“Bet there isn’t a gasoline station within fifty miles of here,” groaned Joe, glancing at the rugged country that was on all sides of them.
Darkness overtook the explorers before they had completed making camp. They were forced to turn on the lights of the monoplane until they could gather sufficient twigs for a fire.
When finally a roaring blaze illuminated the sky, they turned to complete making the camp.
As a precaution, this was made on a spot several hundred feet from the monoplane. This would do away with the danger of an explosion, for the intense heat from the fire might easily have ignited the remaining gas in the tank.
“Now to get a meal,” said Bob, edging closer to the blaze to escape the chill of the tropical night.
A delicious spread of food was prepared, all eating heartily. The eventful day had stimulated their appetites highly.
“I suppose there’s no use worrying,” grunted Karl, stretching out before the fire. “We’ll find a way out somehow. If we can’t do anything else, we can all hike to a town and carry back enough gas to carry us a short distance. Then we can hike to another town, and do the same thing over again.”
“Do these towns around here have gas, though?” came from Joe. Despite Karl’s expression of hope, he feared the worst.
“That we don’t know,” Mr. Wallace said. “It may be there hasn’t been an internal-combustion engine in this region for years, if at all.”
A rapidly growing exhaustion made the explorers for the time being forget their cares and curl up in the tent, after having heaped the fire high with fresh fuel. They had not thought it necessary to stand guard, as there was probably nothing in this region that would bother them.