The savages were still drawing farther away, and Sam occupied his time during the next moment in finding his way back to the tents and procuring another automatic revolver which had not been discovered by the outlaws. He held it so that the two boys caught sight of the brown barrel and nodded significantly toward Doran and his friend.
“He doesn’t mean to let them get away,” said Jimmie to Carl, in a low aside. “He seems to be next to his job!”
The savages, with their eyes fixed upon the jungle near the river bank, kept crowding farther away from the machines. The clamor of the motors came louder every instant, and directly two powerful acetylene lamps looked out of the tall grass like great blazing eyes.
The savages no longer hesitated as to how to meet this new situation. They dropped their spears and whatever else they had in their hands and broke for the thicket, uttering such cries of fright and terror as the boys had never imagined could issue forth from human lips. Doran and his companion sprang for the machines as the savages disappeared.
When Ben, Glenn and Mellen came bumping up in the automobile, a minute later, they saw the two fellows standing by the side of the Louise with their hands held high in the air. Before them stood Sam with a threatening revolver pushed to within six inches of their faces.
“Jerusalem!” exclaimed Ben, springing from the machine. “This looks like a scene in one of the fierce old dramas they used to put on at the Bowery theater! Are those the men who stole the Bertha?” he added nodding toward the two whose arms were still held out.
“They came here in the Bertha!” replied Carl.
“Mr. Mellen,” began Doran, “you know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t get mixed up in any such thieving scrape! These two boys came to the field and ran away with the Louise. I had orders not to let any one take the machines away, so I followed them in the Bertha.”
“And he merely employed me to go with him!” the other fellow cut in.
“They stole the machine!” insisted Jimmie. “I heard them talking about leaving us here to walk back to Quito and hiding the machines in some mountain valley until the search for them had died out. They were even packing up our provisions and tents to take with them when the savages came up!”