"You're Tarzan's cousin—if you can't do it how do you expect me to?"
"Well," explained Dick, "I've got to practice a little bit, haven't I? You don't expect a fellow to do it the first thing off without a little practice, do you?"
But at the moment Doc was too busy worming his way gingerly after Dick to think up a suitable reply.
From one tree to another they made their way and as they progressed they soon became more sure of themselves and their pace increased accordingly. By chance Dick had started in the right direction. The train lay directly ahead of them, though further away than either would have imagined; but following a straight line through the trees of a dense forest where there are no land marks to guide one and where the sun is not visible as a beacon of safety is a thing not easily done.
It was not at all strange, therefore, that within the first hundred yards Dick had so altered his original course that the boys were moving at a right angle to the proper direction and within the next hundred had turned almost completely back and were "swinging" directly away from the railway. A few minutes later they crossed the wide game trail they had so recently left, but so thick was the foliage beneath them that they did not see the trail at all, and they were still bravely travelling their perilous path when the sudden tropical night shut down upon the jungle, engulfing them in its black folds.
The night life of the jungle, with its awful silences.
Below them a lion roared. Out of the black void rose the weird scream of a panther. Something moved in the trees above them. The night life of the jungle was awakening with its sounds of stealthily moving bodies, with its terrifying noises, with its awful silences.