see any savages!” replied Glenn.
“Can’t you hear them?” demanded Jimmie.
“I think I can smell something!” Carl exclaimed.
“Don’t get gay, now!” Jimmie answered. “This is no funny business! If you’ll listen, you’ll hear the snakes creeping through the grass.”
The boys listened intently for an instant and then, without looking into the tents, sprang toward the machines. It seemed for a moment as if a thousand voices were shouting at them. They seemed to be in the center of a circle of men who were all practicing a different style of war-whoop.
To this day the boys assert that it was the whirling of the electric searchlights which kept the savages from advancing upon them. At any rate, for a time, the unseen visitors contented themselves with verbal demonstrations.
“We’ll have to jump out on the machines!” advised Glenn. “We can’t fight a whole army!”
“Why, there’s only two!” Jimmie taunted. “You said yourself that we saw all the black men there were in this neighborhood!”
“Aw, keep still,” Ben cried. “We haven’t got time to listen to you boys joke each other! Come on, Jimmie! You and I for the Louise!”
It was now very dark, for banks of clouds lay low in the valley, but the boys knew that the machines were situated so as to run smoothly until the propellers and the planes brought them into the air. They had provided for that on landing.
With a chorus of savage yells still ringing in their ears, the boys leaped into their seats, still swinging their searchlights frantically as their only means of protection, and pressed the starters. The machines ran ahead smoothly for an instant then lifted.
The next minute there was absolute silence below. The boys were certain that if they could have looked down upon the savages who had been so threatening a moment before they would have seen them on their knees with their faces pressed to the ground.
“They’ll talk about this night for a thousand years!” Jimmie screamed in Ben’s ear as the Louise swept into and through a stratum of cloud. “They’ll send it down to future generations in legends of magic.”
“Little do we care what they think of us after we get out of their clutches!” Ben called back. “It seems like a miracle, our getting away at all!”
“Do you really think they are head-hunters?” shouted Jimmie.
“You saw more of them than I did,” Ben answered.
After passing through the clouds the starlight showed the way, and in a very short time the lights of Quito were seen glittering twenty miles or so to the south.
“What are we going to do when we get to the town?” shouted Jimmie.
“Hire some one to watch the machines and get a square meal!” Ben replied. “And buy new tents and provisions and everything of that kind!” he went on. “I suppose those savages will have a fine time devouring our perfectly good food.”
“And they’ll probably use the oiled-silk tents for clothing!” laughed Jimmie. “I wonder if we can buy more at Quito.”
“Of course we can!” replied Ben. “Quito has a hundred thousand inhabitants, and there are plenty of European places of business there!”
The Bertha with Glenn and Carl on board was some distance in advance, and directly the boys on the Louise saw the leading machine swing about in a circle and then gradually drop to the ground. Ben, who was driving the Louise, adopted the same tactics, and very soon the two flying machines lay together in an open field, perhaps a mile distant from Quito, the capital of Ecuador, the city known throughout the world as the “City of Eternal Spring.”
It was dark at the ground level, there being only the light of the stars, faintly seen through drifting masses of clouds, many hundred feet higher here than those which had nestled over the valley.
“What next?” asked Carl as the four boys leaped from their seats and gathered in a little group.
“Supper next!” shouted Jimmie.
“But we can’t all leave the machines!” declared Glenn.
“Don’t you ever worry about the machines being left alone!” asserted Ben. “Our lights will bring about a thousand people out here within the next ten minutes. Dark as it is, our machines were undoubtedly seen before we landed, and there’ll soon be an army here asking questions. We’ll have little trouble in finding English-speaking people in the mob.”
“I guess that’s right!” Jimmie agreed. “Here comes the gang right now!”
A jumble of English, Spanish and French was now heard, and directly a dozen or more figures were seen advancing across the field to where the flying machines had landed.
“There’s some one talking United States, all right!” Jimmie declared.
Directly the visitors came up to where the boys were standing and began gazing about, some impudently, some curiously and some threateningly.
“Keep your hands off the machines!” Glenn warned, as a dusky native began handling the levers.
The fellow turned about and regarded the boy with an impudent stare. He said something in Spanish which Glenn did not understand, and then walked away to a group of natives who were whispering suspiciously together.
“Where are you from?” asked a voice in English as Glenn examined the levers to see that nothing had been removed or displaced.
“Gee!” exclaimed Jimmie. “That United States talk sounds good to me!”
The man who had spoken now turned to Jimmie and repeated his question.
“Where do you boys come from?”
“New York,” Jimmie replied.
“And you came across the Isthmus of Panama?” was the next question.
“Sure we did!” answered the boy.
“Well,” the stranger said, “my name is Bixby, Jim Bixby, and I’ve been looking for you for two days.”
“Is that so?” asked Jimmie incredulously.
“You see,” Bixby went on, “I am a dealer in automobile supplies, probably the only one doing a large business in this part of the country. Some days ago I received a telegram from Louis Havens, the millionaire aviator, saying that four pupils of his were coming this way, and advising me to take good care of you.”
“Where did Mr. Havens wire from?” asked Jimmie.
“First from New York,” was the reply, “and then from New Orleans. It seems that he started away from New York on the day following your departure, and that he has been having trouble with the Ann all the way down. His last telegram instructed me to ask you to wait here until his arrival. He ought to be here sometime to-morrow.”
“That’ll be fine!” exclaimed Jimmie.
“And now,” Bixby went on, “you’ll have to employ two or three fellows to watch your machines for the night. The natives would carry them away piecemeal if you left them here unguarded.”
“Perhaps you can pick out two or three trusty men,” suggested Glenn.
“I have had three men in mind ever since I received my first message from Mr. Havens!” replied Bixby. “When your machine was sighted in the air not long ago, I ’phoned to their houses and they will undoubtedly be here before long.”
“How’ll they know where to come?” asked Jimmie.
“Don’t you think that half the people in Quito don’t know where these wonders of the air lighted!” Bixby laughed. “The news went over the city like lightning when your planes showed. Your lights, of course, revealed your exact whereabouts to those on this side of the town, and telephones and messenger boys have done the rest.”
While the boys talked with