"It looks as if we'd have to do it. I hate to leave the Black Bear in such a mess away off here in South America, but I don't see how we are to get her out. The Wolf will carry us all right, I suppose?" he said, tentatively.
"Sure thing!" Frank replied. "I've been thinking it all out. We'll do it this way: When we get ready we'll put on full speed ahead on the motors, with the prow turned against that obstruction below. Then we'll hop into the Wolf and shut everything down tight. The Black Bear will weaken the jam below, and the sharp nose of the Wolf will poke through the rest of the logs and canoes. And there you are!"
"Free of the natives, and bobbing down the river in safety!" cried
Jack. "That looks good to me!"
"But about the dynamite?" asked Harry.
"Well," Frank replied, "we've got to use the Black Bear for a battering ram anyway, and she'll be all smashed up, so we may as well go the whole hog with her. We'll put a lot of dynamite down under the motors and fix a cap so it will blow up when the concussion comes. By that time the natives will be swarming around her, and they'll get what's coming to them."
"And where will we be when the explosion is rocking this half of the world?" demanded Harry. "Up in the air?"
"We'll be a cuddled up in the Wolf, between the lockers, with plenty of grub and ammunition, sailing down the river in a bullet-proof vessel. This move will burst up our meeting with the Nelson, of course, but there is no other way. They'll get us if we remain here."
While this talk had been going on, the cannibals had drawn nearer to the Black Bear, pressing forward from both banks in canoes and pounding at the panels with their arrows. It seemed only a question of time when they would board the craft and force the panels. Their shouts of victory were shrill and exasperating.
"You see how it is," Frank said, "the Black Bear can never be pushed up over the falls, and we can never get her past the obstructions below, even by the use of dynamite. If we could blow the those logs out of the way, the Indians would board us instantly. We could give them only a charge or two of dynamite and a few shots before they would be inside. Now' we can drift down the river in the Wolf without fear of entertaining man-eaters on board. They may get on top of the boat, but they can never get inside."
"And so we'll have to give up our trip!" wailed Harry. "We'll have to drift down stream in that hot hole and take a steamer at the nearest river town!"