THE CAMP IN THE TROPICAL JUNGLE.
"Frank, this is tough luck!" Andy exclaimed, presently.
"Keep up your spirits, old fellow!" called out the other, cheerily. "Has
the biplane succeeded in making a landing yet?"
"I guess so," replied Andy, moodily. "Can't see any sign of her back
there. And besides, it's actually getting dark down below, even while we
can see a bit of the sun up here."
"That's because of the contrast. I'll drop still lower, so we'll just
clear the top of the forest. Then you won't need the glasses, Andy.
Both of us must keep a clever lookout for a chance. Every now and then
there happens to be some opening in the forest, you know."
"Don't I hope we find one, though," declared the other. "Oh, wouldn't
it be too mean for anything, Frank, if we smashed the precious little
machine just when we are at the last stage of our big undertaking? If I
lived through it I'd be broken hearted sure."
"Look, then," said Frank, earnestly, "and you take the right, while I
keep an eye on the left. Both of us can watch out ahead. If it comes at
all to be of any use, it's got to be found inside of the next five
minutes!"
"So soon as that?" echoed the other, in distressed tones. "Oh, I'm
afraid we're in for the very worst experience we ever met up with."
"Ha! hold on, Andy. What's that dead ahead?" cried Frank, who suddenly
decreased the speed of the little motor.
"It's an opening of some sort, though awful little!" ejaculated
Andy. "We can never do it, I'm afraid, Frank."
"We've just got to, no matter what chances we take. Hold hard now and if
you can jump out in time, help stop her before we wreck her against a
tree."
Even while speaking the air pilot was starting to drop down. He had made
a specialty of this part of the business, knowing how very important it
must always be to aviators. The rise was nothing compared to the
descent, for many a gallant aircraft has been injured or even wrecked by
clumsy manipulation, want of room or some other cause while landing
after a flight.
Andy gripped hold of an upright. He tried to see down into that little
slash in the great forest, as though it might hold every hope connected
with his fortunes and the success or failure of his mission of mercy.
"Oh, be careful, Frank!" he called, as they just barely missed the top
of a great tree.
There was no need of saying this, as Andy ought to have known. No one
could possibly be more careful than Frank Bird. And yet this was one of
those times when daring had to go hand in hand with caution. The space
in which they meant to try for a landing was so very small that it
seemed necessary for the aeroplane to come down almost as lightly as a
feather.
Fortunately the youthful pilot possessed a good pair of eyes. And the
gloom had not as yet entirely blotted out all features of the landscape,
now that they were so close to the earth.
Andy was holding himself in readiness. He knew that there would perhaps
be an opportunity for him to drop to the ground and by pulling back,
help to bring the little airship to a full stop before they banged up
against a tree at the further side of the little glade.
Never before had Andy found himself compelled to do such a queer
"stunt," as he afterwards termed it; but he was braced to exert himself
now to the best of his ability.
"Jump!" shouted Frank, as they came roughly in contact with the ground.
And Andy went. He never knew whether he jumped purposely or lost his
grip of that upright after the shock of the collision; but the next
thing he realized he was straining himself with might and main to hold
back the monoplane, already gliding along with sundry violent bumps, on
the three bicycle wheels.
"Hurrah! What did I say?" cried Frank, as the aeroplane came to a
complete standstill close to the other border of trees.
There was a frightened series of grunts close by and some big unwieldy
animal went rushing away through the dense undergrowth, crashing along
as though badly frightened at this queer thing that had dropped down
from the sky.
"Wow! whatever was that, do you know, Frank?" cried the one on the
ground.
"I don't know for sure, because I only had the least peep of something
that looked like a small elephant making off," replied the other, also
alighting.
Andy was already reaching for the repeating rifle, which had been
securely fastened in the frame of the monoplane.
"But Frank, they don't have such things as elephants down in South
America?" he expostulated.
"Sure they don't," laughed Frank, feeling particularly good over the
grand success that had attended their perilous landing. "Nor a
rhinocerous, nor a hippopotamus; but they do have the next largest
beast, and that's a tapir. He's something like a big pig and not very
dangerous, the señor said. That was what we frightened off just now, I
reckon."
"Well, here we are on land again and mighty lucky to get down without
some sort of a smash. Frank, you don't think anything was broken when we
struck, do you?"
"Of course I can't say for sure, but I believe not. But all the same I
must give a good look in the morning before we make another start," was
the reply Frank returned.
"And now we're just got to stay here all night?" remarked Andy, who
still held the gun in his hands.
"That isn't anything. We'll soon have a cheery blaze started that will
keep the prowlers away, I guess. Get busy, Andy, and see what we can
do. But we'll start it some distance away from our gasoline tank,
remember."
"But won't they be apt to see a fire?" asked the other, as he
reluctantly placed the rifle down and started to gathering wood, no easy
task in the increasing darkness.
"Do you mean Puss and that other fellow?" Frank asked, with a
laugh. "Oh, they're a mile or two off, and even if they could see the
biggest of fires I'd defy them to get half way here if they took the
whole night to cut their way through that mass of trailing vines and
brush. Don't bother your head about that crowd, Andy. I hope we're done
with them for good."
His reassuring words seemed to have considerable effect on his cousin,
who up to recently had himself been a most cheery fellow.
"Well," he said, "we've sure got a whole bunch of gratitude on tap for
the lucky way we dropped in here. Chances looked twenty to one it
couldn't be done. And I'd like to wager that no other air pilot could
have made the ripple so well."
"You're prejudiced, old fellow, because I'm one of the Bird boys,"
laughed Frank as he struck a match and applied it to the bunch of dead
grass he had gathered in the spot selected for their fire.
It was a dozen yards away from the aeroplane and about the same from the
nearest line of great bushy trees. Immediately the flame sprang up,
dispelling the darkness to some extent.
"Shucks! but that makes a big improvement and no mistake," said Andy,
stooping to drop some wood on the fire. "I always like to see what I'm
doing. And more than ever when I'm in a strange place. Hark! what was
that, do you suppose, Frank?"
A sound had come from the depths of the forest not unlike the wailing of
a babe. Frank could give a guess what made it, but he did not
immediately say so.
"Say, we must have landed close to some native shack, and that's a baby
crying!" Andy declared.
"Hardly," came from Frank. "That's only one of our cat friends giving
tongue, perhaps calling to his mate to come and see the funny objects
that dropped from the skies."
"Wow! reckon now you must mean a yellow boy, a jaguar! I bet you, Frank,
there's a heap of 'em around us right now. How do we know but what every
tree hides one of the critters, watching everything we do? I can tell
you right now that I don't wander far from this jolly little blaze
tonight. And besides, one of us has just got to keep a grip on this gun
all the time. I don't hanker after being carried away and made a meal of
by a big hungry cat."
"Oh, the fire will scare them away all right, I believe. There isn't an
animal that doesn't dread fire. Always keep that in mind, Andy, when
trouble comes," said Frank, earnestly.
"I mean to," replied the other, as he once more started to pick up wood,
but it could be noticed that while doing so Andy always kept on eye on
the alert, as if he really believed what he had said about the chances
of their being watched by an army of jaguars.
"There's another sort of cry, Frank," he remarked, presently.
"Yes, and although I couldn't say for sure, I believe it is made by a
colony of monkeys, traveling through the woods at night," the other
replied, after stopping to listen for a minute to the odd sounds.
"Monkeys!" cried Andy, smiling broadly. "Well, I declare I had
forgotten that they have them all through the tropical regions around
the Orinoco, the Magdalena and the Amazon. And so that's a menagerie
traveling over the treetops, is it? Wish I could just get a look."
"Well, I don't think they're far away," remarked his chum.
"Not for me. I know when I'm well off. This camp looks good enough,
without my wandering around in that awful place. Let 'em jabber, and the
yellow cats snarl; but Andy Bird stays right at his fireside tonight."
"And I guess you're right," said Frank, as more noises arose all around
them.