“All right,” agreed Fred, whose face had begun to assume an alarmed look. “S-s-s-s-say, Tubby, you don’t think we’re lost, do you?”
Tubby was quick to note the quaver in Fred’s voice, and he bravely put on a careless air.
“Lost! Not a bit of it. Two Boy Scouts lost in a bit of timber like this? Not much. Come on, old chap, and we’ll be laughing over our scare within an hour’s time.”
But hour after hour went by and still the two lads, now thoroughly scared, though neither had yet admitted it, plunged along through the jungle. At last when they reached a small open space, Fred could stand it no longer. He sank down on a fallen tree trunk and fairly gave way to his fears.
“We’re lost, Tubby,” he moaned, “and it’s no use going any further. I can’t, in fact. I’m dead tired out. What on earth shall we do?”
The fat boy looked at his comrade with alarmed eyes. It was plain that Fred was on the verge of a nervous collapse. Their position was bad enough without that. And yet Tubby could find no words to comfort his companion. What Fred had said was the truth; they were lost in the trackless jungle, a terrifying situation indeed. From time to time during their wanderings they had fired their rifles, hoping to hear some response, but none had come.
Tubby, however, had, whenever possible, marked the trail either by barking or blazing a tree with his knife in Indian fashion, or by leaving grass and stone signs in a manner familiar to all first-class Scouts. This was now the only crumb of comfort he could offer to Fred.
“Cheer up. Maybe they’ll pick up the trail,” he said as hopefully as he could.
“But if they don’t, we—gracious! Look there!”
Facing the two lost boys was a party of squat, copper-colored little men with big round heads and straight black hair. They carried bows and arrows and spears. Their clothes consisted of old sacking, bits of cloth, anything in fact that would partially cover them. They evidently formed a hunting party, for some of them carried wild pigs and one or two had a deer slung on a branch between them. They had crept up quite silently and now regarded the interlopers intently.