Now it was safely sewn once more in the lining of her flying coat but that was not a good hiding place if he thought to search her.
A sudden shout from the harbor sent Joe Arnold hurrying down the trail. Then he turned back. “Stay right where you are,” he ordered the girls. On second thought he said. “No, go on down the trail ahead of me.”
“But I don’t want to go!” flared Terry.
“If you’re wise you’ll do as I say!” Without another word he thrust the girls ahead of him toward the beach.
Terry went without any further argument. For suddenly it had occurred to her that she might learn something of Joe Arnold’s schemes if she pretended, to be friendly with him and didn’t make him angry.
At the harbor a gang of blacks were loading a boat, preparing to take it to the plane. Pedro, the chief was over six feet tall, wore only a loin cloth and looked half savage. This giant was watching his men, who were working for Joe Arnold. Pedro seemed to have a few words of English but he spoke to his men in a mixture of Spanish and his own language.
“What terrible looking savages!” whispered Prim. “They look as if they might be cannibals.”
Terry laughed to conceal her fear. “I could even stand having a cannibal around if I were sure that Allan and Syd had come through the storm. They were flying higher than we were but I’m afraid they weren’t high enough, even then.”
Terry was looking about her taking stock of the camp, which was composed of mud huts, and several shacks that had evidently been built recently. On the trail loomed a tall, weathered rock. Terry was pointing out to her sister a great crevice in this stone and explaining the formation of that wide fissure when Joe Arnold turned and saw her. His face flushed angrily. He gave a final order to the black leader and then signalled the girls to precede him up the trail.
“This is no place for you, after all. I shouldn’t have brought you down here where those savages could see you. They belong to a fierce tribe of natives living in the clearings in the jungle. Pedro, the chief, that big fellow, lives in one of my mud huts down there, so you’d better keep away.” Joe Arnold was nervous and stammered as he talked.