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.