"He'll duck!" replied Jimmie.
The little fellow was right. Thomas Q. Collins was heard of no more, either in Paraguay or Peru. When Ned, leaving the others at Asuncion, speeded over to Lima he found Leroy and Mike lounging about the hotel, waiting anxiously for news from their chums. They had been released on the day following Collins' departure, there being no one to press the charge of assault and battery against them.
Now there was work cut out for the Nelson. She carried Ned, Mike and Leroy over to Asuncion and then made two long trips to the little town on the Madeira where the Black Bear lay.
The meeting between the boys and Harry was an enthusiastic one, and the latter pointed with a good deal of pride to the motor boat, good as new and as bright and clean as a new gold piece.
After a few days spent exploring the country up the Beni, the boys started home, their errand satisfactorily accomplished. Jimmie decided to go with Jack, Frank, Harry and Mike in the motor boat, leaving the Nelson to Ned and Leroy.
"One thing I'd like to do," Jimmie said, as the Black Bear lay waiting for the boys, "and that is to go up into that cannibal country and have some fun with the fellows who captured the Black Bear and made the occupants of it look like thirty cents in postage stamps!"
"They never did capture the Black Bear!" yelled Frank. "They tried to, and got dynamited for their pains. That's what they got."
"And of course," tormented the little fellow, "you wished the Nelson had stayed away, and left you all the glory—not!"
"Well," Jack interposed, "we didn't get tied up in a mountain cave by a lot of cheap skates. We never got where we had to let an Indian get us out of a mess."
"Rats!" shouted Jimmie. "Ned would have recognized our fire signals and remained away! We could have gotten off without the Indian."