Mr. Pauling eagerly scanned the message and slowly a smile and an expression of satifaction spread across his features.
“It’s for us!” he ejaculated. “Good news. The Devon’s taken! Jove! It seems little short of uncanny to be getting word from Maidley way up here in the jungle.”
“I’ll say ’tis!” cried Rawlins. “Bully for the Colonel! Where did they get her?”
“Hurrah!” cried the boys. “Now these fellows up the river are in a fix!”
“He doesn’t say where,” replied Mr. Pauling. “Didn’t want to use any name, I suppose--no cipher word for that--just says: ‘Ship taken. All on board held.’ He’s no fool, Maidley. He knew the plane would hear this and took no chances of saying anything to make them suspicious. I expect he thought we might be listening and broadcasted the message in hopes we’d get it.”
“Good old scout,” declared the explorer. “Just like him to do that.”
“Can you send a message back acknowledging this?” asked Mr. Pauling, turning to Tom.
“No,” replied Tom. “We didn’t bring our sending set. We thought if we received it would be all we needed.”
“Hmm, too bad,” commented his father. “Sorry Maidley won’t know we got it and will keep on sending. Those fellows may get suspicious if they hear the same message coming in night after night.”
“He’ll know we got it before to-morrow night,” declared Mr. Thorne. “I’ll send word to him.”