“Fine!” cried Bob joyously. “Do your best to win them over. I think they’ll agree to let us go, especially since they have so much faith in you. But say! You haven’t told us who all intend to make up the expedition. There isn’t to be a large number, is there?”
“No,” Mr. Holton answered. “We only intended to have three, Mr. Lewis, an anthropologist, and myself, but if you boys accompany us the number will, of course, be raised to five. And perhaps,” he went on, “that would be better than to have so few. You see it isn’t like an expedition into Africa, where there are plenty of native carriers to bear your provisions. We’ll have to rely more on our own resources and be extremely careful that we don’t get lost. Several million square miles of jungle is a wide area to cut into, especially when so much of it is unexplored.”
“Should think it would be great fun,” commented Joe, mentally picturing the many thrills that promised to make the trip interesting.
“It will be,” Mr. Holton returned. “But it will also have its dangers. These are mainly of human character. Why, it is said that there are tribes of Indians so uncivilized that they think nothing of——”
“Ahem!” Mr. Lewis cut in purposefully.
“What were you going to say?” Joe asked.
“Perhaps I’ll tell you some other time,” came the reply. “Right now I think I’ll have a look at my firearms. In all probability they need oiling.”
He left for the house, and the others remained for several minutes longer. Then Mr. Lewis departed also, leaving the youths to themselves.
“What do you suppose Dad was going to say—about the savages, I mean?” Bob asked, glancing around to make sure that the men were gone.
“Something that shouldn’t go into our young ears,” smiled Joe and then turned to the house.