"Well, I think we are, from what little information Goosal gave us," remarked Tom. "This buried city of his must be a wonderful place."
"It is, if it is what I take it to be," agreed the professor. "I told you I would bring you to a land of wonders, Tom Swift, and they have hardly begun yet. Come, I am anxious to talk to Goosal."
In order that the Indians in the Bumper camp might not hear rumors of the new plan to locate the hidden city, and, at the same time, to keep rumors from spreading to the camp of the rivals, the scientist and his friends started a new shaft, and put a shift of men at work on it.
"We'll pretend we are on the right track, and very busy," said Tom. "That will fool Beecher."
"Are you glad to know he did not take your map Professor Bumper?" asked Mr. Damon.
"Well, yes. It is hard to believe such things of a fellow scientist."
"If he didn't take it he wanted to," said Tom. "And he has done, or will do, things as unsportsmanlike."
"Oh, you are hardly fair, perhaps, Tom," commented Ned.
"Um!" was all the answer he received.
With the Indians in camp busy on the excavation work, and having ascertained that similar work was going on in the Beecher outfit, Professor Bumper, with Mr. Damon and the young men, set off to visit the Indian village and listen to Goosal's story. They passed the place where Tom had slain the jaguar, but nothing was left but the bones; the ants, vultures and jungle animals having picked them clean in the night.