“I see something that looks like a tent,” Jimmie answered. “We are so high up now that we couldn’t distinguish one of them anyhow.”
As the aeroplane drove nearer to the earth, a blaze flared up from below. In its red light they saw the two shelter-tents standing in exactly the same position in which they had been left.
“There!” cried Jimmie. “I had an idea we’d find them!”
“But look at the fire!” cautioned Carl. “There’s some one there keeping up that blaze!”
“That’s a funny proposition, too!” exclaimed Jimmie. “It doesn’t seem as if the savages would remain on the ground after our departure.”
“And it doesn’t seem as if they would go away without taking everything they could carry with them, either!” laughed Carl.
“We can’t guess it out up here,” Jimmie argued. “We may as well light and find out what it means. Have your guns ready, and shoot the first savage who comes within range.”
When the rubber-tired wheels of the machine struck the ground which they had occupied only a short time before, the boys found a great surprise awaiting them. As if awakened from slumber by the clatter of the motors, a figure dressed in nondescript European costume arose from the fire, yawning and rubbing his eyes, and advanced to meet them.
It was the figure of a young man of perhaps eighteen, though the ragged and soiled clothing he wore, the unwashed face, the long hair, made it difficult for one to give any accurate estimate as to the years of his life. He certainly looked like a tramp, but he came forward with an air of assurance which could not have been improved upon by a millionaire hotel-keeper, or a haughty three-dollar-a-week clerk in a ten-cent store.
“Je-rusalem!” exclaimed Jimmie. “Now what do you think of this?”