"For we don't want to run past these fellows, or shoot over their heads in our hurry," Tom explained. "Ned, get out the binoculars. They're easier to handle than the telescope. Then go up forward, and keep a sharp lookout. There is something like a jungle trail below us, and it looks to be the only one around here. They probably took that." Soon after leaving the place where they had camped after the battle, Tom had seen a rude path through the forest, and had followed that lead.
On sped the Flyer, after the two Englishmen, while Tom thought regretfully of his stolen camera.
CHAPTER XXI
THE JUNGLE FIRE
"Well, Tom, I don't seem to see anything of them," remarked Ned that afternoon, as he sat in the bow of the air craft, gazing from time to time through the powerful glasses.
"No, and I can't understand it, either," responded the young inventor, who had come to relieve his chum. "They didn't have much the start of us, and they'll have to travel very slowly. It isn't as if they could hop on a train; and, even if they did, I could overtake them in a short time. But they have to travel on foot through the jungle, and can't have gone far."
"Maybe they have bullock carts," suggested Mr. Damon.
"The trail isn't wide enough for that," declared Tom. "We've come quite a distance now, even if we have been running at low speed, and we haven't seen even a black man on the trail," and he motioned to the rude path below them.
"They may have taken a boat and slipped down that river we crossed a little while ago," suggested Ned.