“Then I won’t go!” Ben grinned.
“Come on,” urged Carl, “it’s getting dark, so we’d better be getting back to camp! Perhaps the niggers have beaten us to it already!”
“I guess the two you saw are about the only ones in the vicinity,” answered Glenn.
“You’d feel pretty cheap, wouldn’t you, if you’d get back to camp and find that the savages had taken possession?” demanded Jimmie.
Thus urged, Glenn and Ben finally abandoned the idea of advancing into the forest. Instead, they turned their faces toward the camp, and all four boys advanced with ever-increasing speed as they neared the spot where the aeroplanes and the tents had been left.
About the first thing they saw as they came within sight of the broad planes of the flying machines was a naked savage inspecting the motors. He stood like a statue before the machine for an instant and then glided away. They saw him turn about as he came to a cluster of underbrush, beckon silently to some one, apparently on the other side of the camp, and then disappear.
“And that means,” Glenn whispered, “that the woods are full of ’em!”
“Oh, no,” jeered Jimmie, “the two we saw are the only ones there are in the woods! I guess you’ll think there is something in the story we told about being captured and abducted!”
The short tropical twilight had now entirely passed away. It seemed to the boys as if a curtain had been drawn between themselves and the tents and flying machines which had been so plainly in view a moment before. There was only the glimmer of the small camp-fire to direct them to their camp.
“Who’s got a searchlight?” asked Glenn.