"Great heavens!" he cried. "Get your guns, boys!"
The whole surface of the stream, as far as the boy's eyes reached, seemed covered with savage heads, floating, drifting, down upon the Black Bear.
CHAPTER XVI
RED FIRE FROM THE SKY
Under the light of the moon the rushing river seemed full of leering, cruel eyes. The bodies of the swimming savages were not visible—only the upturned faces and the threatening eyes, with now and then a hand or the point of a glistening shoulder. There appeared to be thousands of the cannibals; their mass reaching from shore to shore.
Then, while the boys looked, expecting every instant to hear the sound of feet outside the panels, a rocket shot out from the Nelson and a score of parti-colored balls curved and hissed toward the earth.
"Gee!" Jack cried. "He's giving them a fourth-of-July celebration!"
"Hope it scares them off," said Harry.
Looking through the heavy glass panel at the top, they saw a rain of red fire drop down on the swirling river. For a moment the whole upper air, then river and forest, was painted a bloody red by the burning powder.
Cries came from the river, and the mass of floating heads parted and swung swiftly toward the shores; then silence. The aeroplane circled about cautiously and then dropped down lower. Jack opened the panel.