LITMIR.BIZ

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“The tents may remain just where you left them, but, even if they are there, you may have no chance of securing them. It is a risky proposition!”

      “What do you mean?” asked Ben.

      “I mean that the superstition of the savages may restrain them from laying hands on the tents and provisions you left,” replied Bixby, “but, at the same time,” he continued, “they may watch the old camp for days in the hope of your return.”

      “What’s the idea?” asked Glenn.

      “Do they want to eat us?” asked Jimmie.

      “Some of the wild tribes living near the head waters of the Amazon,” Bixby explained, “are crazy over the capture of white men. They are said to march them back to their own country in state, and to inaugurate long festivals in honor of the victory. And during the entire festival,” Bixby went on, “the white prisoners are subjected to tortures of the most brutal description!”

      “Say,” giggled Jimmie, giving Carl a dig in the ribs with his elbow, “let’s take the train for Guayaquil to-morrow morning! I don’t think it’s right for us to take chances on the savages having all the fun!”

      “As between taking the first train for Guayaquil and taking a trip through the air to the old camp to-night,” Bixby laughed, “I certainly advise in favor of the former.”

      “Aw, that’s all talk,” Ben explained, as Bixby, after promising to look about in the morning for oiled-silk and provisions, locked his place of business and started toward the hotel with the boys.

      “What do you say to it, Carl?” Jimmie asked, as the two fell in behind the others.

      “I’m game!” replied Carl.

      “Then I’ll tell you what we’ll do!” Jimmie explained. “You and I will get a room together and remain up until moonrise. If the sky is clear of clouds at that time, and promises to remain so until morning, we’ll load ourselves down with all the guns we can get hold of and fly out to the old camp. It’ll be a fine ride, anyway!”

      “Pretty chilly, though, in high altitudes at this time of night,” suggested Carl. “I’m most frozen now!”

      “So’m I,” Jimmie replied, “and I’ll tell you what we’ll do! When we start away we’ll swipe blankets off the bed. I guess they’ll keep us warm.”

      “Well, we’ll have to keep Glenn and Ben from knowing anything about the old trip,” Carl suggested. “Of course they couldn’t prevent us going, but they’d put up a kick that would make it unpleasant.”

      “Indeed they would!” answered Jimmie. “But, at the same time, they’d go themselves if they’d got hold of the idea first. I suggested it, you know, and that’s one reason why they would reject it.”

      Arrived at the hotel, Jimmie and Carl had no difficulty in getting a double room, although their chums looked rather suspiciously at them as they all entered the elevator.

      “Now,” said Ben, “don’t you boys get into any mischief to-night. Quito isn’t a town for foreigners to explore during the dark hours!”

      “I’m too sleepy to think of any midnight adventures!” cried Jimmie with a wink and a yawn.

      “Me, too!” declared Carl. “I’ll be asleep in about two minutes!”

      It was about ten o’clock when the boys found themselves alone in a large room which faced one of the leading thoroughfares of the capital city. Quito is well lighted by electricity, and nearly all the conveniences of a city of the same size in the United States are there to be had.

      The street below the room occupied by the two boys was brilliantly lighted until midnight, and the lads sat at a window looking out on the strange and to them unusual scene. When the lights which flashed from business signs and private offices were extinguished, the thoroughfare grew darker, and then the boys began seriously to plan their proposed excursion.

      “What we want to do,” Jimmie suggested, “is to get out of the hotel without being discovered and make our way to a back street where a cab can be ordered. It is a mile to the field where the machines were left, and we don’t want to lose any time.”

      Before leaving the room the boys saw that their automatic revolvers and searchlights were in good order. They also made neat packages of the woolen blankets which they found on the bed and carried them away.

      “Now,” said Jimmie as they reached a side street and passed swiftly along in the shadow of a row of tall buildings, “we’ve got to get into a cab without attracting any attention, for we’ve stolen the hotel’s blankets, and we can’t talk Spanish, and if a cop should seize us we’d have a good many explanations to make.”

      “I don’t think it’s good sense to take the blankets,” Carl objected.

      “Aw, you’ll think so when we get a couple of thousand feet up in the air on the Louise!” laughed Jimmie.

      After walking perhaps ten minutes, the boys came upon a creaking old cab drawn by a couple of the sorriest-looking horses they had ever seen. The driver, who sat half asleep on the seat, jumped down to the pavement and eyed the boys suspiciously as they requested to be taken out to where the machines had been left.

      The lads were expecting a long tussle between the English and the Spanish languages, but the cabman surprised them by answering their request in excellent English.

      “So?” exclaimed Jimmie. “You talk United States, too, do you? Where did you come from?”

      “You want to go out to the machines, do you?” asked the cabman, without appearing to notice the question.

      “That’s where we want to go!” replied Carl.

      “What for?” asked the cabman.

      “None of your business!” replied Jimmie.

      “I’ve been out there once to-night!” said the cabman, “and the party I drew beat me out of my fare.”

      “That’s got nothing to do with us!” replied Carl.

      “It’ll cost you ten dollars!” growled the cabman.

      “Say, look here!” Jimmie exclaimed. “You’re a bigger robber than the New York cabmen! It’s only a mile to the field, and we’ll walk just to show you that we don’t have to use your rickety old cab.”

      With a snarl and a frown the cabman climbed back up on his seat and gave every appearance of dropping into sound slumber.

      “Now what do you think of that for a thief?” asked Carl, as the boys hastened away toward the field. “I’d walk ten miles before I’d give that fellow a quarter!”

      “We’ve got plenty of time,” Jimmie answered. “The moon won’t be up for an hour yet. Perhaps we’d better walk up anyway, for then we can enter the field quietly and see what’s going on.”

      On the way out the lads met several parties returning from the field, and when they reached the opening in the fence they saw that many curious persons were still present. There were at least half a dozen vehicles of different kinds gathered close about the roped-off circle.

      “Say,” Carl exclaimed as the boys passed into the field, “look at that old rattletrap on the right. Isn’t that the same vehicle the cabman pretended to go asleep on as we came away?”

      “Sure it is!” answered Jimmie. “I don’t remember the appearance of the cab so well, but I know just how the horses looked.”

      “He must have found a ten-dollar fare out here!” Carl suggested.

      “Yes, and he must have come out by a roundabout way in order to prevent our seeing him. Now what do you think he did that for? Why should he care whether we see him or not?”

      As the boy asked the question the rig which they had been discussing was driven slowly away, not in the direction of the road, but toward the back end of the field.

      “Something mighty funny going on here!”

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