“We’ll see when the boat gets nearer,” Clay conciliated. “If I had my way about it now, I should chase off in the direction those sounds come from.”
The lads crept back under shelter and listened patiently as the sounds came nearer. Then music was heard. It was evidently a large passenger steamer, and a lady was playing and singing in the cabin!
“Sounds like a bit of paradise!” declared Clay. “It has been a long time since we have heard a woman sing.”
“Her song points out our way,” Alex observed, as the lights of the boat struck the green, wet foliage and flashed back a thousand tiny stars!
“Give it up?” asked Frank, as the steamer passed and the lights and music faded in the distance. “Give it up? You would have gotten deeper into the woods if you had followed that echo.”
The rain was now coming down harder than ever, and the wind was blowing a perfect hurricane from the west. Clay stepped out of the shelter and was nearly blown off his feet.
“Never mind,” he said, bracing himself against the wind,” we can make it if we try hard enough. We know where to go now.”
“Dark?” Jule broke in, savagely. “Who said it was dark?”
“No one!” scoffed Alex. “That isn’t a dark jungle out there! That is the Great White Way!”
“You’re crazy!” Jule laughed. “Who said there were snakes and jaguars in the woods of Ecuador?”