The Nelson swept out of the air like a bird and landed so close to the fire that Ned felt the warmth of it on his face. The wheels cut the earth at first, under the force of the quick descent, then stopped.

The firelight shone on the white planes, bringing them out strongly against the darkness, and Ned knew that he could not remain there a minute without being discovered by the alleged officers of the little republic he was just then warring against. When he landed the men were out of sight around the ledge, but they of course saw the aeroplane and came running back.

Lyman, or a man Ned believed to be the cattleman whose financial operations had stirred up an international row, stood moodily by the fire when the Nelson dropped down, almost on top of his head. He sprang away, rubbed his eyes as if trying to awake himself from a bad dream, and then stood stock still, watching.

"Lyman?" Ned called.

There was no reply, and Ned spoke the name again.

"Yes, Lyman," the man by the fire answered, then. "What new wrinkle is this?" he added, stepping a little closer to the machine.

"If you're Lyman," Ned replied, hastily, "you can't get in here any too quickly. Those fellows will be here directly, with Thomas Q. Collins in the lead, if my boys do their duty. There will be little chance for either of us then. Jump in!"

"But I've never been on one of those things, and I'm afraid," Lyman said, with a shrug of the shoulders. "I'm afraid I'd fall out."

A shot came from the ledge, and Ned reached for the button which would start the motors going.

"You've only a minute to decide," he said. "I've come a long way to find you. If you reject this chance you won't get another."

"Well," Lyman cried, stepping up to the seat, very shaky as to nerves and pale as death, "I may as well die from a fall as from a bullet or a knife. If Collins is coming back with the officers, I'll have to do something."

The instant he was in his seat, Ned threw the leather straps about his legs and wrists and buckled them tight. Lyman shivered with fright.

"I thought so!" he cried, mistaking Ned's motives. "This is only another trick!"

The wheels bumped for an instant over the inequalities of the surface, the machine rocked lightly, then the planes lifted into the air, the propellers running like mad. A few ineffectual shots came from the men who were running down from the ledge. Ned saw Jimmie and Jackson chasing Collins out of the valley, heard their shots, and then, in a few moments, saw them at the mouth of the tunnel.

In five minutes more the Nelson was out of all danger, purring through the darkness like a contented cat. Lyman sat moodily in his harness, saying not a word, but fully convinced that this was only another trick of his enemies. Directly the boy slowed the motors down so as to make conversation possible.

"Well," he said, turning on one of the electric bulbs so as to see the face of his passenger, "what do you think of the Nelson? Peach, isn't she?"

"Where are you taking me?" was the only reply to the question.

"That is for you to say. We are not very far from Sicuani, Peru, and from there you can secure transportation back to Asuncion—if you think it safe to go there, under the circumstances. About a hundred miles to the north is Cuzco. You can go there and prepare for your visit to Asuncion if you care to. Then, over here in Bolivia, is Sucre. It might be well for you to go there. Anyway, it is up to you."

"Who is doing this?" asked Lyman, suspiciously.

"I can't see as that makes any difference to you," Ned replied.

"I was in the hope," Lyman went on, "when you came down upon me so unexpectedly, that my friends had found me. You speak English like a New York man," he went on. "Perhaps you live over there?"

"Yes," was the reply. "I live in New York, when I am home."

"Nice little old rotten government we've got!" almost shouted Lyman. "The people at Washington let any crooked little republic do anything it has a mind to do to a citizen of the United States. They're too busy getting themselves into office and keeping in to pay any attention to their duties. England wouldn't stand for a minute the tricks that have been played on me, not by business rivals, but by the government of Paraguay! England protects her citizens, wherever they are!"

"Well," Ned replied, with a laugh, "you may be right about England, but you are wrong about Uncle Sam. He looks after his own, too; if he didn't I wouldn't be here now. You wouldn't be on earth!"

"Do you mean to say—"

Lyman hesitated, and Ned went on and told him as much of the history of the expedition as he thought it necessary for the cattleman to know.

"And now," he concluded, "Where do you want to go?"

"I want you to go with me, wherever I go," was the reply. "And I think we'd better go straight to Asuncion."

"Do you think that a safe plan?"

"Oh, yes; they won't dare abduct me again."

"Then," Ned added, "we may as well get on the way. Asuncion is somewhere about twelve hundred miles from here, and we've got to make it by daylight."

"What's that?" asked Lyman, hardly believing he had heard aright.
"You would better say in two days."

"The Nelson can make it in eight hours," Ned replied, "if we don't drop into any holes in the air or adverse currents."

"Holes in the air!" repeated Lyman.

"Sure," answered Ned. "The atmosphere surrounding the earth is just like the water in the large reservoirs—there are deep places and shallow places, holes you can drop in, and currents like the Gulf Stream current, the Japanese current, which warms the northern states and British Columbia, and the Arctic Humboldt current, which sends a cold stream down the Pacific coast of South America. If we have no difficulties with these rivers of the air, and the wind does not come up too strong, we can make Asuncion by six o'clock in the morning. It is about ten now."

"What sort of an airship have you here?" demanded Lyman, amazed at the thought of running at the rate of two hundred miles an hour or a hundred and fifty, at least.

"She was built for speed and endurance," was the reply. "Now cover your face with this mask, unless you want to have your breath blown out of the back of your head, and we'll get under way."

That was a night ride which neither of the participants ever forgot. The first part of the night was dark. Then a moon shone down from a cloudless sky, showing all the beauties of that magnificent country.

The mountains, the forests, the headwaters of the rivers which help to make the Amazon, were under their feet. Now and then they swept over a point of light which denoted the presence of a small town. Occasionally the cry of frightened wild beasts—the vicious mountain lion, the savage tiger cat, the prowling puma—came up to their ears.

After a short run to the southeast, Ned wheeled about and struck straight off to the east. The wind was growing stronger, and the Nelson was not making as good time as the boy desired.

There was a fierce current about the top of Mt. Sorata, which is something over 21,000 feet in height, and again Ned swung off to the north. Dropping down, then, he swept into the valley of the Beni river, which joins the Madeira river, some distance beyond the Bolivian border.

He knew that at the eastern rim of Bolivia there was a series of high mountain ranges which would protect him from the drifts blowing over from the Atlantic—Serre Geral, Serre Paxecis, Serre Aguapehy—and he reasoned that he could make better speed under the lee of these elevations. So he swept down the valley of the Beni until it joined with the Madeira, crossed a line of hills, and made for the Serre Geral range, something under a hundred miles away.

As the Nelson cleared the valley, however, Lyman gave Ned a punch in the ribs with an elbow and nodded toward the ground. His wrists were fast in the harness so he could not use his hands. Ned looked down and instantly dropped the Nelson a few hundred feet.

Some distance down the Madeira, in the center of the stream, were the lights of a boat which seemed to be anchored there. Ned swept closer and tried his best to make out the outlines of the craft, but he could not do it without descending close to the river, and this he did not care to do.

"It looks like the Black Bear," he thought, as he shot up into the air again, "but of coarse it can't be. Those Boy Scouts are not fools enough to bring her up into this country."

So he came to the protection of the mountains and proceeded south toward Asuncion at a speed which caused Lyman to gasp for breath. Of course he was ignorant of the fact that Frank, Jack, and Harry had started out, during his absence, to explore the headwaters of the Amazon, hoping to come upon the Nelson before returning.

As for the lads on the Black Bear, they did not even know that the Nelson was so close to them that night. It was three nights later that they first saw the aeroplane drifting above them. Asuncion does not at all compare in beauty or in thrift with the other capital cities of South America. The government of the republic is so unstable that business men are loath to make heavy investments there.

For one thing the town is poorly lighted, and when Ned came, in view of the place at five O'clock the few street lamps were already out. People were abroad at that early hour, however, and small crowds soon gathered on the street corners to watch the great airship approach.

What Ned could not see was the intense excitement around the government offices. In ten minutes from the time the airship showed above the city, messengers were out in the streets and officials of the lower rank were headed for their offices. In a few minutes this alarm was communicated to police headquarters and to the military station where the governor's guard was stationed.

If the boy had been able to understand the situation below, if he had known that Asuncion had been communicated with from Lima and also from Sicuani, he would have given the city a wide berth. He saw the gathering of crowds below, of course, but naturally attributed this to curiosity. He had no doubt that the Nelson was the first airship ever seen at Asuncion.

"Where are you going to take me?" asked Lyman, as the machine slowed down and he found himself able to speak.

"To the American consul," was the reply.

Lyman sighed and shook his head.

"I'm afraid he will take little interest in me," he said.

"Doubtless," Ned replied, "he has received instructions from Washington. Anyway, I fail to see how they can molest you now, even if they have the inclination to do so. You just go about your business as usual, and leave this abduction matter to the future. You can gain nothing now by stirring that up. Report to the consul and go on about your business as if nothing had happened."

"That is the only thing there is to do," Lyman responded, with a sigh. "Still, I'm suspicious of those chaps. They'll have some trick ready."

Before long Ned found a level spot not far from the capitol building where he could, drop the Nelson. When he headed for that locality he was followed through the streets below by a shouting, howling mob.

"I can't understand this," he thought, and Lyman was still more suspicious.

At last the Nelson was brought to the surface of the earth and Ned and Lyman stepped out, very willing to stretch their legs after such a long ride. They had been in the air about twice the time set for endurance by noted aviators.

They did not get much of a chance to stretch their legs, however, for they bumped into a squad of soldiers on stepping out of their seats.

"You are under arrest!" a gaily-dressed officer said, flashing his sword out of its scabbard.

"What for?" demanded Ned, speaking in Spanish.

"Smuggling!" was the reply.

Ned laughed heartily. Arrested for smuggling!

"Search us, and search the machine, then," he replied, "and let us go on about our business. We have no time to lose."

"In time! In time!" was the drawling reply. "Such things are not done so quickly here! In three-four days—in a week—in three, four weeks, perhaps. In the meantime you go to the jail."

Ned thought of the swiftly-slipping days, of the peril Jimmie and Jackson were in, of Leroy in prison at Lima, and was about ready to fight. The officer refused to take him to the president, or to the American consul. In a quarter of an hour he was in a cell, alone, wondering what had been done with Lyman, and also wondering what would become of the Nelson.

He knew that the charge of smuggling, of bringing goods into the republic by means of an airship, would be held against him as long as it pleased his accusers to keep him in prison. That would be until the concession expired and, possibly, until the Nelson lay a total wreck in the streets.

He saw no one who could give him any information as to what was going on in the outside until the morning of the 21st, after he had been incarcerated forty-eight hours. Then a turnkey unlocked his door and motioned him out.

"For trial?" Ned asked, hopefully.

"It is the wish of the president," was the reply.

"But what, why, when—"

"You have yet to see," was the impertinent reply. "You have yet to see if you can do these things to our countree!"

And so, mystified and, if the truth must be told, not a little discouraged, Ned was led through the prison corridors, his mind filled wit thoughts of Leroy, Jimmie, the Nelson, and, strangely enough, the Black Bear!

CHAPTER XV

THE WARNING FROM THE SKY

There was a shock when the prow of the Black Bear struck a canoe which lay full in its path. The momentum was retarded for only a second. Then the motor boat was beyond the line of war canoes with their screaming, gesticulating occupants.

Looking out of the rear ventilator, Frank saw a smashed canoe running down with the current, with a dozen or more natives clinging to it. But there was still a large number of canoes up the river, and the Black Bear was struck more than once by forceless bullets and poisoned arrows as she sped past them.

Armed with modern rifles, the Indians would have made short work of the occupants of the Black Bear, but the muskets they used were old and mostly out of condition. The arrows were far more deadly, although they stood less chance of penetrating the tough panels.

"Now," Harry said, as they passed a racing fleet of Indian boats, "we can open up a little and get a breath of fresh air! I'm just about suffocated!"

"Not just yet," Jack, who was at the front, said, "for there's a mess of the black scamps just ahead. They are on the bank, both banks, and seem to be waiting for something to happen. I wonder what it can be?"

"Some trap, I suppose," Harry gritted. "Well, all we can do is to ran on through them, if they come out in boats, and get out of their reach. We ought to be able to be out of this blasted country in a couple of hours."

"That's all right," Jack replied, "but you just listen a moment."

But the racing motors shut out all individual sounds, and Harry shut them down for a minute. Seeing this, Jack dropped an anchor at the prow, and the boat lay pulling at the cable in the current.

"What did you do that for?" asked Frank, addressing both boys from the stem.

"Listen!" commanded Jack.

"Look!" ordered Harry.

What Frank heard was the heavy, continuous roar of a waterfall. What he saw, as he crowded up under the plate glass panel in the top, were the lights of an airship!

"I tell you," Harry cried, excitedly, "that that's the Nelson. You can't fool me about that."

"Why doesn't she come down, then?" demanded Jack.

"Because she doesn't know that this is the Black Bear. That is an easy one! If she did she'd be here in a second."

The boys studied the lights a moment and then turned their attention to the Indians, who were now making a great clamor. In a short time it was easy to see what they were up to.

Above roared the falls and the rapids. At this point in the Beni river there is a swift drop from the mountain plateau above. It will be remembered that the Beni reaches away up into the Illimani mountains, with its springs not far distant from the summit of the Andes.

Where the boys were the Paredon and the Paderneira, falls and the Araras and the Misericordia rapids made the navigation of the river, even in the protected Black Bear, impossible for many miles. The Indians seemed to understand this, for they had gathered at the foot of the falls, possibly expecting to see the craft attempt the ascent.

Jack watched them from the prow for a time and then asked:

"What's that they are throwing into the river?"

"Logs!" replied Harry, looking out over Jack's shoulder, "and brush!"

"Well, of all the—"

The sentence was not finished. Frank, at the stern, gave a yell and fired out of the loophole. "Come here!" he shouted, then, "if you want to see what the devils are doing. This takes the cake!"

A glance showed the others what the plot against them was. Harry went to his locker for his revolver and Jack drew his from a pocket.

"I guess it is a fight now!" Frank said. "You see what they are doing?"

"Of course. Anybody can see that."

Jack reached out of the opening and fired a perfect volley down stream. Frank crowded against him to look out.

"Never touched them!" he cried.

"No," Jack went on, "they're forming a bridge with their canoes and running logs and brush down against it. They've got an obstruction already that the Black Bear never can get through."

"What's the matter with dynamite?" asked Harry.

"Oh, we can use dynamite as long as we have it," was the reply, "but there will be Indians on guard there long after we are out of the stuff."

"I guess that's right!" with a sober drawing of the lips.

"I'll tell you what we've got to do," Harry said, presently. "We've got to put on full power and try to run up the rapids."

"Why, there is noise enough for a ten-foot fall," Frank replied.

"We've got to risk it," Jack went on.

"Now, you just wait," Frank cut in. "I don't think you've got this thing sized up right at all. Harry," he continued, "who does this boat belong to?"

"To the Black Bear Patrol," was the reply. "You know that well enough."

"Then we can do what we please with it, so long as we make it right with the other members of the Patrol?"

"Why, of course."

Jack looked at his chums with a grin.

"What are you figuring on?" he asked. "One would think you were planning to blow the Black Bear into smithereens."

"That's about it," Frank replied.

"And go to kingdom come with her?" laughed Jack. "Not any of that for me. I'm headed, eventually, for little old N.Y."

"I'm tired of fooling with these cannibals," Frank explained. "We haven't molested them, and yet they are after our scalps. They'll get them, too, if something isn't done—and done right away, at that."

"I'm with you!" Jack exclaimed. "I'm willing to try anything once.
Only let me in on the secret!" he added, chuckling.

"You had it right," Frank said. "What I propose is to blow the Black Bear into smithereens, and about a thousand of those bloodthirsty natives with it. The world will be all the better for their being out of it. They are worse than the savage beasts in the forests."

"But what is to become of us?" asked Harry.

Frank pointed to the Wolf, tugging at the cable which held her nose to the stem of the Black Bear.

"We'll be safe in there when the explosion takes place," he said.

Jack clapped the speaker on the shoulder.

"You're all right!" he cried.

Harry looked mystified for a moment, and then said, speaking loudly in order that his voice might be heard above the shouts of the savages and the beating of arrows against the panels of the boat:

"It looks as if we'd have to do it. I hate to leave the Black Bear in such a mess away off here in South America, but I don't see how we are to get her out. The Wolf will carry us all right, I suppose?" he said, tentatively.

"Sure thing!" Frank replied. "I've been thinking it all out. We'll do it this way: When we get ready we'll put on full speed ahead on the motors, with the prow turned against that obstruction below. Then we'll hop into the Wolf and shut everything down tight. The Black Bear will weaken the jam below, and the sharp nose of the Wolf will poke through the rest of the logs and canoes. And there you are!"

"Free of the natives, and bobbing down the river in safety!" cried
Jack. "That looks good to me!"

"But about the dynamite?" asked Harry.

"Well," Frank replied, "we've got to use the Black Bear for a battering ram anyway, and she'll be all smashed up, so we may as well go the whole hog with her. We'll put a lot of dynamite down under the motors and fix a cap so it will blow up when the concussion comes. By that time the natives will be swarming around her, and they'll get what's coming to them."

"And where will we be when the explosion is rocking this half of the world?" demanded Harry. "Up in the air?"

"We'll be a cuddled up in the Wolf, between the lockers, with plenty of grub and ammunition, sailing down the river in a bullet-proof vessel. This move will burst up our meeting with the Nelson, of course, but there is no other way. They'll get us if we remain here."

While this talk had been going on, the cannibals had drawn nearer to the Black Bear, pressing forward from both banks in canoes and pounding at the panels with their arrows. It seemed only a question of time when they would board the craft and force the panels. Their shouts of victory were shrill and exasperating.

"You see how it is," Frank said, "the Black Bear can never be pushed up over the falls, and we can never get her past the obstructions below, even by the use of dynamite. If we could blow the those logs out of the way, the Indians would board us instantly. We could give them only a charge or two of dynamite and a few shots before they would be inside. Now' we can drift down the river in the Wolf without fear of entertaining man-eaters on board. They may get on top of the boat, but they can never get inside."

"And so we'll have to give up our trip!" wailed Harry. "We'll have to drift down stream in that hot hole and take a steamer at the nearest river town!"

"It strikes me," Frank observed, "that it is a mighty good thing we've got that hot hole to drift down stream in. If the Black Bear had only been constructed on the principle of the Wolf, we'd be in a position to give these heathens the laugh. Well, let us pull the Wolf up and throw out stuff enough to give us room. Then we'll get out the dynamite."

The boys drew the Wolf up by the cable as Frank tried to elude the watchful eyes of the savages long enough to open the hatch on top and climb inside, but a dozen arrows whizzed by his head when he looked out.

"Can't do it!" he said.

"Never in the world!" Jack assented.

"Another good scheme gone wrong!" Harry ejaculated. "What next?"

"Dynamite," almost shouted Jack. "We'll give them dynamite as long as it lasts, and then ram the logs below."

"We may kill, a couple of hundred," Frank said, "but it seems to me that there will be about ten thousand left."

The boys were indeed in a tight box. With their automatics and their dynamite they might keep the natives at bay for a time, but in the end they would be obliged to surrender or starve to death.

"Well," Jack said, grimly, "let's get out the dynamite. I want to see some of these devils blown up!"

Just then an arrow struck the plate glass panel at the top of the Black Bear's deck covering and Jack looked up. He gazed a moment in wonder and then let out a shout that rose above the yelling of the savages and the pounding of arrows against the panels of the Black Bear.

"Glory be!" he shouted.

Frank and Harry crowded to his side and looked up.

"It is the Nelson!" Harry exclaimed.

"You bet it is!" Frank admitted.

"Good old Ned!" Jack roared.

The aeroplane was only a few yards above the Black Bear. Already the natives were slinking away in their canoes. Those on the banks were slowly withdrawing into the shelter of the forests.

"They're running away!" Jack cried. "Now we'll have some fun with good old Ned Nestor!"

For a moment it looked as if the statement was correct; as if the natives, alarmed at the sight of the aeroplane would disappear from sight without a fight. But this supposition was soon disproved.

As the Nelson came nearer, a dozen bullets from the forests struck her planes. The boys, in the boat raised the panel and shouted to the aviator to look out for poisoned arrows.

Then the aeroplane shot up again. They could see that there was only one person on the machine, and that he was busy arranging something which looked like a stick of dynamite which he held in his hands.

In a moment something grim and sinister whirled and hissed through the air, and then there came a terrific explosion in the forest to the right. Trees were leveled, and a great hole showed in the bank. In an instant, following close on the roar of the dynamite, there came a chorus of cries from savage throats-cries of fear, of terror, of rage—and then silence.

For a moment it seemed as if the forests held no forms of animal life, then the sharp call of the tiger-cat, the wail of the puma, the chattering of the monkeys, came to the ears of the listening boys.

"I guess this coming act will consist of a feed for the wild beasts!" Jack said.

For a long time there was no sound of savage life in the forests, save that from the throats of beasts of prey, scenting blood and slowly drawing closer to the river's banks. The boys on the Black Bear looked into each other's faces and wondered.

"They didn't act that way when we exploded dynamite!" Jack said.

"No. They came right back at us!" Frank replied.

"I take it that they think there's something supernatural in this dropping of dynamite from the sky," Harry observed. "Anyway, they seem to have taken themselves off, and we'll open up and signal to the Nelson! Say, won't it be fine to see good old Ned Nestor again? I wonder how he knew we were here?"

"And I wonder where Jimmie and Leroy are?" Harry reflected. "There is only one person on the machine, and that must be Ned."

Jack was about to throw open the top panels when he caught sight of the aeroplane again, nearer to the water than before.

"What's Ned doing?" he asked, pointing upward.

"Talking!" exclaimed Frank.

"Wigwagging!" Harry broke out. "Now, let us see what he says."

Slowly to the right and left, up and down, an electric bulb flashed in the sky. Harry counted.

"That's C;" he said, "and that's 'a,' and that's 'u,' and that's 't,' and now 'i,' and 'o,' and 'n.' 'Caution!' That means that we've got to stand pat for a time yet."

"It also means," Jack said, "that we've made no mistake about that being the Nelson, with a Boy Scout on board. Those wigwag signals show the supposition to be true."

"Well," Harry puzzled, "he wouldn't be sending us a warning from the sky if there wasn't some danger we were not aware of. There is something going on that we are not wise to."

There was a short silence on board and then Frank remarked:

"We must be nearer the falls than we thought, for the water seems to be a ripple about us. Rear it! I'm going to look out and see it looks like."

In a moment he was jamming the panel shut and springing the slides over the loopholes and the ventilators.

Jack sprang to the prow, not knowing what danger threatened, but obeying the sudden gestures of his chum to close every opening. Before he sprung the steel panel over the ventilator he glanced out on the river.

"Great heavens!" he cried. "Get your guns, boys!"

The whole surface of the stream, as far as the boy's eyes reached, seemed covered with savage heads, floating, drifting, down upon the Black Bear.