imbedded in the ground near to me
+and I have nearly sawed through my wrist-bands."
+
+After a few seconds' more vigorous scraping against the stone, Billy
+whispered:
+
+"My hands are free.  Wait till I wiggle my fingers and get up some
+circulation and then we'll make our attempt--"
+
+When he had once more got full control of his cramped fingers Billy
+stooped cautiously over and loosened the thongs about his ankles.
+So tightly had they been drawn, though, that it took some little
+time to get the cramps out of them.  At last, however, the boy
+succeeded in restoring the circulation and then he was ready for the
+most daring step of his attempt.  Cautiously he fell on his hands
+and knees and began to crawl toward the nearest of the sleeping
+slave-traders.
+
+"What are you going to do, Billy?" asked Lathrop, in an agony of
+fear lest the man should awaken.
+
+"Watch me," was the young reporter's reply, as on his stomach he
+wiggled painfully across the few yards separating him from the
+sleeping man.  In reality it took only a few minutes, but to both
+the boys the period of time occupied seemed interminable.
+
+But it was no time to hurry things.  One false step night cost them
+their lives and Billy realized this.
+
+With the slow deliberate movement of a snake he, reached out his
+hand when he got near enough and took from the sleeping man's side
+his long curved Arab scimitar.  Then he glided back to Lathrop as
+silently as he had left.
+
+He had just reached his resting-place when there was a stir from the
+further side of the camp.  Like a rabbit ducking into its hole Billy
+was under his blanket and apparently fast asleep in a second.  But
+his heart beat so loudly that it felt to him that anyone who was not
+deaf could hear it a hundred yards away.
+
+The man who had moved was Diego and the boys could hear his cat-like
+footfalls as he neared their sleeping-places.  Once he stumbled over
+one of the sleeping men and the aroused one rose with a start and
+called wildly:
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Hush, Adab," cautioned Diego, "it is I--Diego.  I'm going to give
+an eye to those two American brats."
+
+"They're tied up hard and fast enough," chuckled the other.
+
+"If they were of any other nationality--yes;" was Diego's reply,
+"but these Yankees are brave and clever enough to escape from almost
+any trap."
+
+"You bet we are," thought Billy to himself, giving a realistic
+snore.
+
+Although he did not dare to open his eyes, the young reporter could
+feel Diego standing over them in the moonlight and gazing down at
+them to ascertain if they were still "hard and fast," as the other
+had expressed it.
+
+For an instant a terrible thought flashed across Billy's brain.
+
+"Suppose Diego should take an idea to examine their thongs?"
+
+But the lieutenant of Muley-Hassan apparently was satisfied, for
+after a few minutes' scrutiny he turned to go Billy could hear his
+feet scrape as he swung around.
+
+At almost the same instant the night was filled with savage cries
+and the camp was thrown into confusion by an onrush of wild figures
+before whose spears the half-awakened Arabs were slaughtered like
+sheep.
+
+Not realizing in the least what was happening, Billy yet conjectured
+that the Arabs were just then too busy to pay any attention to
+himself and Lathrop.  With two slashes of the stolen scimitar he
+severed Lathrop's bonds and dragging him to his feet dived into the
+forest.
+
+As they entered its recesses a fleeing Arab, still clutching his
+rifle, dashed by them and an instant later fell dead.  He had been
+speared through the back.
+
+Billy, with a quick inspiration, seized the dead man's long rifle
+and his ammunition pouch and, followed by the bewildered Lathrop,
+plowed desperately forward into the screen of the jungle.
+
+Behind them they heard cries for mercy and fierce shouts from the
+attacking savages.  At first the cries and imprecations of the
+slave-traders predominated and then, by the altered sounds that came
+from the scene of the fighting and the crashing of the Arabs'
+volleys, the boys realized that the tide of battle had changed and
+that the Arabs were driving back the attacking force.
+
+"What do you suppose happened, Billy?" asked Lathrop, only half
+awake, as the boys, with the fleetness and endurance that desperate
+need lends, plunged deeper and deeper into the forest.
+
+"Why, that some cannibal tribe that Muley-Hassan pillaged for slaves
+at some time has trailed him and attacked him," hazarded the
+reporter.
+
+How near he came to the truth our readers know.  The band that had
+made the midnight attack was the same that had painstakingly trailed
+Muley-Hassan since he destroyed the boys' camp on the river bank.
+
+"But the Arabs have beaten them off?" queried Lathrop.
+
+"Evidently," replied Billy, as the volleys died out and victorious
+Arab shouts were beard.  "Hark at that!  It's really too bad.  I'd
+like to have seen old Muley and his precious band driven into the
+river.  But if they have driven off the savages they'll be thinking
+about chasing us."
+
+As he spoke there came a low, growling sound that seemed to proceed
+from some distance, but nevertheless filled the air.  It rumbled and
+rolled above them like--
+
+"Thunder!" exclaimed both boys in the same breath.
+
+"We've got to find shelter of some kind, quick," exclaimed Billy;
+"these tropical storms are unlike our little disturbances, and if we
+get caught among these trees in one, of them we stand a good chance
+of being killed.  It looks like we've jumped out of the frying-pan
+into the fire."
+
+Without the least idea in which direction they were proceeding, the
+two chums struggled bravely on, Billy encouraging the flagging
+Lathrop from time to time with a joke, though these latter were, as
+Billy admitted to himself:
+
+"Pretty dismal!"
+
+At length, just as dawn was beginning to break, they found
+themselves facing a steepish cliff of rough rocks.
+
+"Well, here's where we turn back," remarked Billy, bitterly
+discouraged nevertheless.
+
+If they were lost in this equatorial forest, what chance did they
+stand of ever seeing their home and friends again?
+
+As for Lathrop he sat down on a rock overgrown with a kind of
+monstrous lichen and gave way to tears.  But not for long. Lathrop
+was a plucky enough lad, and as Billy truthfully remarked:
+
+"We are going to have enough water before long without our turning
+on the weeps."
+
+So Lathrop braced up and the boys looked about them.  To their
+intense joy they soon spied in the rocks, a short distance from
+where they then were, a dark hole partly overgrown by creepers,
+which was evidently the entrance to a cavern.  At the same instant
+there began a mighty pattering on the leaves of the dense tropic
+growth all about them, and a louder growl of thunder announced that
+the storm that had been heralded a few hours before was about to
+break.
+
+"Well, me for that African Waldorf-Astoria," cried Billy, grasping
+his rifle and making a dive for the hole.  Lathrop followed him and
+as soon as they were inside the cave he lit a match from his
+waterproof box.
+
+"Looks to me like there might be snakes in here," he whispered, awed
+by the darkness and silence of the place.
+
+"Rats," laughed Billy, although he himself felt by no means sure
+that at any moment some scaly monster might not descend from the
+roof; "but I'll tell you what we'll do.  Light a fire."
+
+"How are we to get wood?" asked the practical Lathrop.
+
+"There's plenty of it right at the mouth of the cave.  I'll get a
+few armfuls and in a minute we'll have things snug."
+
+The young reporter hastened to the cave mouth and in a few trips had
+gathered up several huge armfuls of wood-drift of all kinds from
+under the great trees all about.  He was just re-entering the cave
+when there came a flash of blinding light so brilliant that it
+seemed as if the sky itself had split wide open.  A bluish glare
+enveloped the forest and the lightning flash was instantly followed
+by a crash of thunder that shook the ground under the boys' feet.
+
+"Well, they don't do things by halves in this country," remarked
+Billy as he re-entered the cave after a second of being temporarily
+stunned by the terrific flash.
+
+It didn't take the boys long to have their wood in a blaze and as
+the smoke did not, as they had feared, fill the cavern, they assumed
+that there must be some opening above through which it escaped.
+This fact they verified shortly when, after the storm had been
+waxing in fury for half-an-hour, a perfect torrent of water came
+tumbling in from the rear of the rocky cavern.
+
+"Hark!" exclaimed Billy as the boys busied themselves trying to
+scrape out a water-course that would divert the flood from their
+fire.  From far in the rear of the cave came a plaintive sound of
+"Mi-ou, Mi-ou."
+
+"Cats!" cried Lathrop.
+
+"Cats nothing," was Billy's scornful reply; "here, let's have a
+look."
+
+He seized a blazing brand out of the fire and hastened to the place
+from which the sounds emanated.
+
+"Come here, quick, Lathrop," he cried.  The younger lad scurried
+back and found Billy bending over a roughly constructed nest or bed.
+On it lay four tiny, fuzzy yellow things.  They were "meowing" at
+the tops of their voices as the torrent of water that had annoyed
+the boys dripped into their snug nesting-place.  At the same instant
+the boys became aware of a sickening odor of decaying flesh.
+
+"Come on! we've got to get out of here quick as quick as we can,"
+exclaimed Billy as they hastened towards the fresh air.
+
+"Why, what is it, Billy?" asked Lathrop.
+
+"I don't know; but I think that those are lion cubs--they look like
+the ones I've seen in the Bronx Zoo," was the young reporter's
+reply, "and if they are, this is no place for us.  Come on--the
+storm is letting up.  Let's get out quick before the old ones get
+back."
+
+The storm, with the suddenness with which these furious tropical
+disturbances arise and vanish, had indeed gone and the sun was
+shining down once more on the drenched jungle, which glittered with
+diamond like spangles as the rays struck the dripping fronds and
+branches.  But the boys had no eyes for the scene about them,
+beautiful as it was, for as they emerged from the cave a low growl
+greeted them.
+
+Crouched on the ground--her tail lashing the earth like a cat's when
+it is about to spring--was a huge tawny lioness--her cruel green
+eyes fixed full upon them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE FLYING MEN
+
+
+For a breath the boys stood petrified and then Billy hastily slipped
+a cartridge into the rifle he had taken from the dead slave-trader.
+But even as he did so the lioness curved her lithe body, as if her
+backbone had been a steel spring, and launched her great form
+through the air.
+
+That minute would have been Billy's last--for in his excitement he
+pulled the trigger before he had brought the rifle to his shoulder
+and the bullet whistled harmlessly into the air--but for a strange
+thing that now occurred.
+
+While the tawny brute was in mid-spring, her cruel claws outspread
+to maul the unhappy reporter, a great spear whizzed straight at her
+and buried itself in her heart just behind the left shoulder.  With
+a howl of pain the brute fell short in her spring and, before she
+could make another attack, Billy had reloaded and sent a bullet
+crashing between her eyes.  As the lioness rolled over dead, the
+tall form of a. savage sprung out of the jungle and stood for a
+second gazing at the boys, as much astonished, it seemed, at them as
+they were at him.
+
+Billy, seeing that the best plan was to be pacific, threw down his
+rifle and cried:
+
+"Seesenab," (peace); the word be recollected hearing the big Krooman
+use the day that he attempted to take his unlucky photographs.
+
+"Seesenah--white boys," replied the other, the latter words in fair
+English and in a deep guttural tone, coming forward with the head of
+his other spear held downward in token of peace.  "From where come
+the white boys--what do they in our land?" was his next question.
+
+"We are lost," explained Billy, "and we are also, blamed hungry," he
+added, in a burst of confidence.
+
+The savage smiled and rubbed his stomach.
+
+"That's the idea," cried the irrepressible reporter.  "Heap--empty--
+savee?"
+
+The man leant over the dead lioness and, using his spear-point as a
+skinning knife, rapidly stripped her of her hide.  Then, swinging
+the pelt over his shoulder he motioned to the boys to follow him.
+
+"I don't know where the dickens he means to take us," confided Billy
+to Lathrop as they obediently trailed along behind, "but so long as
+we get something to eat I'm so hungry that I don't care if we get
+eaten the next minute."
+
+"That's just the way I feel," agreed Lathrop, "and anyhow he seems
+to be a pretty decent sort.  He saved your life, that's one thing
+sure."
+
+"I guess I'll never make a mighty hunter," said Billy dolefully,
+"there was a chance to make real Bwana Tumbo shot and I missed it."
+
+The savage stalked along in front of them for some distance till
+they suddenly emerged on a small clearing by a river bank, in which
+a rough native camp had been pitched.  The tents of grass occupied
+by the hunters being of a peculiar conical shape, like the pointed
+caps that used to be labeled "Dunce."
+
+Much excitement was created by the arrival of the two boys and their
+companion, and the hunters crowded round the chums while their guide
+explained with a wealth of gesture the incident of the killing of
+the lioness, and also the fact that the boys were very hungry.
+
+Several of the men instantly filled wooden bowls with something from
+a pot that simmered over the fires and the bowls were thrust before
+the two ravenous boys.  As there were no forks of course the boys
+used their fingers.  But this did not interfere with their appetite
+and after they had put away two bowls apiece the savages' opinion of
+them evidently rose considerably.  Among the West African natives a
+big eater is esteemed as a mighty man.  Lathrop was considerably
+embarrassed, however, while he satisfied his hunger by the attention
+the hunters bestowed on his red hair.  Several of them came up
+behind him and rubbed their hands in it as if they imagined it
+possessed some sort of medicinal value.  Had any one at home dared
+to take such liberties with the boy's rubicund locks there would
+have been a fight right away, but Lathrop felt that the best policy
+to assume in the present situation was silence, and as the old ship
+captain said to his mate, "dem little of that."
+
+"I say, Billy," whispered Lathrop suddenly, as, after eating the
+stew, they watched the hunters piling their belongings into their
+canoes, "you don't suppose they mean to fatten us up to eat us, do
+you?"
+
+"Well, we can't starve even if that is the reason," replied the
+practical Billy, "but so far they seem friendly enough.  They have
+not even taken my rifle away."
+
+"That looks encouraging, certainly," replied Lathrop; "if only we
+knew where Frank and Harry and good old Ben were we might find this
+all very interesting, as it is though--"
+
+"We've got to make the best of it," chimed in Billy, "come on.  See
+old job-lots is signing to us to come down and get in a canoe."
+
+"Whatever they mean to do with us they seem determined to make us
+comfortable," remarked Billy, as the boys took their seats in a
+canoe in which skins had been piled to make an easy seat.
+
+For most of that afternoon they paddled steadily up the brown river,
+the savages singing from time to time an unending sort of chant,
+that sounded like nothing so much as a continuous repetition of:
+
+"I-told-you-so.  I-told-you-so.  I--told-YOU-SO."
+
+"Hum," commented Billy, "if anyone had told me so I'd have stayed in
+New York."
+
+At length after what seemed endless hours of paddling and chanting
+the river took an abrupt turn and the boys found themselves at the
+foot of a steep cliff that towered up, it seemed, for six hundred
+feet at least.  It was formed of black basalt and was crowned with a
+fringe of contrasting vegetation, but the most remarkable thing
+about it was that its surface was literally honeycombed with small
+holes from which, as the canoe cortege drew up, innumerable heads
+were poked.
+
+An astonishing thing, however, about the men who scrutinized the
+lads from their lofty watch-towers, was that they were several
+degrees lighter in complexion than the boatmen and almost as white
+as the boys in fact.  Their features, too, were different.  As the
+boys looked in wonderment at this extraordinary dwelling-place and
+its equally strange inhabitants, Billy gave an excited shout:
+
+"Great jumping horn-toads, look at that!"
+
+One of the light-colored men had emerged from his, hole and with as
+little concern as if he were taking a walk had suddenly launched
+himself into space.  But instead of falling to the ground or into
+the river, as the boys had fully expected to see him do, he floated
+gracefully to the opposite bank of the river with as little effort
+as a settling bird.
+
+"Good land of hot-cakes, Lathrop, do you realize where we are?"
+almost shrieked the excited Billy.
+
+"In the village of the Flying Men," stammered Lathrop, as, one after
+another, the inhabitants of the rock holes dropped from their aeries
+and floated groundwards.  As the boys watched they saw distinctly
+that each man, from his wrist to his side, was possessed of a sort
+of leathery fiber like that of bat's swing, and that as their arms
+were of unusual length this fiber supported them in their downward
+flights like a parachute.
+
+"I'll never call any one a liar again as long as I live," choked out
+Billy, as one after another these strange beings gathered in a
+chattering group on the river bank.
+
+"But they can't fly upward," exclaimed Lathrop, pointing eagerly to
+where some of the gliders, having swum the river, were nimbly
+clambering up a grass rope-ladder to their homes.
+
+"Oh, gee! if I only had a camera," groaned Billy.
+
+"It will be no use telling anyone about this even if we do get out
+of here, they'll say that we have had a rarebit dream."
+
+"That's so," assented Lathrop, "and honestly, Billy, are you sure we
+are awake?"
+
+"Sure," replied the reporter giving himself a vicious pinch, and
+exclaiming "Ouch!"
+
+But there was no time to talk further.  Their guide now came up to
+them and jumping into their canoe paddled them to where the end of
+the rope-ladder dangled in the stream.  He pointed upward for them
+to ascend.  But Billy's curiosity would not let him mount before he
+had asked a question.
+
+"Who are these people?" he asked in, for him, an awed tone.
+
+"Very old-time people," rejoined their guide.  "We hunt for them,
+work for them.  They the same as fetish."'
+
+The boys mounted the ladder slowly.
+
+Unused as they were to such a contrivance it required all their
+nerve to keep on going up, as they swung at a higher and higher
+altitude above the river.  Neither of them dared to look down, as
+they were certain that they would be overcome by dizziness.
+
+With their eyes glued to the rock in front of them, they mounted
+what seemed to be endless rungs till at last they found themselves
+at the top of the ladder and facing a large opening cut in the rock.
+
+As they found out later, this was the main entrance to the dwelling
+of this strange community and from it various galleries and passages
+branched off to their separate dwelling-places.  Each family lived
+in a rock house exactly adapted to the size of the circle.  There
+were six stories, so to speak, of these dwelling-places, but they
+all communicated, either by means of stair-ways cut in the rock or
+inclined galleries, with the main passage at the entrance of which
+the chums now stood.
+
+Their guide, who was immediately behind them on the swaying ladder,
+took the lead as soon as the three stood side by side on the summit,
+and escorted them down the long passage.  Before they started he
+took from a bracket in the wall a kind of torch, made of some
+resinous wood unfamiliar to the boys.  Striking piece of flint
+against his spear blade he soon produced light and holding the torch
+high above his head, so that its light shone on the walls, rendered
+glossy by the rub of uncounted ages of greasy elbows and bodies, he
+led the way down the passage.  The boys could feel that after
+walking a short distance it took a sudden rise and yet further a
+cool wind began to blow in their faces.
+
+About a hundred yards from the spot where they first noticed the air
+stirring in their hair the boys and their guide emerged on a scene
+whose beauty at first shock almost took the lads' breath away.
+
+Before them stretched a fertile valley neatly divided into patches--each
+hedged off in squares in which flourished all sorts of vegetables,
+including sweet corn and potatoes and several other less familiar
+varieties.  In pastures, fenced in with mathematical regularity by
+hedges of the African cactus thorn, herds of humped cattle were feeding
+contentedly in the mellow glow of the setting sun, occasionally lowing
+softly, which latter made Billy, as he expressed it, "long for the old
+farm."
+
+The Winged Men likewise cultivated, it seemed, fruits of many kinds
+and had also stockades in which poultry, of breeds strange to the
+boys, but undoubtedly sprung from the aboriginal African fowl, were
+abundant.
+
+It seemed as if they had struck a land in which the inhabitants
+lived an ideal life, surrounded as they were by every comfort and
+necessity that one could imagine; but that even they were distressed
+by the raids of enemies transpired when the boys' guide, whose name
+they had learned by this time was Umbashi, pointed to the west in
+which the setting sun was now kindling a ruddy glow and said:
+
+"Sometime elephant come--then much trouble."
+
+Of the full significance of those words, however, neither boy
+dreamed as, after a supper of fresh corn, bitter melon, stewed deer
+meat and a dessert formed of some sort of custard they sank to sleep
+on their couches of skins, spread for them by Umbashi's direction in
+a vacant dwelling in the cliff face.
+
+Their slumber senses carried them back to New York and Billy was in
+the midst of escorting Umbashi in full war paint through the office
+of the New York Planet, followed by hordes of joshing reporters and
+inquisitive office boys, who wanted to know whether he'd match his
+dusky friend to fight Jim Jeffries, when he was awakened by Umbashi
+himself, who in a few words told him it was morning and time to get
+up and dress swiftly, as the King of the Flying Men wanted to see
+him and his young companion at once.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+FOOLING AN ARAB CHIEF
+
+
+"Frank, what do you make of it?"
+
+"Harry, I don't know what to think."
+
+"Ain't nuffin fer it but ter keep on hopin' fer the best, as the
+feller said when they had a rope around his neck fer horse-stealing
+and was about to string him up."
+
+The three--Frank and Harry Chester and Ben Stubbs--were standing
+round the charred remains of their once lively, well-equipped
+camp--where they had arrived that morning at daybreak after a
+tiresome night spent circling about in the moonlight trying to
+locate it--and now the reason why they had failed to see the white
+tents was fully apparent by their blackened sites.
+
+"Billy and Lathrop have been carried off!"  It was Harry who spoke.
+
+"Beyond a doubt.  I thought at first that the raid must have been
+made by cannibals, but cannibals do not carry rifles, as a rule, and
+look here."  Frank stooped and picked up half-a-dozen cartridges of
+the kind used by the Arab slave-traders.
+
+"You know there were no shells like that in our party," he went on,
+"but I can see by the collection of empty shells in the place where
+the tent stood that Billy and Lathrop must have put up a hot
+defense."
+
+"Frank, do you--you don't think, do you--" Harry burst out.
+
+"That they have been killed?" Frank finished for him.  "No, I do
+not.  Unless they fell in the fight and then we should have seen
+their bodies down with the others by the river.  No, it is my idea
+that they have been carried off to be sold as slaves.  They would
+have a high market value you know."
+
+Harry groaned.
+
+"But don't you think there is a chance of our getting them back?"
+
+Frank's face grew grave.
+
+"Of course we are going to try every means in our power, but once in
+the hands of that scoundrel Muley-Hassan it is doubtful if we ever
+see them again.  There is only one thing for us to do."
+
+"And that is--?"
+
+"To get back to the Moon Mountains at once. But we have no
+gasoline."
+
+This was a stunning blow; in the excitement their of fuel had not
+occurred even to the farseeing Frank.  They had had, as our readers
+know, to leave most of their gasoline at the Moon Mountains in order
+to lighten the aeroplane.  Without it they could not move an inch in
+their air-craft.  Harry tested the tank.  Only a few paltry gallons
+remained--not enough to drive the aeroplane ten miles.
+
+As the boys stood, struck dumb by the realization of the disaster
+that had overtaken them, Ben Stubbs, who had been down to the river
+bank, reappeared.
+
+"Look here!" he exclaimed, holding out at arms length a long white
+cloak.  One glance at the garment was enough--it was an Arab article
+of dress.  There was no further doubt about it, then.  Muley-Hassan
+and his men had carried off Billy and Lathrop.
+
+"But that's not the most extraordinary part of it," went on Ben;
+"while there are half a dozen of the Arabs' canoes down there, there
+are a lot of others, that must have belonged to a bunch of natives
+from their shiftless look--and I could see the bare imprint of the
+savages' feet in the mud, coming after the Arabs had trod around
+there."
+
+This was a new mystery.  Apparently, then, a tribe of cannibals had
+been on the trail of the Arabs who had carried off their two young
+companions.   This could only mean one thing, that they meant to
+punish the Arab slave-dealers for some outrage and, while this would
+have been quite satisfactory to the boys under other conditions, as
+things were it meant that there would be a fight in which both
+Lathrop and Billy would probably be seriously wounded, if not
+killed.  How wrong this surmise was we know, and it serves to show
+how very wide of the mark it is possible for the constructors of a
+theory to steer.
+
+And here for a time we will leave our despairing friends while we go
+back to the Moon Mountains.
+
+The outline of the Golden Eagle II, in her flight to the river camp,
+had not faded out on the twilight sky, before, through the jungle at
+the foot of the Moon Mountains, a strange figure pushed its way.  It
+was Sikaso, but a changed Sikaso from the agile muscular black who
+had wielded his axe with such terrible effect at the fight of the
+evening before.  His ebony body was cut and scarred with the signs
+of his battle with the thorns and saw-bladed grasses of the dense
+forest, across which he had cut in desperate haste, scorning all
+paths in order to warn the Boy Aviators and their chum Ben of the
+rapid approach of Muley-Hassan.  With that strange instinct that
+white men in Africa recognize in certain of the natives as a sixth
+sense, the giant black had read in a fire kindled after the battle,
+that the boys were at that moment in the Moon Mountains, and had at
+once set out--exhausted as he was--at top speed on the long journey.
+Only a man of his adamantine strength could have endured the
+hardships and it had fatigued even his iron frame, as was evident by
+his stumbling footsteps as he made his way up the side of the
+mountain--pausing from time to time as if to listen to the
+whisperings of his mysterious instinct.
+
+Billy and Lathrop, half inclined to accuse the old black in their
+minds of base desertion, did him a gross injustice.  After he had
+seen the two boys taken prisoners, the old warrior had realized that
+he could be of far more use to them at liberty than he would be if
+made captive by Muley-Hassan.  Indeed there was no doubt in his own
+mind that the Arab would put him to death instantly if he ever got
+his hands on him.  He had therefore built a fetish fire and in it
+had made out distinctly Frank and Harry and Ben in their air-ship,
+encamped on the mountain-side, and had set out without delay at the
+peculiar jog-trot by which the native bush-runners can cover daily
+as much ground, and more, than a horse.
+
+But the huge Krooman was doomed to as bitter a disappointment as the
+youths he was in search of had experienced at their return to the
+river camp.  He found the spot on which the Golden Eagle had rested
+deserted, but still urged on by his strange sense of locality he
+finally stumbled upon the ivory cache.
+
+"Um, big fight here," he mused to himself as he gazed about him at
+the mangled bodies of the gorillas which showed black as ink on the
+rocks in the sharp, brilliant moonlight.  The heap of uncollected
+ivory was the next thing to attract his eye and with a guttural
+grunt the negro helped himself to a drink of water from his skin-bag
+while he sat down to ponder.  He did not waste much time in
+reflection.  Springing to his feet he vanished down one of the dark
+recesses of the mountain-side and was gone about an hour.  When he
+returned he picked up an armful of the ivory--a load that would have
+staggered three ordinary men--and, hefting it easily in his arms,
+vanished with it into the dark shadows.  For two hours he worked
+steadily and at the close of that period there was not enough ivory
+left about the cache to make a watch-charm of.  Old Sikaso had found
+a new hiding place for the stuff the boys were compelled to leave.
+
+Then he sat himself once more down on the rock, and leisurely
+smashing to pieces with his inseparable axe, the wooden cover that
+had been over the cache, he selected, with a good deal of care one
+of the dead gorillas.  Having found the one that seemed to suit him;
+he cut off from its flank a hunk of meat with his keen weapon and
+producing a flint and steel soon had the meat toasting over a blaze.
+When it was done to his satisfaction he leisurely ate it and washed
+it down with a draught from his skin-bag.  He then cooked several
+more pieces of gorilla meat which he tucked in his waist-band, and
+shouldering his axe and humming to himself his grim war-song, he set
+out at the same swinging dog-trot on his long trip to the river
+bank.  With the vitality common to such men, his brief rest and
+refreshment had rendered his tired frame as vigorous as ever and
+there was no trace of fatigue in the steady trot of the ebony figure
+as it plunged into the dark forest and vanished.
+
+A second later, however, the figure reappeared as a noise of voices
+was heard drawing nearer down a forest trail.  Throwing himself on
+his face and lying as motionless as a fallen log, the Krooman
+watched as Muley-Hassan and his followers--almost worn out and sadly
+diminished in numbers since their fight with the boys and with the
+cannibals--appeared.  True, they had beaten the latter off, but at
+great loss to themselves, and the few men that now limped forward--
+urged on only by the fierce voice of Diego and Muley-Hassan--
+appeared ready to drop in their tracks from exhaustion.
+
+"A hundred pounds of ivory to every man of you if we get there
+before they have cleaned the place out," the Arab was shouting by
+way of encouraging his men.  Old Sikaso, with a grim chuckle,
+watched them make their way up the mountain-side and then laughed
+softly to himself as their imprecations of rage and fury broke out
+as they reached the cache--and found it empty!
+
+Somewhat cheered by the vigorous Ben, who proposed to paddle down
+the river to the nearest settlement himself the next day, if some
+news were not heard of Billy and Lathrop, the boys were preparing
+for bed that evening--the bed consisting of the floor of the Golden
+Eagle's stripped cabin--when they were startled by Ben holding up a
+warning finger.
+
+"Hark!" he exclaimed eagerly.
+
+The boys listened.
+
+"There's somebody coming," were Ben's next words.
+
+Sure enough drawing closer every minute they could hear a soft
+patter-patter coming down a jungle-trail and evidently, by the
+sound, heading for the camp.
+
+"Who can it be?" exclaimed Frank in a low tone, not daring even to
+mention the wild hope that surged in his heart.  For a minute he
+thought that it might be the missing chums, and that even Harry and,
+to a less degree, Ben, shared his thought he saw by their parted
+lips and tensely strained eyes.
+
+In absolute silence they listened as the footfalls drew in toward
+them, but not by even the wildest stretch of the imagination could
+they make out more than one man's footsteps.
+
+Instinctively each member of the party raised his revolver as the
+bushes parted and from them tottered a man who was very evidently in
+the last stages of exhaustion.  The figure staggered forward to the
+aeroplane as the boys and Ben lowered their revolvers, seeing that,
+whoever the newcomer was there was no fear of violence from him.  It
+was Ben who recognized him first:
+
+"Sikaso!" he cried, as the figure crumpled up in a heap, completely
+exhausted.
+
+The boys rushed to the fallen man's side as they heard the name.
+They bathed the huge black's head with water and after a few minutes
+he opened his eyes and recognized them with a faint smile.  After he
+had been given some nourishment he completely recovered from his
+spell of weakness which be called:
+
+"Big fool--all same woman," quite omitting to state that he had
+traveled almost eighty miles since the preceding midnight.
+
+The boys sat late listening to what the black had to tell of the
+attack on the camp--of Professor Wiseman's treachery and death--and
+of the carrying off of the boys.  Then Sikaso went on to gleefully
+relate, while they warmly clasped his mighty hands, how he had
+hidden the rest of the ivory and how he had seen Muley-Hassan pass
+on his way to the rifled hiding place.
+
+"But Billy and Lathrop, Sikaso, tell us quick, were they with
+Muley-Hassan?"
+
+The black shook his head slowly.
+
+"No see Four-Eyes--no see Red Head," he said sorrowfully.
+
+The last ray of hope concerning the fate of the two young
+adventurers seemed to have been extinguished.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE "ROGUE" ELEPHANT
+
+
+In the meantime Billy and Lathrop, having been introduced to the
+chief, were making themselves very much at home in the village or
+cliff colony of the Flying Men.  The morning after the day of their
+arrival a hunting expedition was organized by their new-found friend
+and in company with a dozen or more of the Flying Men, and the
+ordinary natives, who seemed to occupy the position of inferiors to
+their winged masters, the expedition set out.
+
+They crossed the fields and garden patches that the boys had
+observed the evening before and, after traversing a few miles of
+swampy ground overgrown with a tough yellow grass, they plunged into
+a forest of mahogany and silk cotton trees.
+
+It was while crossing the expanse of yellow grass at Billy performed
+a feat that caused all of them to hold him as a mighty hunter.  They
+had been pushing their way along a narrow trail with the tops of the
+vegetation waving a good three feet above their heads, when there
+was a sudden grunt heard ahead and the noise of great rushing
+through the wiry grass.
+
+"Big pig," announced the boys' friend as the others got their spears
+ready to cast.  Billy and Lathrop in their eagerness plunged on
+ahead of the others--Lathrop with a small spear and his
+revolver--which by the way was useless, he having expended all his
+cartridges--and Billy with the Arab rifle.  Suddenly from dead ahead
+of the two boys there was a savage squeal and, before either of them
+realized what had happened, a boar with gleaming white tusks and
+bristly hair rushed out of the tangle and squarely charged them.
+
+Lathrop went down before his furious onslaught and in his fall
+carried Billy to the ground with him.  In another moment both boys
+would have been badly gored, perhaps killed, had not the reporter,
+in the very instant that the boar with wickedly gleaming little red
+eyes turned to attack Lathrop with his fierce tusks, raised himself
+on one arm and fired.  The bullet struck their assailant full in the
+ear and penetrated the brain.  With a surprised squeal he turned and
+ran a few feet and then dropped dead.  The rest of the hunting part
+came up at this moment and Billy received warm congratulations--which,
+as he did not understand, meant as much as most of such felicitations.
+
+It was not long after this incident that the plunge into the cool
+darkness of the forest began.  The men went warily--as if expecting
+to be attacked at any moment--and the boys, on inquiring of their
+guide the reason for this caution, only received the reply that
+elephant tracks had been seen and that as a "rogue" elephant had
+lately been doing great damage to the crops of the cliff-dwellers
+they were anxious to kill him if possible.
+
+A rogue elephant is one that has become estranged from the rest of
+his kind by reason of his fierce intractability.  He is in fact what
+in the west is described, in speaking of a horse, as "loco" or
+crazy.  Such animals--they are generally males--are extremely
+dangerous to hunt and are generally given a wide berth.  They are
+mischievous in the extreme, moreover, and do great damage, seemingly
+wantonly, to any crops or garden patches that they may find in their
+neighborhood.  Usually the natives are too terrified to offer any
+resistance and placidly allow the animal to devastate to the bent of
+his will.  The cliff dwellers, however, had suffered so much from
+the depredations of this particular animal that they were determined
+to drive him out of their neighborhood, and that was the real
+purpose of the hunting party.
+
+"Well, it looks as if we are in for a good exciting morning of it,"
+remarked Billy as they trudged along beneath trees that shot up to
+unknown heights with great rope-like creepers dangling from their
+upper branches, looking like ladders leading up into "Jack in the
+Beanstalk-land."  Occasionally a patch of blue could be sighted
+through the tree-tops, but for the most part the hunters progressed
+along the floor of the forest under a regular roof of greenery.
+There was plenty of life in this tipper story of the earth jungle.
+Troops of monkeys with chattering and gesticulations swung from
+bough to bough and looked in wonder on the invaders of their realm
+and then, taking imaginary fright, galloped off through the
+tree-tops in panic, only to stop a little distance further on and
+throw down fruit or bits of stick at the men below them.  Gorgeous
+birds, too, flitted about like jewels seen in a setting of green
+velvet, while underfoot there was no lack of life either.   Strange
+insects, shaped like sticks or leaves or even bits of moss,
+attracted the attention of the alert boys although they passed over
+hundreds of such nature mimics unnoticed, owing to the perfection of
+their mimicry.
+
+At last the leader of the party called a halt and they sat down to
+eat some of the cassava and manioc cakes they had brought with them.
+The meal was washed down with a sour drink--something like
+buttermilk--contained in a huge earthen jar that one of the inferior
+tribe carried.  They were in the midst of it when one of the hunters
+sprang to his feet with a guttural exclamation.
+
+"Arjah!" he exclaimed and, though the boys did not understand his
+tongue, his attitude of alert attention signified that he said
+"Listen" as clearly as if he had used the word.
+
+In an instant all of the party were on their feet and listening
+keenly.  After a few seconds of strained attention the boys became
+aware of a sort of dull pounding sound which seemed to come from
+some distance.  It sounded almost like the regular beat of a large
+drum.  The air seemed to vibrate with it.
+
+He leader of the party spoke a few words rapidly to the others and
+they all joined in a responsive shout which seemed to be one of
+assent to some proposition that had been made by him.
+
+"He say elephant dance," said Umbashi; "him very dangerous when
+dance.  He ask them they willing to go on.  They all say yes."
+
+Lathrop looked alarmed.
+
+"Say, Billy," he whispered as they moved forward, "I don't mind a
+little danger, but going up against an elephant with a few tin
+spears looks to me like being little above the limit."
+
+"Cheer up," replied the irrepressible reporter, "we've got to go on
+now.  It would never do for us to show the white feather at this
+stage of the game.  The tribe would regard us as miserable cowards
+and perhaps even put us to death."
+
+So with faces that one at least of them had some difficulty to
+render' expressive of calm repose the two American boys marched
+along with the others.  As they advanced the drumming grew louder
+and they could feel the earth shake as the ponderous beast that
+caused it went through his strange exercise.
+
+The leader worked round till the party was advancing against the
+wind, as elephants have a keen scent, and had they traveled along
+down the wind he would have been sure to have taken alarm and dashed
+off only to return and do more damage later on.  In this way the
+party was enabled to work up to within a few yards of the great
+beast without his having any warning of their approach.  It was a
+strange sight they beheld as they stood on the edge of the little
+clearing where the great beast was going through his dance.  With
+his trunk curled high above his great head the big pachyderm was
+solemnly twirling round and round in a sort of slow waltz and every
+time he brought a foot down it was with a crash that shook the
+forest about him.  He was a ferocious looking brute, with a wicked
+gleam in his small eye that boded ill for anyone who should happen
+to get in his path.  One of his tusks was broken off short,
+doubtless in some fight with another of his kind, and his body was
+plowed with scars and cuts--the relics of former battles.
+Altogether he was as wicked and menacing a looking brute as the boys
+had ever seen.
+
+Suddenly he sighted the attacking party.  The dance instantly
+stopped and he stood stock-still for an instant gazing at them while
+they promptly made for the trees and clambered up them by means of
+the lanyards of creepers that swung down from the tops.
+
+Billy and Lathrop, however, were too much astonished by the sudden
+turn events had taken to follow the example of the savages and so
+stood gazing awestricken at the elephant while he gazed at them in
+apparent amazement at two boys having the temerity to face him in
+his native forest.
+
+The situation was not to last long, however.  Their guide, with the
+rest of the party, had hastily clambered into the trees and now he
+called to the boys loudly:
+
+"Climb! climb!"
+
+But the churns were too late.
+
+As they turned to obey his instructions the great brute charged with
+a furious trumpet.
+
+His first onslaught the boys avoided by slipping behind a tree, more
+from instinct than anything else.  The impetus of the maddened
+animal's charge carried him by the tree and before he could stop
+himself and turn his ponderous body for a fresh attack he had gone
+some yards beyond the boys.
+
+Bellowing with fury the huge creature made ready for a fresh charge,
+but by this time Billy and Lathrop had seized the creepers and were
+both several feet above the ground.  In his haste, however, Billy's
+luckless rifle twisted between his legs and almost caused a
+disaster.  For a second he hung helpless, trying to kick the weapon
+free.  But it hung by its leather shoulder band and he was unable to
+do so instantly.
+
+The boy, with a despairing cry, gazed at the onrushing elephant and
+could almost feel himself being seized by its mighty trunk and
+dashed to death, when a pair of strong, black arms seized him and
+dragged him up to a place of safety.  The man who had taken this
+risk was their friend Umbashi, and as Billy thanked him he felt a
+feeling of real respect for this half naked savage who had risked
+his life to save another's.
+
+After two or three more charges the animal seemed to get tired of
+this method of attack and stood beneath the tree shaking with rage,
+very much like a bull that has driven a boy to refuge in an
+apple-tree.  It was evident that it was time to either kill the
+brute or drive him off unless the party desired to spend an
+unlimited time in the trees.
+
+"The fire-weapon," shouted Billy's friend, "use the fire-weapon."
+
+Billy raised the long Arab weapon and fired.  The bullet struck the
+elephant on the right ear with no more effect than to further anger
+him.
+
+"Aim between the eyes," cried the savage.
+
+Billy felt for a fresh cartridge and made a discovery.
+
+In scrambling up the tree he had ripped off the skin bag and his
+store of Arab cartridges, none too many, lay on the ground at the
+foot of the tree.  When this intelligence was communicated to the
+tribesmen clinging in the other trees they held a shouted
+consultation the result of which was that, to the boys' amazement,
+one of them deliberately dropped to the ground and attracting the
+elephant's attention began to run him in circles.  Now as the man
+could run fast and from time to time another took his place and the
+elephant had to use a lot of effort in turning corners, it soon
+became evident that the big pachyderm was tiring of the exercise.
+
+It was evidently the intention of the natives to run him out and
+then spear him to death--but an unexpected happening put an end to
+this method of elephant hunting.  One of the men who was worrying
+the great animal, much after the manner of a bull-fighter, suddenly
+caught his foot on a root and fell headlong.  A shout went up as the
+others realized that he was doomed to almost certain death.  Billy
+and Lathrop averted their eyes.  It was terrible to have to sit
+there powerless and watch the sacrifice.
+
+But even as they listened with sickened ears for the death-cry of
+the unfortunate victim and whilst the elephant's trumpet of triumph
+was still resounding, one of the flying men dropped, knife in hand,
+from his tree on to the monster's back.
+
+He landed right behind the great creature's ears and as the animal
+threw back his trunk to whisk him off and annihilate him be plunged
+his weapon through the soft folds of skin at the base of the huge
+skull clear down into the brain.
+
+It was a mortal wound.
+
+As the elephant stopped short in his charge and began to stagger in
+his death throes the Flying Man slipped to the ground and picked up
+his comrade, who had swooned from terror.
+
+Ten minutes later the great rogue elephant was beyond all further
+mischief and the boys joined as heartily as any of the others in
+congratulating the brave man whose unparalleled feat of heroism had
+saved his comrade's life.
+
+The man's name was Aga, and the boys had reason later on to remember
+him for another deed which affected them even more nearly than the
+slaying of the elephant.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A LINK FROM THE PAST
+
+
+On their triumphal return to the cliff with the tusks of the slain
+elephant as trophies of the hunt a strange spectacle met the boys'
+eyes.  Clustered about a sort of altar, which they had not noticed
+before, was a group of the cliff-dwellers who seemed to be deeply
+interested in something that was going forward.  A loud sound of
+chanting and intoning of what seemed to be a solemn ritual was the
+first inkling the boys had of what was going on.
+
+On joining the throng the lads found that it was some sort of a
+religious ceremony that was being proceeded with.  A group of men in
+white flowing robes and high conical hats--decorated with mystic
+symbols worked out in precious stones that looked like rubies and
+emeralds, though of such size that this seemed scarcely
+credible--were walking round and round the altar in a sort of what
+the irreverent Billy termed "a cakewalk."  Pausing at each corner
+and revolving slowly, three times they intoned the weird chant.
+
+Suddenly the music took on a louder tone arid several men with
+clashing cymbals joined in.  The auditors, too, fell flat on their
+faces and Billy and Lathrop, on the former's suggestion, did the
+same.
+
+"Not to do as the others are doing might cost us our heads," sagely
+remarked the diplomatic Billy, "and I need mine in my business."
+
+Whatever the nature of the ceremony, it was now evidently
+approaching a climax.  The chanting grew louder and more furious and
+the cymbal players clashed their huge metal instruments together
+with a deafening clangor.  Suddenly, from the passage from which the
+galleries branched off, there appeared six men clad in robes of
+flaming scarlet and conical caps of the same color.
+
+They formed an escort to a pitiable figure.
+
+That of a white bearded man who was bent with years and whose eyes
+gazed vacantly about him as he stumbled along between the red-robed
+dignitaries.  But it was not his age and not his feebleness that
+made the boys' hearts beat quicker and caused a galvanic shock to
+shoot through them.
+
+The man was white.
+
+There was no doubt about it.  In spite of his sun-browned skin and
+the barbarous ornaments that covered him, the figure in the center
+of the red-robed group was a Caucasian--perhaps an American--a
+fellow countryman.
+
+And now the boys noticed with a shudder that in the hands of each of
+the red-robed men was a knife of some sort of stone--perhaps flint.
+These cruel looking weapons they brandished as they slowly paced
+forward in time to the chanting.
+
+But their captive--if he were a captive seemed indifferent to all
+this.  His dull eyes gazed straight ahead of him as if he were
+hypnotized--or, as was more probable, under the influence of some
+drug.  As the group approached the altar the chanting suddenly
+stopped and the onlookers rose to their feet.  From the altar now
+arose a thin spiral of smoke, the offspring of a fire kindled by one
+of the priests.
+
+The sun was just setting and showed like a blood-red ball, through
+the mist that arose from low-lying garden lands.  As its disk
+touched the horizon the chanting broke out afresh and the red-robed
+men seizing the old white man as if he were a beast dragged him
+forward and threw him on the altar.
+
+And now for the first time came to the chums the horrifying
+realization of what the scene they were witnessing really meant.
+
+The man was about to be sacrificed!
+
+But even as the red-robed men raised their knives in unison and were
+about to give them the downward lunge that would extinguish the life
+of their feeble victim--and as the other priests and the audience
+turning toward the setting sun, chanted louder and more
+vociferously--a startling interruption occurred.
+
+"By the holy poker you're not going to kill that old man while I can
+prevent it."
+
+It was Billy Barnes; his face white and his lips set in a thin line
+of determination.
+
+As he spoke utterly oblivious to the fact that not one of the men
+could understand him--Lathrop, pale-faced also, stepped forward by
+his side.
+
+And there stood the two American boys while the auditors--at first
+dumb with amazement--began to buzz angrily like a nest of disturbed
+hornets.
+
+One of the white-robed priests gave a sharp order and once more the
+red-garbed executors raised their knives.
+
+Billy quietly, though his heart was beating almost to suffocation,
+slipped a cartridge from the recovered bag into his Arab rifle.  He
+leveled it at the red-robed knife wielders.
+
+"The first man that moves I'll shoot!"
+
+Although the words were as unintelligible to the priests and the
+cliff-dwellers as any that had gone before, the gesture with which
+Billy raised the rifle to his shoulder and covered the group was
+eloquent enough.  And as it happened, the delay saved the old man's
+life; for while they hesitated the sun rushed below the horizon and
+the swift African night fell.  A loud groan from the crowd announced
+that the hour for the culmination of the sacrifice had passed and
+that for the time being the intended victim's life was saved.
+
+But for the boys the situation was serious enough.  Powerless to
+resist such numbers they were seized by scores of the winged men and
+hustled into the passage, which was lit up by blazing torches of the
+same resinous wood that their guide had used on the first night that
+they came there.  They were hurried along, their feet hardly
+touching the ground, till they reached one of the diverging
+galleries.  Down this their captors shoved them till they reached a
+small cubical cell--windowless and without ventilation.  Into this
+they were thrust and a huge stone door that hinged on some
+contrivance the boys could not understand swung to upon them with a
+dull bang.  But a few minutes later it reopened and another prisoner
+was thrust in.
+
+It was the aged captive whose life Billy had saved!
+
+This much they saw in the momentary glare of the torches and then as
+the door closed the darkness--so black that you could feel it--shut
+down again.  But Billy's reportorial curiosity, even in this
+situation, was still predominant.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked eagerly of the new arrival, whose face he
+could not see and whose presence he could only guess at by the
+temporary revelation of the torch-light.
+
+The only answer was a groan; but a few seconds later a voice that
+sounded strange from long disuse or unaccustomedness to the use of
+the English language replied:
+
+"I have not heard a white man speak for forty years."
+
+"What?" exclaimed the thunderstruck Billy.
+
+"What I say is true and when you hear my name you will perhaps
+realize that fact.  I am George Desmond the American explorer."
+
+"The George Desmond who was lost in 1870?" cried Billy, almost
+choking with excitement.
+
+"The same," was the reply in the same rusty voice, "like the sound
+of a long disused door swinging on its hinges," was the way Billy
+described it afterward in the article he wrote about the finding of
+George Desmond.
+
+"But George Desmond was a man of thirty-five!" protested Billy,
+"when he was lost."
+
+"And I am seventy-five," went on the sad voice in the blackness, "I
+was captured by the winged men in 1870.  I have kept the record of
+the long years on a notched stick.  I never expected to hear the
+sound of a fellow countryman's voice again."
+
+The poor tired voice broke down, and in the darkness through which
+they could not see the boys heard the old man weeping.
+
+"Great cats!" groaned Billy to Lathrop, whose hand he held so that
+they could be near together in the awful blackness, "forty years
+without seeing a white face--jumping horn-toads, what a fate!"
+
+But the old man's soft weeping stopped presently and in a firmer
+voice he said:
+
+"My wife and my sons?  Can you tell me anything of them?"
+
+As a newspaper man Billy recollected very clearly the space that had
+been given some five years before to the death, at a ripe old age,
+of the wife of George Desmond the lost explorer.
+
+"She is dead," he said gently.
+
+They heard the castaway sigh, and then he asked in a voice he strove
+to render firm, but which trembled in spite of itself:
+
+"And my sons?"
+
+"They are all alive and in business in New York," said Billy.  "Your
+wife died believing to the end that you would come back.  They
+placed her chair so that she could face the east.  She died at
+daybreak with her eyes turned toward the sea beyond which lay
+Africa."
+
+"Africa!" echoed the tired, disused voice.  "Africa! it has cost me
+everything I had."
+
+There was silence for some time after this.  Neither of the boys
+wanted to intrude on the silent grief of the explorer so strangely
+found, though each was dying to ask him a host of questions.  It was
+the aged man himself who broke the silence at length.
+
+"But I am selfish," he exclaimed.  "I should have thanked you before
+this for saving my life.  The priests were determined that, as I was
+old and useless, my life should be offered to the Sun-god to appease
+a sickness that has of late carried off hundreds of the Flying Men.
+They are a dying race, young men.  As a man of science, I predict
+that in five years or less there will not be a single one of the
+once numerous tribe alive.  I have studied them closely and can
+predict their extinction."
+
+"Then you have not been a prisoner always?" asked Billy.
+
+"No, my young friend, I have not.  When first I came here I was
+received warmly and was paid high honors.  I was allowed to record
+my observations in writing--fortunately I carried a supply of ink
+and paper."
+
+"You still have the manuscript?" gasped Billy, with the reporter's
+instinct to the fore.
+
+"I have," sighed old Mr. Desmond, "in the cell that I so long called
+home then, the pages still lie.  But I have neglected them for many
+years.  I had no more writing materials when I used up my slender
+supply and I never thought to regain civilization.
+
+"But now did you ever get here?" asked the amazed Billy.
+
+"That is a long story," replied the captive, "but briefly told, it
+is as follows: In the season of 1870, as you perhaps know, my
+ill-fated expedition left Grand Bassam.  My avowed object was to
+collect specimens and data for the Smithsonian Institute, but my
+real and secret desire was to find the tribe of Flying Men of whose
+existence I had heard in a fragmentary way on previous expeditions
+to the West Coast.  I have found them--" he went on with a heavy
+sigh--"but at what a cost--at what a cost!"
+
+There was silence for a few minutes and then the old voice went on,
+gaining in strength as he proceeded, and resumed acquaintance with
+words to which his tongue had been long unused.
+
+"My expedition, as you know, was never heard of again.  The reason
+was this.  In some way the Arab slave-traders--who were thick in
+this district then and plied their nefarious trade almost
+openly--gained the belief that my expedition was a pretense for a
+plan of espionage on them and they attacked my camp one night and
+slaughtered every man in it but myself.  Why they did not kill me
+I do not know, unless it was because of the intercession of a young
+Arab, a mere youth and the son of the chief.  I have never forgotten
+his name or his kindness."
+
+"What was his name?" asked Billy, who was deeply interested and
+wanted to get every detail of the extraordinary story.
+
+"Muley-Hassan!" was the amazing reply.
+
+"Muley-Hassan," echoed Billy, "why, he is the most cold-blooded
+fiend in the slave-trade to-day."
+
+"Perhaps," answered the old man, "but he was good to me when he was
+a young man and I have never forgotten it."
+
+"Well," he went on, picking up his narrative, "it was not long
+before retribution overtook the Arabs.  One night their camp was
+attacked by a tribe whose village they had raided and sacked some
+time before and only a few of them escaped, among them must have
+been Muley-Hassan, though, till you told me of him, I believed him
+dead.  The savages, seeing that I was not one of the Arab race took
+care of me and I fared well at their hands.  But a great longing to
+see civilization--to clasp my wife in my arms, to see my children
+and America once more, was always with me, and one night I escaped
+from their village.  I wandered half-delirious from fever and
+starvation for many days after that, for I lost my way in the
+forest, and, as I had no compass, wandered aimlessly seeking a river
+by which I might follow down to the coast.  One night such a sharp
+attack of fever overtook me that I was-stricken unconscious.  I gave
+myself up for dead before I lost my senses and only recollect
+awaking in this village.  From that day to this, although I have
+repeatedly endeavored to escape I have never been able to do so.
+The ladder is guarded day and night,"--(this information dashed a
+half-formed hope in Billy's mind of escape by that way,) "and it
+would be suicide to attempt to penetrate the great jungles on the
+other side.  I thought to end my days here, but I never dreamed till
+the other day that my life was destined to end as it would have, had
+it not been for your brave intervention.
+
+"The malady of which I have spoken has devastated almost every
+family in the cliff and at the instigation of Agagi, the head
+priest--a man who has always hated my influence over his people--I
+was blamed by the other priests for being the cause of the
+affliction.
+
+"They pretended to have a revelation from the Sun-god stating that
+if my life were sacrificed the curse that rested on the
+cliff-dwellers would be removed.  Accordingly I was seized and
+chained and would certainly have died had it not been for you.  But
+alas, young men, I fear you are doomed to forfeit your lives as the
+cost of rescuing an old man who is not long for this life in any
+event.  I wish that you had been far away and had never had the
+brave impulse to risk your young lives for my worthless old one."
+
+Now it is a remarkable thing, but Billy, who should have replied to
+the aged man in all sorts of high-sounding language, could find
+nothing to reply to this but:
+
+"Oh, that's all right."
+
+"I think you are the bravest boys I have ever heard of," the old man
+was beginning when a soft "hiss-s-st!" caused them all to turn their
+eyes to the direction in which they knew the door lay, and from
+which the sound had proceeded.
+
+"H-s-s-s-t," came the sound again.
+
+Did it mean a friend or an enemy?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+FRIENDS IN NEED
+
+
+They were not kept long in suspense.  After being assured that their
+attention was attracted, the voice that had made the hissing signal
+whispered through some aperture of which the boys had no knowledge:
+
+"Listen to me, white boys, and you, too, old man, you can escape if
+your hearts are stout."
+
+Stunned by the suddenness of this joyful news the boys sat silent.
+
+"Are you listening, white boys?" said the voice impatiently.
+
+"Yes--yes," whispered Billy eagerly.
+
+"Then when a man comes in a short time to you with food and drink do
+not touch it, for it is poisoned with a deadly drug; but curb your
+appetite.  In a short time the same man will come back to see if you
+have yet become insensible.  Then you must be of stout heart and
+leap upon him and kill him.  After that leave your cell and I will
+show you how to gain freedom."
+
+The boys had recognized the voice at once as that of their friendly
+guide, though why he should have taken such a risk to aid them did
+not manifest itself till he whispered:
+
+"And as a reward, I ask of the fat white boy with the glass eyes his
+fire-weapon which assuredly contains a great fetish and of the
+red-headed one some of his hair for a fetish also.  Of the old man I
+would have the round box containing the strange god that says by day
+and by night 'tick-tick'."
+
+"He means my watch," answered the old man, "it was a present from my
+dead wife to me on our wedding day, but he shall have it."
+
+The boys also promised their "fetishes."
+
+There was a guttural sound of satisfaction from outside the cell as
+the bargain was struck and then all was silent.
+
+How they passed the time till the door swung open and the man whom
+their friend had foretold would bring them food and drink appeared,
+they never knew; but somehow it went.  The new comer set the stuff
+down without a word and then stuck the flaming torch he carried in a
+niche in the wall so that they might have light to eat by.  He made
+several gesticulations intended, apparently, to signify that what he
+had set before them was very good.
+
+"Hum," said Billy when he had gone, "I'd as soon eat a mess of toads
+as touch any of this stuff--although it smells mighty good," he
+added regretfully, "and I'm hungry enough to gobble up a crocodile,
+claws and all."
+
+But they all abstained from touching it and spent the time between
+the second promised visit discussing whether they would carry out
+the instructions of the friendly savage.
+
+"But we can't kill the fellow," objected Lathrop.
+
+"Certainly not," replied Billy; "but, now that we have a light, I
+see that there is a nice convenient chain fastened to the wall over
+there.  There would be no objection to our gagging him, to prevent
+any outcry, and then hitching him up with it."
+
+"But he is a pretty husky-looking customer," objected Lathrop;
+"suppose we can't overcome him?"
+
+"We'll have to take our chances on that," said Billy decisively.
+"Now what I propose is, that when he comes back we all he stretched
+out as if the drug had overcome us and then, when I give the word,
+we all jump on him."
+
+He looked doubtfully at the old man as he spoke.  There was no
+question that in such a struggle the explorer would be worse than
+useless.  Mr. Desmond himself agreed with Billy and it was arranged
+that while the two boys grappled with the negro that the old man
+should pull the door to--in the event of its being left open--so
+that no noise of the struggle might penetrate into the passage
+outside.
+
+The little party immediately spread themselves out on the floor in
+well simulated insensibility and waited with hearts that beat
+uncomfortably quick for the decisive moment to arrive.
+
+Failure meant death but, as Billy had put it, they were due to die
+anyhow it seemed and they owed it to themselves to make as brave an
+effort as possible to escape such a fate.
+
+At last they heard a fumbling at the door and the man who had
+brought them the drugged food entered the cell.  He scrutinized them
+with a grunt of satisfaction and going up to each one shook him by
+the shoulder to see if they were only asleep or really insensible.
+Apparently he was satisfied from their inertness that the drug had
+worked, for he muttered to himself rapidly in the unknown tongue as
+he concluded his examination.
+
+Then he turned to pick up the earthen dishes, stooping over with his
+back to Billy Barnes as he did so.
+
+It was Billy's move!
+
+Like a flash the young reporter--who had earned an enviable record
+on the gridiron and crew at Columbia University--was on the savage's
+back while Lathrop rushed at the fellow as he straightened up and
+gave him a low tackle.  As Billy leaped he had dug his fingers into
+the fellow's windpipe to choke any outcry, and when Lathrop seized
+him by the legs he toppled over like a felled ox without uttering a
+sound.  Billy rolled from under him as he fell backward and the
+man's head struck the stone floor with a terrific crash.
+
+He was knocked insensible by the fall.  The moment to escape had
+arrived!
+
+Rapidly the boys tore a strip off Billy's shirt and formed it into a
+gag.  With other strips they tied the insensible man's hands behind
+his back and manacled his legs.
+
+"He won't come to for quite a while after the crack he got,"
+remarked Billy; "but in case he does, he won't be able to attract
+attention for a long time."
+
+Then, as cautiously as though stepping on eggs, they tiptoed out
+into the passage--after extinguishing the torch--and the next minute
+were startled to be suddenly halted by a form that ran right into
+them in the blackness.
+
+The next minute, however, their anxiety was relieved.   It was
+Umbashi who had collided with them and accompanying him was Aga, the
+man who killed the rogue elephant.  It appeared that the two had
+agreed to divide the fetishes their captives were to give them in
+return for their freedom.  And Aga at once, with a stone knife, cut
+off two generous locks of Lathrop's hair.
+
+"But how are you to get my gun," objected Billy, "the priests took
+it from me?"
+
+"I already have it, Boy-of-the-eyes-of-glass," replied the engaging
+cliff-dweller.  "I stole it from the old head-priest while he slept.
+But you must give it me of your own free will, or it will not be
+good 'fetish.'"
+
+Of course Billy willingly "gave."
+
+To get the watch they had to traverse what seemed to Billy and
+Lathrop in their feverish excitement miles and miles of passages.
+But apparently the cliff-dwellers all went to bed early and slept
+sound for they encountered no one, and their guides did not seem to
+be in any anxiety over the possibility of discovery.  Once they got
+a chill of horror when just before they left the cell door Aga, who
+carried a sharp knife--the same with which he had dispatched the
+elephant and cut Lathrop's hair--signified his intention of cutting
+the unconscious meal-bringer's throat.  It was with great difficulty
+that the boys dissuaded him from this barbaric act, the horror of
+which did not seem to appeal either to him or his savage companion.
+
+Once in old Desmond's cell it did not take long to get the watch--an
+aged gold key-winder--and present it to the delighted savages.  But
+several precious minutes were lost in showing the two how to wind it
+up.  They regarded the key with quite as much veneration as the
+watch.  The boys saw the old man's eyes filled with tears as he
+handed it over and Billy, as he saw the inscription on it, in a
+quaint, old-fashioned script, realized why.
+
+"To my dear husband, George Desmond, on our wedding day, May 24th
+1874;" it read.  With the signature "Mary Desmond."
+
+Before they left the place that had been his home for the majority
+of his long life, the old man carefully drew from beneath the palm
+fiber covering of the niche that served him as a bed a pile of
+yellowed paper, covered closely with fine writing in a clear, bold
+hand.  The pages had been written many years before old age had
+seized their author's hand and paralyzed his strength.
+
+Billy realized with a thrill that these papers contained, the
+imperishable record of the long-lost scientist's observations and
+commentaries on the mysterious Flying Men.
+
+But it was no time to linger in speculations.
+
+Hastily thrusting the papers into the bosom of his shirt the aged
+man signified to his guides that he was, ready, and they left the
+chamber that had housed him for so many years--without regret on his
+part you may be sure.
+
+Silently as cats they slipped down the corridor and, after about a
+quarter of an hour of traversing its smooth floor, they found
+themselves at the hole which gave egress to the outside world and
+from which hung the rope-ladder by which they were to descend to
+freedom.
+
+Aga and the other savage gave grunts of pleasure and even laughed
+softly as the boys' with a horrified start, almost stumbled over a
+recumbent figure.
+
+It was that of the guard of the ladder.
+
+He lay as if dead--his body right across the narrow entrance.  The
+moonlight from the outside that flooded the entrance showed that his
+mouth was open and his eyes closed.
+
+A sudden rage filled Billy as he looked on the victim of what seemed
+to him to have been a wanton murder.
+
+"You have killed him," he said raising his voice imprudently in his
+anger.
+
+"Hush, boy-with-the-glass-eyes," exclaimed Urnbashi, "he is not
+dead.  In a few hours he will be as well as you or I, but he will
+recollect nothing.  We have given him the sleeping root that brings
+oblivion."
+
+And now it was time to take the final step.
+
+"A canoe with food and a jar of water is at the foot of the ladder,"
+whispered their guide, "and the current will carry you down toward
+the coast.  It will not be a hard journey except for the Tunnel of
+the Roaring Waters.  Only a few men have navigated that and escaped
+alive, but you will be compelled to traverse it to reach the coast."
+
+"Can we not leave the canoe and go overland round the tunnel?" asked
+Billy rightly conjecturing that their guide referred to a place
+where the river ran underground when he spoke of the Tunnel of the
+Roaring Waters.
+
+"That cannot be done," was the African's reply.  "The swamps where
+the sleeping death (the sleeping sickness) lies are all about it.
+Only by way of the Tunnel of the Roaring Waters can you escape."
+
+"There is one other way," began Aga, "but that lies through the
+forest."
+
+"We will take it rather than risk navigation in such a torrent as
+you describe," decided Billy after the remark of Aga had been
+translated to him.
+
+But before the two savages could say more there came a distant
+booming borne down the rocky tube of the corridor.
+
+It was the far-off confused sound of excited voices.
+
+"Quick! glass-eyes, your escape has been discovered; you haven't a
+moment to lose!" cried Umbashi.
+
+It was only too evident that he spoke the truth.  The roar of the
+searchers' angry voices was rapidly ringing louder.
+
+"Take this, white boys, and defend yourselves to the death rather
+than be recaptured," said their friend as he thrust a stone knife
+into Billy's hand.
+
+The old man and Lathrop were already half-away down the swaying
+ladder.
+
+"Be careful, for the river is swollen with the melting snows of the
+mountains and runs as if a million demons were in its soul to-night,"
+warned Unbashi.
+
+With a quick "Good-bye" to the men who risked their lives to rescue
+them, Billy took his place on the swinging ladder and followed the
+others down.
+
+They were not a second too soon.
+
+Even as they took their places in the canoe and Billy prepared to
+slash the grass-rope that held it, the clamor drew close to the
+mouth of the tunnel.
+
+From the foot of the cliff the chums and their aged companion saw
+torches glowing and could perceive Aga and the other pointing at
+them and evidently explaining to the tribesmen that they had tried
+to stop their flight.  Billy was glad to see that apparently their
+explanations were accepted and they were not suspected of having
+aided the escaping prisoners.
+
+With a quick slash of his flint knife, the young reporter severed
+the rope at which the canoe was straining till it was taut as a
+piano wire.  There were several other canoes lying alongside and
+before he cast loose Billy cut the detaining ropes of these also.
+
+"Now they'll have to swim if they want to get us!" he exclaimed as
+the canoe, released from its bondage, shot forward on the boiling
+current at a dizzy rate.
+
+But he had reckoned without the flying men.  Dozens of them had
+dropped from their holes and having gained the opposite bank started
+in pursuit of the boys and the old explorer, who lay as if overcome
+at the bottom of the canoe.  Many of the strange beings carried bows
+and arrows and they sent their shafts whizzing in a shower at the
+canoe.  One pierced its side and Billy had to stop the hole with a
+strip torn from his already ripped-up shirt.
+
+But fortunately, except for a slight scratch on Billy's forearm,
+none of the arrows did much harm to the voyagers themselves, and
+borne on the swift current the canoe soon outdistanced her pursuers.
+
+As the sound of their shouting grew faint behind them, Billy and
+Lathrop grasped the paddle with which they strove to keep the boat
+on a straight course--there was no need to propel her.
+
+The young reporter realized that three lives--his own, Lathrop's and
+that of the long missing explorer depended alone now on their skill
+and grit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE SMOKE READER
+
+
+And now we must leave the floating canoe with its occupants and turn
+to the River Camp, where we left the Boy Aviators overcome with
+anxiety as to the fate of their young comrades.  The situation was
+indeed one calculated to try the stoutest heart.  There was only one
+drop of sweet in their cup of bitter.
+
+Harry, poking about among the ruins of the deserted camp, had
+discovered several cans of gasoline that the raiders had overlooked.
+They formed sufficient fuel with the picric cakes that Frank still
+had a supply of, to drive the big aeroplane for several hundred
+miles if the wind conditions were favorable.
+
+But leave the river camp the boys dare not, for they realized that
+if Billy and Lathrop did manage to make their escape, they would, if
+possible, come back there.  True, it was a chance so remote as to
+appear almost impossible, but under the circumstances even the
+shadow of a hope seemed to assume substance.  And so they waited,
+and had been waiting, while the stirring events we have related had
+been happening to their missing chums.
+
+As if to add to their oppression, old Sikaso mooned about the camp,
+his eyes rooted to the ground in moody absorption and muttering to
+himself, "five go--three come back," till Frank angrily ordered him
+to stop.  The realization that his gloomy prophecy seemed only too
+likely to be fulfilled, however, did not tend to relieve the
+situation.
+
+"If we do not hear from them to-morrow, we shall be compelled to
+take to the air and fly to the coast," said Frank as they sat that
+evening round a camp-fire which had been lighted to keep away
+marauding lions, whose roars ever and anon shook the forest.  At
+such times old Sikaso's eyes wandered longingly to his great
+war-axe.  There is little doubt that he would have liked to work off
+his gloomy feelings by tackling a lion single-handed with his
+weapon.
+
+"You think, then, it isn't worth while waiting if we have heard no
+news by then?" asked Harry.
+
+"It isn't that," said Frank in reply, "but we have not provisions
+left to more than tide us over another day.  What the Arabs didn't
+destroy they spoiled."
+
+Harry nodded his head silently.
+
+Cruel necessity, it seemed, was to compel them to evacuate the camp,
+to which they still clung in the hope the lost adventurers might
+return.
+
+It was in vain Ben Stubbs cracked his jokes that night and related
+all sorts of droll sea yarns in the hope of cheering up his young
+companions.  For the first time since he had known them it looked as
+if the Boy Aviators had really lost all hope, and truly the facts
+seemed to warrant the stoutest-heart in the world being downcast--to
+say the least.
+
+Suddenly without a word old Sikaso left the fire and strode off into
+the forest.  He was gone for more than an hour and when he came back
+his look of gloom had vanished.  For him he was almost cheerful.
+
+He swung his terrible axe in all sorts of fantastic evolutions and
+hummed to himself his grim chant with a fierce sort of joy.
+
+"White boys, the smoke is going to tell me things to-night," he
+exclaimed suddenly.  "When the moon reaches to the top of the sky I
+shall tell you news of the four-eyed one and of the red-headed."
+
+Impatiently they waited till the moon reached her zenith and then
+watched wonderingly while the old savage built a small fire of
+sticks, over each one of which he mumbled something in African.
+
+"What good does he suppose all this hocus-pocus is going to do us?"
+muttered Harry irritably, "as if an old fire could tell us anything
+we didn't know already.  It's all rubbish, I say."
+
+"I'm not so sure," remarked Frank thoughtfully.  "We have already
+seen something of what his skill can do and I don't mind letting him
+see if he can't conjure up something to give us a ray of hope."
+
+"Oh bosh, Frank," replied Harry, "if he ever did get anything right
+through this rigmarole and hanky-panky it was simply because he had
+good luck.  That's all."
+
+"For my part, I've knocked around the world too much to be so cock
+sure of some things as some young chaps seem to be," put in Ben
+Stubbs, with a chuckle, looking up from the frying-pan that he was
+scouring with sand.
+
+Harry looked abashed and said nothing.
+
+If old Sikaso had heard any of this colloquy he made no sign, but
+with the face of a graven image went about his preparations.  Slowly
+he struck the sparks from his never-failing flint and steel, and a
+few seconds later the little fire was sending up a blaze.
+
+"Do you see anything?" asked Frank.
+
+"Too soon now, wait till smoke come," he said, and resumed his
+intense watching of the fire.
+
+After a delay that seemed maddening, to two at least of the group
+that was watching, the old Krooman announced that all was ready.
+
+Even Harry felt a thrill of interest as the old man began to spin
+slowly on his toes round the column of smoke, chanting slowly some
+strange mixture of savage music which was, as Frank guessed, an
+incantation to the fetish that, as he believed, dwelt in the smoke.
+As the smoke grew thicker he cast some sort of powder from a
+skin-bag into it and instantly a thick yellow column of vapor shot
+up.
+
+The whole forest about seemed impregnated with the strong odor of
+the stuff and the boys' eyes smarted.  Old Sikaso kept up his dance,
+bending lower and lower till it seemed that he must be actually
+inhaling the pungent, acrid smoke.
+
+As this strange scene progressed, Frank felt his eyes begin to grow
+dim and an unaccountable languor fill his limbs.  His head swam
+round and he desired nothing so much as to lie down and sleep---and
+yet a compelling power forced him to keep his eyes fixed on the
+column of smoke over which the aged Krooman was now stooping with
+outspread hands.
+
+Suddenly he gave a sharp cry--an exclamation almost of command.
+
+"Look--look, white boys, and you, old man of the sea and the forests
+of the far-off land, and I shall show you the magic of the sleeping
+heart of Africa."
+
+With eyes that started from his head Frank gazed, in obedience to a
+majestic sweep of the African's hand, full into the ascending column
+of yellowish smoke.
+
+The languor the boy had felt at first had now quite left him and he
+was only intent on seeing what was about to transpire.
+
+Sikaso's voice once more rose in his dismal chant and he cast more
+of the powder from his skin-bag into the fire.  The smoke pillar
+grew to an immense size and, as he gazed at it, before Frank's
+amazed eyes a scene as strange to him as any he had ever set eyes
+on, began slowly to take shape.
+
+There was a river edge with mighty banks at the summit of which
+waved fronds of tropical plants and in which huge beasts, that he
+recognized as hippopotami, wallowed and sputtered.  An unhealthy
+steam arose from the banks and the river boiled angrily along
+between its confines in a dark mud-colored flood.
+
+So far the scene was not unlike the river in which he and Harry had
+so nearly lost their lives, but as he gazed the details grew
+clearer, as if it had been a magic lantern view, growing by degrees
+stronger and every outline of the tropical view was suddenly thrown
+into strong relief.
+
+All at once the boy uttered a sharp cry, which was echoed by his
+brother and Ben.  Old Sikaso never moved a muscle but kept on
+chanting.
+
+Into the center of the wonderful smoke picture there had swum a
+canoe.
+
+And in it were seated Billy Barnes and Lathrop!
+
+With them, too, was the figure of a venerable white bearded man who
+seemed to be about to collapse.  From time to time he raised himself
+feebly and gazed ahead.  Frank could see Billy at such times stoop
+forward and speak to him.
+
+The boys' plight was evidently a terrible one.
+
+Their clothes were ripped and torn and Billy's shirt scarcely
+covered his body; which was a mass of cuts and scratches.  A great
+cloud of mosquitoes hung about the canoe, clearly maddening its
+occupants with their myriads of tiny stings.  The faces of both the
+young navigators were drawn and lined with anxiety as they paddled
+ahead in the turbulent current.
+
+"See," cried Sikaso harshly, as the picture faded, "do the white
+boys still doubt?"
+
+"No, no!" cried Harry.  "Show us more, Sikaso."
+
+The Krooman cast more of the magic powder into the dying fire and
+again a thick pillar of smoke curled upward.
+
+His low crooning chant then began once more.
+
+As before the picture did not assume shape at once but swam, as it
+were, slowly into view.  This time the surroundings had changed.
+There was a look of agonized terror on the faces of all the
+occupants of the canoe as she seemed to be literally hurled forward
+upon a current that ran as swiftly as a mill race.
+
+The frail craft rocked terribly and once or twice she shipped some
+water that Lathrop instantly bailed out with a shallow earthen dish.
+
+Frank could almost hear the roar of the water as he gazed in silent
+fascination on the mysterious pictures of the smoke.
+
+And now the apprehension on the faces of the occupants of the canoe
+was agonizing to watch.  Once Frank saw the old man arise as if to
+cast himself into the water rather than face what lay ahead, but
+Lathrop instantly drew him back.
+
+Again the picture died out and again the old Krooman. threw on more
+powder.  As the smoke rolled up once more no one spoke.  The
+situation was far too tense for that.
+
+The scene now seemed to show that indeed all was over with the
+occupants of the canoe.  The frail craft was seen to be in a tunnel
+of rough stone through which the roaring vortex of the waters poured
+with such violence that the boys and their aged companion were
+continually drenched with spray.  Lathrop had hard work to keep the
+craft free of water now, and bailed incessantly.  The old man was on
+his knees his hands clasped and his lips moving as if in prayer.
+Billy, his face set, sat in the stern. Again and again with a quick
+twist of his paddle he saved the canoe from annihilation in the
+boiling current.
+
+It was an agonizing scene to watch, and to the onlookers it seemed
+as real as if they had been gazing at the peril itself instead of
+its counterfeit presentment in smoke-pictures.
+
+At last the walls of the tunnel were seen to widen out and the
+current to move more slowly.  Frank gave a sigh of relief which was
+echoed by the others as the canoe emerged from the subterranean
+river into a broad lagoon with low banks covered with tropical
+verdure and seemingly, from the absence of steaming vapors a healthy
+spot.  But even as the canoe entered the quiet waters a great body
+projected itself through the water followed by three other bulky
+forms.
+
+They were recognized instantly by the watchers as hippopotami.
+
+The leader of the animals made straight for the canoe, and the
+watchers trembled as they looked, for it was evident that one snap
+of the creatures' huge jaws would cave in the side of the canoe as
+if it were an eggshell.
+
+With trembling excitement the Boy Aviators saw their young
+companions with both paddles make desperately for the shore, but
+before they reached it one of the hippopotami intercepted them, and
+with a charge of angry fury literally tossed the boat clean out of
+the water.
+
+A second later the gazers at the smoke pictures saw the two missing
+adventurers and their aged unknown companion struggling in the
+water.  It seemed that all was over when a strange interruption
+occurred.
+
+A long, dark horny head with two cruel eyes and rows of saw-like
+teeth in its long jaws, sped through the waters.  The hippopotamus
+turned savagely on the intruder and the two snapped savagely at each
+other for several minutes when the crocodile, mortally wounded to
+judge by the red swirl on the surface of the stream, made off.
+
+But Billy and Lathrop were seen to have taken advantage of the brief
+breathing spell it gave them.  In a few strong strokes they had swum
+with the aged man to shallow water and quickly waded ashore.  They
+were safe then for the time being.  But for how long?
+
+Frank saw the two comrades gaze about them in despair at the
+wilderness of jungle that closed about them on every side.  He saw
+them cast horrified looks at each other at the situation in which
+they found themselves--lost in the trackless African forests.
+
+The next minute the old man fell forward on his face and lay still.
+Whether he was dead or unconscious, Frank could not, of course,
+tell--and then the smoke died out, and the picture faded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE CHUMS RESCUED BY AEROPLANE
+
+
+Hope had almost died in the boys' hearts at the scene they had
+witnessed by means of powers that seemed incredible to them, but
+which several well known travelers have told us are not uncommon
+among certain natives of West Africa.  But old Sikaso was destined
+to raise their hopes.
+
+"We will save Four-Eyes and the Red-Headed one," he exclaimed
+suddenly.
+
+"But how?" chorused the amazed three.
+
+"In the ship that like the bird can cleave the air we will fly to
+them," was the astonishing reply.
+
+"But we do not know where they are," objected Harry.
+
+"I do," was the quiet response.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Say that again!"
+
+"Well, I'll be hornswoggled!"
+
+These exclamations came from each of the three in turn.
+
+"They are on the banks of a river which I know well.  In the smoke I
+recognized it.  Few men have ever navigated the Tunnel of Death and
+came out to tell the tale, but your great white Fetish must have
+looked after them."
+
+"You know the river?"
+
+"Well do I know it white boy," replied the Krooman. "In the days
+when my limbs were supple I have hunted and fished there with others
+of my tribe."
+
+"You can guide us to it?"
+
+"I can."
+
+"When?"
+
+"As soon as it is dawn."
+
+"How far is it from here?"
+
+"Not more than a hundred and fifty miles."
+
+Frank held up a moistened finger.  The air was as calm as a
+mill-pond.
+
+"We can make that distance in a little more than four hours," he
+announced.
+
+It was Sikaso's turn to be astonished.
+
+"Of a truth the magic of the white man is not as the magic of the
+black man, but it is good," he said; "yes, it is good.  In four
+hours.  That is indeed mighty magic."
+
+"Who can the old man be whom we saw with them?" asked Harry eagerly,
+his mind no longer containing an ounce of skepticism to the marvels
+he had seen.
+
+"I have no idea," rejoined Frank, "but he was white evidently."
+
+"I've seen his picture some place, sometime--or some chap that
+looked a powerful sight like him, only younger," said Ben, who
+doubtless had a vague recollection of the once widely distributed
+photographs of the missing explorer Desmond.
+
+"I am afraid that he was seriously ill, or even dying, from the last
+glimpse we had of him," said Frank gravely.
+
+"Why could you not show us more smoke pictures Sikaso?" asked Harry
+eagerly.
+
+"I have no more of the powder left," replied the old Krooman bending
+over his beloved axe and feeling the edge with a critical thumb.
+"Moreover, the smoke does not reveal the future."
+
+There was, naturally enough, no thought of sleep that night, and so
+excited were the boys that they did not even feel the want of it. A
+huge shallow pit was dug back in the forest and the ivory taken from
+the chassis of the aeroplane and the aerial express wagon cached
+there and leaves and grass strewn over the place to make it as
+inconspicuous as possible.  This was done before the aeroplane was
+got in readiness for the dash to the rescue.
+
+"For," said Frank, "old Muley-Hassan, when he finds we have
+overreached him, may take a fancy to come back and try to wipe us
+out."
+
+"Muley-Hassan will not fight with the few men he has left," sagely
+remarked old Sikaso; "when he has many he is brave as a lion, but
+when his followers are few he fights like the fox with wits against
+wits and few are his match for cunning."
+
+As the day-life of the jungle--which has a nightlife as well as a
+daylight one--as the day-life of the forest began with the first
+ghostly gray of the dawn the boys swallowed a hasty meal, though
+they were almost too excited to eat in spite of Ben Stubbs'
+insistence that they take some nourishment.  At the old sailor's
+suggestion, too, the car of the Golden Eagle II was packed with food
+for the castaways, who surely, from the latest glimpse they had had
+of them, must be in dire straits.
+
+These preparations completed, they clambered into the car of the
+air-ship and with Frank at the wheel and the old Krooman at his
+elbow to direct the course they were to take, they left the ground
+and were soon flying through a breathless environment at sixty miles
+an hour.
+
+The Golden Eagle II was on her way to the rescue.
+
+"It is the end."
+
+These words came from the feeble lips of Mr. Desmond as he lay
+beneath a rough screen of leaves and branches which the boys had
+erected to keep the heat of the African day from the dying man--for
+that he was dying they sadly realized.
+
+The excitement of their flight and the peril of the subterranean
+river had been too much for the enfeebled frame and George Desmond's
+troubled soul was on its way to more peaceful rest than he had known
+in many years.
+
+"Is there nothing we can do for you, sir?" asked Billy eagerly,
+bending over the dying man and taking his hand-which, despite the
+heat, was as cold as ice, between his.
+
+"Nothing," whispered Desmond faintly, and then, with a supreme
+effort, he spoke once more.
+
+"My papers--the history of the Flying Men."
+
+He feebly indicated that he wished Billy to take them from his
+shirt.
+
+The young reporter swiftly drew out the yellowed manuscript and
+reverently laid it before the fast-fading eyes.  A faint smile
+overspread the aged man's careworn face.
+
+"I commend them to your care," he said, as though every word now
+cost him an effort.  "You have told me you are a newspaper
+reporter--you will see that they are given to the world?"
+
+Billy once more taking the fast passing man's hand promised to
+fulfill this sacred trust.
+
+"Read me the dedication," was the next whispered request of George
+Desmond.
+
+In a trembling voice Billy read the words inscribed on the first
+page of the yellowed manuscript.
+
+"To my dear wife Mary this volume is dedicated by her affectionate
+husband the Author."
+
+"I never thought when I wrote those words I should die like this,"
+exclaimed the dying man, "but it was to be.  I always hoped that
+some day I would escape; but now that I have won freedom, rest seems
+to mean more to me than all else beside."
+
+The tears welled into the eyes of both boys as with a resigned sigh
+George Desmond composed himself as if to sleep.
+
+It was about five minutes later, and Billy still held the old man's
+hand, when the long-lost explorer raised himself on his elbow and
+shading his eyes with his trembling hand gazed in front of him as if
+he saw a vision.
+
+"Mary--" he cried in a loud voice and fell back dead.
+
+And so died George Desmond, the famous African traveler, almost
+within sight of the civilization to which he had so long dreamed of
+returning.
+
+The shocked and grieved boys had hardly recovered their composure
+after this tragic termination of a brave man's life when Lathrop,
+who had been gazing despairingly about him gave a great shout.
+
+The next minute it was echoed by Billy.
+
+Half mad with joy the boys embraced each other and shook hands till
+it seemed they would fall off, and performed a dozen mad antics.
+
+For, winging its way steadily toward them, though still at a great
+distance, was an aeroplane that they had no difficulty in
+recognizing at once as the Golden Eagle II.
+
+There is no need to detail the scene that ensued when, fifteen
+minutes later, the great air-craft settled down on the river bank
+and the ravenous boys--who had long since exhausted the provisions
+in the boat--had been fed, and plied with questions till they had to
+stop eating to talk and stop talking to eat, at short intervals.
+
+To the great joy of old Sikaso, who regarded it as a personal
+vindication of his powers, every detail of the trip through the
+subterranean river and the subsequent peril into which they had
+fallen was substantiated by Billy and Lathrop as having occurred
+exactly as it did in the smoke pictures.  But there was a note of
+sadness amid all their joy in the death of the old explorer.  On the
+river bank they dug a grave and marked it with a pile of rocks and
+there the remains of George Desmond rest for all time in the country
+to whose exploration he gave his life.
+
+The Golden Eagle II had to make two trips between the river camp and
+the outlet of the subterranean river as, stout craft though she was,
+her gasoline supply was getting so low that Frank did not dare to
+run her at top speed and consequently she would not carry more than
+three passengers.  By nightfall, however, the reunited adventurers
+were all seated about their campfire and talking and retelling all
+that had happened to each other during their separation.
+
+Their conversation was interrupted by a strange happening.
+
+The puff-puff of the steam launch that had brought them tip the
+river was suddenly heard and as she drew alongside the steep bank a
+familiar figure stepped from her side into the bright moonlight.
+
+Not one of the party that did not give a start of amazed surprise as
+in the newcomer they recognized:
+
+Luther Barr, of New York!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+LUTHER BARR'S TRICK
+
+
+The astonishing meeting in the remote wilds of the African forest
+with a man they instinctively mistrusted bereft the lads of words
+for an interval.
+
+Frank was the first to find his voice:
+
+"Why, Mr. Barr, what are you doing here?" he exclaimed amazedly.
+
+But if the boys seemed astonished Mr. Barr retained his usual
+icicle-like attitude.  Except that he was dressed in tropical white
+and wore a huge pith helmet which set above his ill-favored features
+"like a mushroom over a toad," as Billy described it later, he might
+have just stepped out of his office on Wall Street, instead of from
+a wheezy launch on a steaming subequatorial river.
+
+"Good-evening, boys, a little late for dinner, I see, but I daresay
+you can cook me something.  After dinner I want to talk to you.  I
+have come a long way for the purpose so you can guess my business is
+of importance."
+
+"Of importance?  I should say so;" sputtered the irrepressible
+Billy.  "Pray did you come by air-ship, Mr. Barr?"
+
+"No, sir, I came in my yacht the Brigand.  She is almost as fast as
+a liner and as I came direct to this port I didn't take more than
+half the time occupied by you boys on the voyage."
+
+"You had a good trip?" asked Frank as Mr. Barr sat down and began
+eating the hastily prepared meal which Ben served him.
+
+"Yes, splendid;" said Mr. Barr, "we had one misfortune though.  When
+we were two days out my captain--a splendid man, boys--slipped on
+the wet foredeck as the yacht was plowing through a heavy sea and
+struck on his head on a stanchion."
+
+"I hope he was not badly hurt," said Frank.
+
+"He is dead," said Mr. Barr, calmly stuffing half a sweet potato
+into his capacious mouth.
+
+The boys gave an exclamation of concern.
+
+"Yes, it was very annoying," commented Mr. Barr.
+
+"You see I have had to trust since to the navigation of my mate, and
+while he is a careful fellow he is not much good as a navigator, and
+in addition to that he is a drinking man. I am afraid that he may be
+ashore now in my absence and indulging his taste for strong drink."
+
+"I should have thought you would have forbidden him shore leave,"
+commented Harry.
+
+"No good, my dear boy, that fellow would swim ashore even if the
+harbor were swarming with sharks, to gratify his disgusting taste."
+
+"But now," he continued with a change of tone, "to business.  You
+have got the ivory?
+
+"We have," replied Frank.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"We have it here," was the quiet rejoinder.
+
+"What!" an amazed tone.
+
+"What I tell you is true," and Frank-foolishly as he admitted
+afterward-led the way to the cache in the forest; "it is buried here
+so as to be safe from marauders."
+
+Mr. Barr seemed lost in thought for a few minutes then he suggested
+a return to the camp-fire. Once there he drew out a paper from his
+pocket-book.
+
+"Many things have happened since you left New York, boys," he said
+quietly, through a feverish gleam in his deep, crafty eyes belied
+his outward calm.
+
+"This paper," he continued, holding it out, "is signed by Mr.
+Beasley, it resigns to me all claim in the ivory and I am here to
+take it."'
+
+"Let me look at that paper."
+
+It was Lathrop who spoke.
+
+The boy's cheeks were angrily flushed and his eyes bad a dangerous
+flash.
+
+"That is not my father's signature!"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Exactly what I say--that this writing which purports to be my
+father's was never penned by him."
+
+"You are making a rash assertion."
+
+"I am fully prepared to prove it when we get back to New York."
+
+"And in the meantime the Boy Aviators retain their claim on the
+ivory that we fought so hard to get," put in Frank.
+
+Old Mr. Barr turned on him with a wolfish fury.
+
+Indeed in his rage he resembled nothing so much as a long, lean,
+timber wolf deprived of his expected prey.
+
+"We will see all about that!" he raged.  "There is a law in Fort
+Assini though there may not be here.  I have this paper here which
+in the eyes of the law is a legal transfer to me of Beasley's claim
+on the ivory.  It is mine now and I mean to have it."
+
+Frank's heart sank.  He did not know much about law and it looked as
+if old man Barr held the upper hand.
+
+"But that is not my father's signature or writing," cried Lathrop.
+
+"That will be a matter for the American courts to decide," was the
+frigid reply.
+
+"I shall lay the whole matter before M. Desplaines--the consular
+agent of our government," cried Frank at last.
+
+"It is too late to do that," retorted Mr. Barr, "anticipating that
+there would be some trouble I have already engaged a lawyer and M.
+Desplaines will keep his hands off this affair."
+
+"Why did you anticipate trouble?" shot out Frank, "was it because
+you knew that signature was false?"
+
+For a fragment of a second the old man's pale face grew paler--or
+rather turned a sickly yellow.
+
+"Bah," he said the next minute, "this is a business matter and not
+one for boys to enter into.  I will see that you are well paid for
+your part of the work.  If you like I will write you a check now."
+
+He drew out an ever-ready check-book and fountain pen.
+
+"I would rather have fair play than money," was Frank's stinging
+retort.
+
+"And so say we all of us," chorused Harry, Billy and Lathrop.
+
+Mr. Barr was plainly irritated.  In a snappish tone he said at
+length:
+
+"If you can show me where I am to sleep I think I will go to bed.  I
+am very tired.  We will discuss this matter further to-morrow."
+
+Ben Stubbs, with a very ill grace, made up a bed for the New Yorker
+at some distance from the others.
+
+"I'd like to stuff it full of barb-wire," he confided to Frank
+afterward.
+
+As for Sikaso, he eyed old Mr. Barr from time to time, and then eyed
+his axe in a way that made it very plain that the two were connected
+in his mind in a manner that would have made it very uncomfortable
+for the old financier.
+
+But if Mr. Barr felt the atmosphere of repugnance to him that
+pervaded the camp he did not show it.
+
+He rolled up in his blanket as if he had been used to a rough bed
+all his life and was soon apparently wrapped in deep sleep.  The
+boys, tired out as they were and not a little downcast at the turn
+events had taken, soon followed him.  An hour later the River Camp
+was as silent as a graveyard with the exception of Ben Stubbs'
+mighty snores.
+
+It was then that old Mr. Barr, who had seemed so sound asleep,
+cautiously raised his head from his blankets and peered about him.
+
+After a few minutes of this he slipped into the few clothes he had
+discarded when he went to bed and tiptoed past the sleeping
+adventurers down to the river bank and the launch.
+
+There was an evil smile on his face as he went that to those who
+knew Luther Barr would have said as plain as print "Some mischief is
+in the wind."
+
+     *      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+When the boys awoke the next morning the sun was streaming down on
+their sleeping place with a strength that showed that it had been up
+some time.  With a start Frank sat up and looked about him.
+
+What was the matter with him?  His eyes felt heavy and his throat
+was parched.  In his ears, too, there was a wild ringing sound and
+his limbs felt stiff and inert.  Shouting to the others, who were
+gazing about them in a bewildered sort of way, Frank described his
+symptoms.
+
+They all felt as badly as he did.
+
+"I feel like I'd been boiled in the ship's boiler along with the
+cook's dish-rags," announced Ben Stubbs.
+
+Even old Sikaso shook his head mournfully and said that he didn't
+feel at all well.
+
+"I wonder how old man Barr feels?" said the irreverent Billy rubbing
+his red-rimmed eyes.
+
+The next minute there was a shout of astonishment from them all.
+
+Mr. Barr's blankets were empty and he was nowhere to be seen about
+the camp!
+
+Forgetting their painful feelings in the shock of this discovery the
+boys hastened to the river bank to see if by any chance he was down
+at the steam launch.
+
+The launch, too, was missing!
+
+With a cry of rage Ben Stubbs shook his fist down the river.
+
+"I see it all, boys," he exclaimed.  "The old scallywag drugged
+us--doped us--that's why we feel so badly and--"
+
+"Howling bob-cats!  I'll bet he's stolen a march on us and got away
+with the ivory,"--this was Billy.
+
+There was a rush for the spot in which the precious stuff had been
+cached.
+
+A few broken tusks lay there.
+
+But of the great hoard that the Boy Aviators had worked so
+faithfully to salvage not a vestige remained.
+
+"Bilked, by the great hornspoon!" yelled Ben.
+
+"But not beaten yet," was Frank's calm rejoinder.  "Come on, boys,
+we've got to be stirring.  Barr's got a long start of us, but we'll
+get him yet.  Ben, you and Sikaso will take one of the Arabs'
+canoes--the ones they left at the river bank when they started after
+us--Harry, Billy, Lathrop and I will fly to the coast in the Golden
+Eagle II.   We've just enough gasoline."
+
+"All right, sir," said Ben, touching his forelock with an old sailor
+trick--a token of respect involuntarily forced from him by Frank's
+manly promptitude in taking the bull by the horns, "We're with you
+to the last ditch, the top of the main-top gallant, the bottom of
+the deep-blue sea, or the ends of the earth."
+
+"That goes for us too, Frank," supplemented Billy.
+
+"And count me in on that," cried Lathrop.
+
+As for Harry, he gripped his brother's hand and the boys at once set
+about their preparations to outwit their treacherous enemy.  In the
+midst of their bustle an interruption as utterly unexpected as it
+was for a moment alarming occurred.
+
+The bushes parted and from them there stepped no less a person than
+Muley-Hassan.
+
+He was followed a minute later by half-a-dozen fatigued-looking
+followers.
+
+The boys' hands flew to their revolvers and Ben grabbed up a rifle.
+Sikaso's ever-ready axe was in the air in a second.
+
+But the Arab put up his hand.
+
+"I have not come to fight but to bargain," he said.
+
+"You have beaten me at every point of the game.  Diego is dead--"
+
+"Dead," cried Frank.
+
+"He was bitten by an adder as we were vainly searching for the
+ivory," said the Arab sadly, "he died almost instantly."
+
+Of course the boys felt no sorrow for the death of the treacherous
+scamp and did not pretend to.  They had no great reason to love
+Muley-Hassan either, so Frank said coldly:
+
+"What is it you want?"
+
+"Permission to take my canoes and leave this cursed country
+forever."
+
+Frank waved toward the river.
+
+"Your canoes are where you left them the night you made the cowardly
+attack on our camp.  You can have them all but one.  That one we
+need."
+
+"Alas," sighed the Arab, "I do not need as many as I did when I
+came.  Of all my followers these alone remain."
+
+He pointed to the scant six, skinny, fever-stricken wretches who
+stood behind him.
+
+"Good-by," said the stately Arab, holding out his hand in farewell,
+"we shall never meet again, but I shall ever remember that you dealt
+by me far better than I would have dealt by you."
+
+"At all events you have one good deed to look back to in your life,"
+exclaimed the impulsive Billy.
+
+The Arab looked at him questioningly.
+
+"You saved George Desmond's life," said the reporter shortly.
+
+"That was many years ago," said the Arab with a start of recognition
+at the name of the dead explorer, "I have changed since."
+
+With a wave of the hand he strode to the river's edge and
+half-an-hour later he and the remnant of his band were out of sight
+round a bend in the upper river.
+
+At almost the same instant the boys soared aloft in the Golden Eagle
+II, and the chase for the ivory was on.
+
+Below the flying aeroplane Ben Stubbs and old Sikaso--the latter as
+silent as ever--paddled down the river in silence.
+
+It was a time for deeds, not talk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+ABOARD "THE BRIGAND"
+
+
+The Brigand, a black, schooner-rigged yacht of about 1800 tons, with
+a yellow funnel amidships, and flying the red and blue burgee of the
+Transatlantic Yacht Club, lay at anchor on the rolling blue swells
+off the harbor of Assini in the early dawn of the day following the
+treachery of Luther Barr.  Her crew--for the most part a riff-raff
+collection picked up in a hurry, for the old man had only made up
+his mind to make his daring grab for the ivory at the last
+minute--lolled about the decks idly. There was no one aboard to give
+command, for Jack Halsey, the mate who had been in command since the
+death of the captain had gone ashore the night before.
+
+As old Barr had prophesied, the mate's love for strong liquor had
+overcome him and he was now lying hopelessly intoxicated in a low
+drinking den.  The raw "trade gin" that he had drunk had rendered
+him insensible and so he would remain for many hours to come.
+
+Some sort of animation diffused itself among the crew as they saw a
+low-laden launch headed toward them from the shore.  In it were
+seated Luther Barr and several negroes including the black captain.
+
+"Here, you lazy loafers!" hailed Barr, who was evidently in a bad
+temper and also in a furious hurry, as the launch ranged alongside,
+"bear a hand here and rig a sling and get this stuff aboard."
+
+The "stuff" referred to was the priceless collection of ivory which
+lay higgeldy-piggeldy in the bottom of the launch just as it had
+been thrown in by the negroes in Barr's pay.  Anticipating that the
+boys would put up a stiff fight for the ivory he had taken the
+precaution to hire these ne'er-do-wells, who would do anything, from
+cutting a throat to stealing a chicken, for pay.  Barr had paid them
+well and when he had arrived at the camp he had taken the precaution
+to leave them down the river about half-a-mile while he went on
+alone with the launch and her captain to see how the land lay.  When
+he realized that the boys were not fooled by his forged order from
+Mr. Beasley he decided to use the chloroform he had bought for just
+such an emergency, and then rousing his followers when the boys were
+drugged it had not taken long with their united efforts to load the
+ivory.
+
+Urged on by Barr's promise of a large reward the captain of the
+launch had spun his little vessel down the river at top speed and
+thus had been able to make the coast in record time.
+
+"Where in thunder is that mate Halsey?" roared Barr as he saw the
+bos'n--a seedy-looking fellow from the London slums--taking charge
+of the transfer of the ivory from the launch to the deck of the
+Brigand.
+
+"He went ashore last night," rejoined the other.
+
+"And I suppose he is helplessly drunk now," raged Barr.  "How in the
+name of fortune are we going to get the yacht out of here?"
+
+"Wait till he gets sober," was the bos'n's grunted reply as the men
+hastily transferred the last of the precious freight of tusks to the
+Brigand's deck.
+
+Barr jumped to the accommodation ladder and was aboard in a second,
+despite his apparent feebleness.  His face was distorted with rage
+and cupidity.
+
+"We have got to get out of here at once--now do you understand?" he
+roared, crazed with rage.
+
+"I'll give a thousand dollars to the man that will get me out of
+this harbor and well off to sea."
+
+"If it comes to that I guess I can take a chance of navigating the
+yacht even if I don't hold a master's ticket," replied the bos'n.
+
+"But are you a navigator?" questioned Barr eagerly
+
+"Well, Mr. Barr, I held a master's ticket once before drink got me
+and I piled my ship on a reef," was the answer.
+
+"You're good enough for me!" shouted Barr overjoyed, "and now we'll
+up anchor and get away from this abominable coast."
+
+He scanned the sky shoreward anxiously.  He did not confide to his
+new captain, however, the fact that at any moment he expected to see
+swift vengeance in the shape of the Golden Eagle II pursuing him.
+
+With the roustabout crew that had been shipped in New York from a
+West Street boarding-master it took some time to get the anchor
+broken out--the men going at their work sulkily.  At last, however,
+it was "up and down" as the sailors say, and Luther Barr himself
+signaled on the engine-room telegraph "Full speed, ahead."  The
+engines of the yacht begin to revolve and the crafty old pillager
+almost gave a cry of joy as he felt the vibration beneath his feet.
+
+The Boy Aviators could not cross the Atlantic in the aeroplane and
+there would not be a ship leaving the coast for a month.
+
+Luther Barr chuckled.
+
+He had beaten the boys at their own game.
+
+By the time they arrived in New York the ivory would have been sold
+in London and he would be traveling in Europe on his ill-earned
+gains.  That Beasley (his unsuspecting partner) would be ruined gave
+the money-crazed old man no care at all.
+
+But even as the launch cast loose from the moving yacht and headed
+back to the shore--her occupants greedily fingering the bills Barr
+had given them for their work--Barr, from his station on the bridge,
+gave a start and an exclamation.
+
+High in the air, and not more than ten miles inland, a black object
+that looked like a huge bird, but which Barr knew in his guilty soul
+was the Golden Eagle II, was rapidly winging its way toward them.
+
+"More steam," he shouted down the tube to the engineer and the
+yacht, a long creamy wave curving away from her sharp black bow,
+began to move even faster.
+
+"What are we making?" Barr asked eagerly of the late bos'n who,
+binoculars in hand, was taking the ship out through the treacherous
+harbor entrance as confidently as if he were once more a captain.
+
+"Twelve knots," was the reply.
+
+"We must do better," raged Barr.
+
+"Impossible!" was the answer.  "We are risking the yacht now.  I am
+not familiar with this harbor and there are shoals and reefs all
+about us stretching many miles out to sea.  At any moment, unless we
+proceed cautiously, we may run aground.  Five knots would suit me
+better than twelve."
+
+Barr chafed silently.  The reply was unanswerable.
+
+Better to go slow than to run the ship ashore.  Suddenly he snatched
+the binoculars from the man beside him and turned them on the
+aeroplane.  He almost uttered a cry of triumph as the craft swung
+into his field of vision.
+
+There was something the matter with her.
+
+She was no longer rushing straight ahead.
+
+As Luther Barr watched her he saw the great aircraft swoop in a huge
+circle above the town and then settle down so swiftly that it looked
+as if she must have been dashed to pieces.  But the town was hidden
+behind a point and he could not see it.
+
+"I hope she has been dashed to pieces," he gritted between his teeth
+savagely, "that would mean the saving of a lot of trouble for me."
+
+But even as he prepared to put the binoculars back in the pocket
+alongside the binnacle with an evil smile playing about his thin
+lips, there came a startling shock.
+
+Barr was almost thrown from his feet and only saved himself from
+falling by grasping a stanchion.  The ship quivered from stem to
+stern as if she had been hit a staggering blow.
+
+"We've struck a reef!" exclaimed the late bos'n.
+
+"A reef!" yelled Barr, beside himself with fury.
+
+"I told you we would if you insisted on keeping up such a speed,"
+angrily replied the other.
+
+Beside himself with rage Barr picked up a heavy belaying pin to
+which, the signal halyards had been attached and struck the man
+before him a terrible blow with it.
+
+Fortunately for his intended victim--for Barr in his rage would not
+have cared had he killed him--he ducked just in time and the blow
+was a glancing one.  The man came at him like a tiger, but Barr,
+quick as a flash, slid his hand into his coat pocket.
+
+"If you advance a step nearer I'll blow your brains out," he said
+coldly.
+
+There was a glitter in his eyes that showed he meant what he said
+and with a muttered:
+
+"I'll get even with you, Barr, as sure as my name is Al Davis," the
+late captain of the Brigand left the bridge.
+
+Barr's active mind was at work at once planning schemes to get the
+ivory off immediately.  Accustomed to crises of all kinds, the
+recent scene with the man Davis hadn't even warmed his chilly blood.
+
+Calling the engineer he ordered an immediate inspection to be made.
+The result was discouraging.  The Brigand lay with her bow hard and
+fast on a low sunken reef and while there was no apparent leak the
+chief engineer shook his head at the vessel's plight.
+
+That there was grave danger was evidenced a short while after when
+the fire-room force--which had been ordered to keep steam up in the
+hope of backing the ship off later--came pouring on deck crying that
+there was three feet of water in the fire-room.
+
+"That settles it," said the chief.  "We are on a doomed ship."
+
+"The boats!  The boats!" shouted the men.
+
+"Stay where you are," bellowed Barr, mad with rage, "get that ivory
+off first."
+
+"To blazes with your ivory," shouted a grizzled old fireman, "do you
+think we are going to perish aboard here for such an old skinflint
+as you?"
+
+"Why, if we had time we'd run you up at your own main-gaff you old
+land-shark," shouted another.
+
+"Come on! the boats--the boats!" they yelled.
+
+Barr stood irresolute while they lowered the four boats that the
+Brigand carried and piled into them.  The shore was only a few miles
+off and they would reach it in a few hours.
+
+While Barr hesitated he felt the ship give a lurch.  She was
+settling!
+
+That decided him.
+
+Ivory or no ivory he feared such a death as he felt convinced would
+come to any one unfortunate enough to be aboard the ship in a few
+hours' time even more than he did the loss of the ivory.
+
+"Hold on!" he shouted to the men in the boats, "I'm coming along."
+
+"Not much you ain't," yelled Davis--the man he had dealt the blow
+to, "you stay there and rot with your ivory--you old crook."
+
+With mocking laughs the men pulled away and Luther Barr, master of
+millions, was left alone on the sinking yacht.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE BOY AVIATORS HOLD A WINNING HAND
+
+
+The cause of the sudden swoop of the Golden Eagle II that Barr had
+seen from the yacht with such satisfaction was the need of
+replenishing her gasoline tank.  The big craft landed in the dusty
+public square of the city where pretty well every one in the town
+was on hand when her runners and pneumatic tired supporting wheels
+struck the ground.  The young adventurers were out of her in a few
+minutes and the first man to grasp their hands was M. Desplaines.
+
+"I am delighted to see you," he exclaimed, "but if you anticipated
+catching Luther Barr you are too late."
+
+"We saw his yacht steaming out to sea," rejoined Frank, "but if only
+we can get more gasoline we can catch him yet."
+
+"What, you mean to pursue him?"
+
+"We certainly do.  He has stolen the ivory that we recovered at so
+much risk to ourselves."
+
+"I didn't realize, of course, what your errand was," said M.
+Desplaines in reply, "till Mr. Barr arrived here in his yacht the
+other day and informed me that you had stolen a cache of ivory
+belonging to him and asked my aid to help in capturing you.  I had
+no means of disproving his story so I lent him the steam launch, but
+I see now by his action in hastening to the yacht that he is, as you
+say, the real thief."
+
+Hastily Frank told a part of their adventures and if he had had any
+remaining doubt of the boys' sincerity the consular agent was soon
+convinced of the truth of their story and of the villainy of Barr.
+
+"I can get you some gasoline--," he said.  "A merchant here in town
+recently bought a launch and as the freight boats do not touch in
+here often he has laid in a large supply of the fuel.  I have no
+doubt that at my request he will be glad to sell you as much as you
+require."
+
+This was good news indeed, and the boys hastened round to the house
+of M. Desplaine's friend.  To their unspeakable regret, however, he
+was absent on a fishing expedition in his launch.
+
+"If that isn't tough luck," exclaimed Billy disgustedly, "what can
+we do now?"
+
+"Wait till he gets back or else break into his warehouse," said
+Harry.
+
+"We cannot commit burglary," said Frank, "we shall have to wait."
+
+M. Desplaines invited the party to lunch at his house but as may be
+imagined they did not eat much.  Each was in too much of a hurry to
+ascertain if the fisherman had not returned.  Immediately the meal
+was dispatched, therefore, they hastened out into the street and
+here they encountered a strange scene.
+
+A score or more of rough-looking characters had just landed from
+four ship's boats that lay moored at the small wharf.  They had
+joined forces with the crew of the launch that had aided in the
+ivory hunt and all were bent on a carouse.  The boys were hardly
+able to speak from excitement when they read on the stern of each of
+the boats the words "Brigand N. Y."
+
+"Those boats are from Barr's yacht," cried Frank.
+
+"So they are," cried M. Desplaines, "and from some of these men
+perhaps we shall be able to hear what has happened."
+
+It was an easy matter to get the story from the crew.
+
+The only trouble was they all wanted to talk at once.  Bit by bit,
+however, the boys got the story and learned that the Brigand was
+sinking with a big hole in her bottom.  While the others were
+talking a tall man, who formed part of the crew that had just
+landed, beckoned Frank aside:
+
+"Come here, young master," he said, "I want a word with you.  You
+are one of the Boy Aviators?"
+
+"I am!" replied Frank, "who are you?"
+
+"My name's Al Davis; I was a skipper once--but never mind that now.
+But if you want to make a piece of money out of salvage I'll tell
+you how if you make it worth my while."
+
+"What is it you have to tell me?" asked Frank.
+
+For reply the man put his hand up to Frank's ear and whispered
+cautiously.
+
+"Is that worth anything?" he asked after he had imparted the
+information.
+
+"Well I should say so," cried Frank joyously, and he slipped the man
+a bill of large denomination.
+
+"I'll buy everybody a drink," shouted Davis, shuffling off.
+
+"Come on, boys, we've no time to lose!" Frank exclaimed the next
+minute and they hastened round to the house of M. Desplaines'
+friend.
+
+This time that worthy was at home and greeted them warmly.  He had a
+plentiful stock of gasoline more than enough, he said--and he gladly
+sold them all they wanted.
+
+In a few minutes the Golden Eagle II's main and reserve tanks were
+replenished to the full and the boys were ready for a record flight
+to the wreck.
+
+So far Frank had not divulged to the others what his information
+concerning the wreck was that he had received from Davis, and he did
+not now though he felt sorely tempted to.
+
+Amid cheers from the crowd the Golden Eagle II, with all the
+adventurers aboard, soared once more into the air; but this time
+headed out to sea.  They had not risen a hundred feet before they
+sighted the wreck, which had struck round a low point out of sight
+from the town.  She lay, a dismal-looking object, heeled over to one
+side; but Frank saw, to his intense joy, that there was still a
+feeble curl of smoke coming from her stack.
+
+This meant that the water had not yet extinguished her fires and was
+favorable to the daring plan he had conceived.
+
+As the Golden Eagle II drew nearer, the figure of old Luther Barr
+could be plainly seen rushing about on the upper bridge.
+
+He seemed demented with terror.
+
+"Save me! save me! the ship is going down!" he cried in agonized
+tones, as a few minutes later the aeroplane swung in big circles
+above his head.
+
+The boys, despite their righteous anger at the wicked old man, yet
+could not help feeling some pity mingled with their amusement as the
+old coward ran about the bridge like a crazy man.
+
+"We'll get you off if you'll agree to do something for us," hailed
+Frank through his megaphone as the aeroplane soared in big circles
+round the wreck and the distracted old man.
+
+"Anything, anything!" cried back old Barr piteously.
+
+"Will you sign a release for the ivory you stole from us, admitting
+your theft?" asked Frank.
+
+"Yes, yes, my boys.  I'll sign anything, but get me off.  I don't
+want to die like this.  Oh this is a terrible end!"
+
+"What are you going to do, Frank?" asked Billy, as the Golden Eagle
+II, in obedience to Frank's controlling hand, began to drop.
+
+"You see that sand bank that the falling tide has exposed," was
+Frank's reply.
+
+They all nodded.
+
+"I am going to land there and we can wade through the water to the
+yacht.  I judge the water isn't more than three feet deep at the
+deepest part."
+
+The landing was made without a hitch--the sand being of the
+hard-ribbed variety that covers the numerous reefs along the west
+African coast.
+
+After a short interval of wading the boys stood on the deck of the
+Brigand, where she hung on the edge of the reef.  Frank's sharp eyes
+noticed that except for her forefoot the vessel was in deep water,
+as the reef dropped off quite abruptly.
+
+Old Barr received them with almost hysterical joy.
+
+"This is better than I deserve, boys; better than I deserve," he
+kept repeating.
+
+"You had better stop your sniveling," said Frank sharply, thoroughly
+disgusted with the cowardly old rascal.  "Where are pens, ink and
+paper?"
+
+The ivory merchant led the way to the chart-house.  "Be quick,
+boys--she might sink," he stuttered.
+
+The document that Frank dictated, Luther Barr signed and the others
+witnessed, read like this:
+
+I, Luther Barr, of New York, do here by deed, make over and assign
+to the Boy Aviators--namely Frank and Harry Chester, William Barnes
+and Lathrop Beasley, all my share, claim or equity in the ivory
+which I wrongfully stole from them, which fact I with shame
+acknowledge.  I hereby affix my signature which I admit in the
+presence of witnesses to be my true manner of signing."
+
+"Now," said Frank, "just to show we are not mean, there is some
+ivory left in the Moon Mountains, near the spot which is indicated
+on your map.  Sikaso, a faithful Krooman,  hid it for us when we
+could not carry it away.  If you find it you can have it."
+
+The old man rubbed his hands in greedy glee.
+
+"Oh thank you, boys; thank you, I'll find it, I'll find it," he
+croaked, his wrinkled old face wreathed in smiles.
+
+"Lathrop," ordered Frank, "you and Billy take Mr. Barr back to
+shore.  Harry and I will stay here.
+
+"We have a lot to do.  Leave the Golden Eagle ashore to be packed
+and forwarded later.  Hurry back in the launch."
+
+"What are you going to do?" demanded Barr.
+
+"I think that your interest in our movements ceased with the signing
+of this paper," rejoined Frank.
+
+At that moment the Brigand gave a violent shudder as if she was
+indeed about to go down.  With a shrill scream of terror old Barr
+ran out on deck and hastily clambered down on to the reef.  From
+there he waded with Billy and Lathrop to the Golden Eagle II, and
+was taken ashore.
+
+"Now then to work," said Frank as the aeroplane winged her way
+shoreward with their enemy.
+
+"What are you going to do?" demanded Harry in an astonished tone.
+There didn't seem to be much to do to his mind but wait till they
+were taken off the stranded yacht by the launch.
+
+"You'll see," replied Frank.  "In the first place, Harry, the
+Brigand was never in any danger of sinking.  She is as sound as a
+dollar."
+
+"Are you crazy?" cried Harry, "why there's a lot of water in her
+engine-room.  She must have sprung a leak as big as a house."
+
+Frank laughed.
+
+"There are more ways of killing a cat than by choking it with
+cream," was his cryptic remark.  "What would you say if I told you
+that in an hour's time we, will have every drop of water out of the
+yacht, and that following that we will have her afloat again at
+high-water."
+
+"That you are a marvel."
+
+"Well, it's going to happen--come with me."
+
+Frank led the way to the engine-room.
+
+"Luckily I know something about marine engines since we took that
+trip on the gun boat in Nicaragua."
+
+He examined the gauges.  They showed sixty pounds of steam still in
+the boilers.
+
+"Not much--but enough," was Frank's comment.  He then turned to two
+valve wheels on the working platform and started to screw them up.
+
+"What in the world are you doing?" asked Harry.
+
+"Closing the sea-cocks which were opened by Al Davis, the former
+bos'n, in revenge for a blow Luther Barr struck him when the ship
+went aground," was Frank's astonishing reply.
+
+"But how in thunder do you know about that?"
+
+"Davis told me while you were trying to get something out of those
+fellows who were all gabbling at once."
+
+"And when you have closed up the sea-cocks?"
+
+"Then I shall start the centrifugal pumps going to empty the
+engine-room, and we'll soon have her as sound as a dollar."
+
+Luckily the water had not, as Frank had surmised, reached the fires,
+and though low there was enough pressure of steam to run the pumps
+till the boys were able to work in the stoke-hold.  Then both boys
+set to work with a will and soon had the furnaces going full-blast,
+and the steam gauges registered seventy, then eighty and then one
+hundred and fifty pounds.
+
+"There, that will do," exclaimed Frank, as, pretty well tuckered
+out, they threw aside their shovels.  "Now we have to wait for the
+tide and reinforcements."
+
+They had not long to wait.
+
+Of course at the height the tide now was the reef was pretty well
+covered and it would have been impossible to make a landing in the
+air-ship, so Billy had chartered the power launch of the friend who
+had sold them the gasoline.
+
+Ben Stubbs and Sikaso, who had arrived late that' afternoon, were on
+board the little craft and Ben's loud "Ahoy!" brought the Boy
+Aviators to the rail on the jump--waving and shouting greetings.
+
+But there were others in the launch, and among them the boys spied
+several faces of bronzed men who looked thorough seamen.  M.
+Desplaines, who was in the launch, explained that they had formed
+part of the crew of a steamer that had been wrecked down the coast
+some weeks previously.  They had been waiting for a ship and were
+willing to work their passage home: to New York.  Among them was
+their captain, a good seaman and a former yacht skipper.
+
+"But--but," said Frank amazedly, as the men piled on board and the
+boys all shook hands madly with everybody.  "We can't take this
+yacht--it isn't ours, we have no right."
+
+M. Desplaines held out a piece of paper; smiling as he did so.  It
+was covered with writing in Luther Barr's cramped hand and was a
+characteristic document.  Stripped of its legal phraseology it was
+an agreement to the effect that if the boys would make no salvage
+charges for saving the yacht, they could have her free of cost to
+sail back to New York.
+
+"But," said Frank, "how did he know we intended to save her?"
+
+"'The man Davis got boisterously drunk and when arrested admitted
+that the yacht was in no danger and that he had flooded her
+stoke-hold out of revenge," explained M. Desplaines.
+
+"In that case, why does not Mr. Barr come back to New York on her?"
+demanded Frank.
+
+The consular agent smiled.
+
+"He thinks he is on the track of more ivory and has already engaged
+part of an expedition," he replied.  "To tell you the truth, his
+anxiety to save expense on the yacht has had quite as much to do
+with his loaning her to you as anything else.  He expects you to pay
+the crew.  If you wish to go back to New York on this yacht I will
+have your aeroplane dismantled and forwarded by freight."
+
+"Well," laughed Frank, "will we, boys?"
+
+"I should say we will!" came in a chorus.
+
+"And steam back to old New York?"
+
+"You bet."
+
+As Frank had anticipated, at flood-tide the yacht was backed off
+under her own power and then came the time for farewells--and warm
+ones they were.  To Sikaso the boys presented a rifle and an
+automatic revolver as the noble old fellow would not hear of taking
+money.  The last glimpse they had of their black friend, as the
+yacht headed due west for America, he was standing gloomily in the
+stern of the launch--one hand on his faithful axe and the other
+raised against the blue sky as if in benediction.
+
+"Well," said Frank, as the distance shut out the picture, "we are
+bound for home at last."
+
+"What ever will they say when they hear of our adventures?" cried
+Harry.
+
+"And the recovery of the ivory?" chimed in Lathrop, "my father's
+business is saved.  We must cable from the Canaries of our success."
+
+"And the narrative of George Desmond and our own experiences with
+the Flying Men?" chimed in Billy.
+
+"Oh, you'll have to can that rarebit dream!" cried Harry.
+
+"I will not!" exclaimed Billy indignantly.  "I'm going to print it."
+
+"On the funny page maybe.  I'd like to see the newspaper that would
+publish such a yarn."
+
+Alas for poor Billy!  Harry was right.
+
+Nobody would believe his strange tale and last he grew tired of
+telling it, and even to hardly credit it himself.
+
+As for George Desmond's time-yellowed pages they repose in the
+Smithsonian Institute, and after a learned wrangle between savants
+of all countries--lasting many months--it was agreed that the poor
+explorer must have lost his mind and that the narrative of the
+Flying Men was the offspring of a brain crazed by suffering.
+
+"It's a strange termination to our adventures to be steaming home on
+Barr's yacht," said Frank, after a long pause in which they had all
+gazed back at the fast dimming shore of the Dark Continent.
+
+"I should say so," cried Lathrop.  "It's as near as I ever want to
+get to him, too."
+
+"Same here," joined in Billy, "but I don't suppose we shall ever
+hear from him again."
+
+But Billy was wrong.
+
+The boys did hear from Luther Barr again and in an extraordinary
+manner.  The malevolent old man was to be the cause of some
+surprising adventures in which the boys at the risk of their lives
+were once more pitted against powerful enemies.
+
+ With what flying colors they emerged from their dangers,
+difficulties and adventures will be told in the next volume of this
+series--"THE BOY AVIATORS' TREASURE QUEST; or THE GOLDEN GALLEON."
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Boy Aviators in Africa
+by Captain Wilbur Lawton
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY AVIATORS IN AFRICA ***
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