“Have you got any guns aboard?” Jim asked tensely.

“No. There are a good many in the settlement and at the stations, but I’ve never bothered to carry any on the boat,” Howard answered.

Then again came the frightened cry of a woman, followed by a number of screams, which stopped suddenly as if a hand had been placed over the mouth that uttered them. With straining eyes the Buddies tried to peer through the tall, impenetrable foliage which grew on both sides of them, while the engineer stared tensely ahead lest he send his boat on the rocks that lined the way. It seemed to them as if hours passed, although it was only a few minutes before they raced around the last turn and shot forward into a wider stretch of water at the further end of the village.

At first they could not see anything unusual about the community, but as they went along they made out a confused collection of native men and women. The white people among them appeared to be herded in the middle, and the moment the engine was silenced, startled voices cried protestingly, as the huge Indians crowded close. Jim heard one voice above the others, speaking a language he did not know, and recognized Don’s clear tones which sounded cool and determined. Howard brought the boat up to the beach, but he hesitated a moment.

“Thinking of taking some of them off?” Bob whispered and the man nodded his head.

“Looks as if the natives have jumped on the whites for some reason or other,” he answered. “I don’t want to hop out if we can get the women away, but those fellows look ugly and our chances are mighty slim, I’m afraid.”

“Wait here for us,” Jim said softly. Then he leaped ashore, his hands dug deep in his coat pockets, and Bob, not knowing what was in his step-brother’s mind, followed suit.

“Better keep on the outer edge of them,” Howard warned.

“We will!” Jim ran a few yards, and yelled at the top of his lungs. “You fellows want a bomb or two right in the middle of you?” He drew one fist up as if it held something large and deadly, and a few of the men faced him quickly, but the others merely crowded closer to the white women and sneered defiantly.

“No kill own women,” one declared.

“Don’t kid yourself,” Jim reported quickly. “I’ll blow up the lot of you in about a half a minute.” He looked exactly as if he meant every word of it, and he did, but there was nothing more dangerous in his pocket than a small flashlight. Then he saw Donald standing close beside his mother and father, whose arms were bound with thongs. “What’s it all about?” he demanded. The young Indian spoke to the men nearest him; presently there was a silence, and he faced Jim.

“I am glad that you appeared with your bombs, Mr. Austin, you and your brother, but I pray that you will not use them immediately. I am sure the men here will listen to reason,” he said elaborately.

“They won’t have much time to listen to reason. Where I come from we make a practice to shoot or throw our bombs first and apologize afterwards,” Jim snapped, and his eyes blazed furiously. “I heard those women scream. Tell those fellows to take their hands off, or I won’t listen to anything—not a thing!”

“I will,” Donald said quickly. Both boys knew that a good many of the natives understood perfectly what was said, and now those who were nearest to the belligerent-looking young Texans stepped away from their captives. Donald interpreted the speech, and the other women were promptly released.

“That’s better. Now, what’s the trouble,” Jim thundered, and was glad that his voice was a deep one.

“Professor Martin took a party of men, women and children into the woods. They thought they were going to have a party and a feast but he lead them to the Black Woods, into which they will not go until after the last butterfly has passed over to the sea.”

“Yes,” Jim snapped.

“He guided them into a passage he had found which lead them through the thickest part of the forest. Some of the men got suspicious and asked questions, then they all refused to go on, but the professor had herded the women and children ahead of him along with a couple of huge brutes he’d picked up in town. They forced the women to go on, and threatened to shoot the men if, they did not come with him and work where he wished.”

“I see.”

“They went along and were coming up a grade, when they heard strange sounds, the tramping of many feet. They broke and ran back.”

“Well.”

“They could not bring the women and children with them, so to be revenged, they came back and determined to kill every white woman and man they found here.”

“Yes.” Jim was thinking hard and he certainly wished that his pockets were full of explosives.

“They gathered up friendly tribes to help them, and landed here about half an hour ago, took possession of all the guns in the settlement, drove the native women away, and captured the white women,” Donald explained.

“Don’t they know the professor will come back with their families?” Bob asked.

“At this time none may come back from the Black Woods,” one man declared sullenly. “None comes out alive.”

“The Professor, who is a fool, will himself never come back. He took children, our children, to their deaths,” another put in darkly.

“For the loss of them, we take the white women,” snapped a third, and his hand went toward Phyllis’ shoulder.

“Hold off,” Jim snapped, stepping forward quickly, and the hand remained suspended in the air. “Now, listen to me, you fellows, I’ll get your women and children out of the Black Forest, or Woods—”

“They will be dead—none comes out alive—never since the curse of Bloody Dam.”

“Let me tell you something, you men. I was in the Black Woods, I’ve been at the Bloody Dam, my buddy here and I were there the first day the butterflies started their flight, and we came out alive—”

“You lie—”

“I do not lie. We heard the baying of the dogs, saw the fall of the stone wall, the wall on which the ancient prophet stood when he cursed all who entered the Black Woods—”

“You saw and heard?” An old man came close. “Did one of them look into your eyes?” The voice shook and the man’s lips trembled.

“None looked into my eyes, nor my buddy’s eyes,” Jim answered solemnly, “and we came through, past poison snakes, over rotten logs, and now, on the ancient ruin there is a white man into whose eyes the last man of the band gazed. The man is mad, he was digging a hole in the ground when we saw him last.”

“This is true,” Donald added; then he spoke in their own tongue and the natives stared at the two white boys as if they were beings from some other world.

“How can you bring our children back?” one asked and his lips were set in a firm line.

“There is an airplane here. We will go to fetch them. Howard, who is in the boat, where there are more bombs, will stand guard. You must let the white women go to the shore and no man must lay a hand on them until we return. Do you understand?”

“You will go to the settlement for soldiers,” one snarled.

“I will go to the Black Woods, to the Bloody Dam if need be, for your children, and I will fetch them back. I do not lie,” he declared with great soberness.

“You shall go. The white woman may assemble near the boat with the engineer; but if in three-quarters of an hour you have not returned, they shall all be destroyed,” the old man answered, and the other nodded their assent.

“You have been in the Black Woods and you cannot lie,” a younger man spoke sharply. “If we do not hear the loud purr of your engines in the time set, they shall die. While you are gone, many of the friendly tribe will post themselves so that they will know if you do not keep your word, and if but one soldier appears, all shall be killed.”

“I’m not worrying,” Jim answered, and wished clear down to his boots that the statement was true, for he was frightened.

“Can all the natives speak English?” Bob asked.

“You mean those with the professor?” Donald wanted to know.

“Yes.”

“A few of them can.”

“Good. Now, where is that plane? Howard said it had a cabin. How many women and children did they leave behind?”

“About fifteen or twenty,” the Indian lad answered quietly.

“If we cannot bring them in one load, we can in two,” said Jim, but he kept his fists in his pockets as they went to the shed into which the plane had been run. It took only a few minutes to get her engine warmed up, the Flying Buddies were in the cock-pit, and Jim turned to Donald.

“Is there likely to be more than one passage through the Black Woods?” he asked.

“There is only one. These men say they were climbing most of the way, if that is any help as to direction.”

“Thanks. Don’t give up the ship.”

“Good luck.”

No one waved when the huge airplane lifted off the ground, spiraled over the little group assembled near the water, with their dark-skinned guards standing close by. Bob looked over the side and saw a number of the naked men making their way into the wood to points from which they could give warning if the soldiers or workers connected with the settlement came to help the prisoners. From up in the air the situation looked even more serious than from on the ground, and the Buddies exchanged anxious glances.

“I’m banking on the fact that they were climbing up hill. As I remember it, we went pretty level for a while, then began to descend over a rough route,” said Jim through the speaking tube, for the plane’s equipment was not very modern.

“Hoping they’ll come out on that hill?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Remember the chart readings?”

“Surely. I sketched the place and location for Captain Seaman,” Austin replied.

“But suppose we do not find them, or find they have been killed?” Caldwell’s lips were grim. “If we took that information back to the natives, the women would be slaughtered.”

“I know,” Jim nodded.

“Don’t you think you’d better take word to the settlement? There are little towns around here and someone could get a note through to Captain Seaman—”

“And he’d get killed trying to bring them out! If we dropped a message, some of the natives might get hold of it, and Buddy, we haven’t got a second to go down and find a white man.”

After that they sat silent as the huge machine thundered up over the hills, past villages, white and native, over the ridge or the nearest range, over rushing rivers, and finally in the distance they were sure they saw the Black Woods which stretched for miles wild and desolate, particularly at this time of the year, when a funeral somberness seemed to hover over it and its ancient tragedies. On they sped, and at last Bob pointed toward a high bare clearing and there beyond the ravine arose the great stones of the ancient temple ruin, where they had left Mills. Eagerly the lads scanned the cleared place, then their eyes went over the ruin, but not a sign of a human being did they see in either place. Glancing at the dial clock, Jim spiraled in wide circles which included the two places, while Bob searched vainly for a sign of the professor and his kidnapped band.

“Maybe we guessed wrong,” Jim said tensely.

“Let’s drop down anyway,” Bob proposed.

“Reckon I’d better,” Austin agreed, but his heart was hammering against his ribs and his fingers were so cold he could hardly handle the stick. He shut off the engine, circled and finally they dropped near the opening Lang and his men had forced them to enter. For a moment they waited, then Jim released his safety belt, and prepared to hop out of the cock-pit.

“I’m coming along,” Bob announced.

“Wish you’d stay here, Buddy. If I have to run for it with some of those people, we might be mighty glad to get off quickly.”

“Well, all right.” Bob slid into the pilot’s seat. “I’ve got a hunch that Martin must be crazy. Wish you had some sort of gun.”

“Second the motion, but I haven’t. I’ll pick up a club.” Austin dropped to the ground, hurried to the edge of the woods, paused long enough to arm himself with a stout club, then leaped on the log and a moment later was hidden from his buddy’s sight as he disappeared into the passage.

“Gosh all hemlock, I’d rather be going along with him than sitting here,” Bob grumbled uneasily as he tried vainly to catch a glimpse of his step-brother. But, except for the swaying of the long vines which partially concealed the entrance, there was no sign that a living soul had entered the terrible passage. Through Caldwell’s mind raced the memory of that awful trip with their arms bound and he felt as if he knew every inch of the route over logs, rocks, traps, streams, holes, snake dens—to Bloody Dam. He gasped, then he shook himself with grim determination. “Nice sort of codfish I’ve developed into—with a back like a jelly fish.”

Caldwell proceeded to upbraid himself roundly for his lack of courage, but the recollection of those white women back there in the settlement, surrounded by grim natives who knew how to read the white man’s clock, and were even now watching the minutes tick away made him shiver apprehensively. When the last one passed, if the boys had not returned with at least some of the women and children, alive and unharmed, the fate of Mrs. Manwell, her kindly husband, the Hardings, and any white men who appeared, was sealed.

“If we do not get there on time they will be sure we sent for the soldiers,” he said softly, and he glanced at the control board, but with an effort managed to restrain himself from looking at the time piece.

He wondered dully what Jim was doing, how far he had gone, and whether he was safe or had fallen a victim to some section of the passage with its numberless pitfalls. Resolutely he searched the sky for a sign of another plane, but saw nothing, although once he thought he heard one. However, he attributed this to his over-wrought imagination. He considered starting the engine to keep it warm, then he remembered that the noise would drown any shouts or instructions Jim might try to call to him. Straining his ears, the boy tried to distinguish some sound, but only the noises of the desolate forest reached him. Not even the song or chirp of a bird relieved the oppressiveness of his surroundings. Cold fear clutched Bob’s heart like great icy fingers, and his teeth chattered, as his brain called up the horror of the position he was in.

He thought again of the white women, waiting tight-lipped for their fate, whatever it might be; he thought of Professor Martin whose stubborness and determination to make the natives obey his orders had brought such difficulties, and this minute threatened the little band he had forced to follow him; then the British officer at the barracks whose wife was in gravest danger; and Jim alone there in the passage.

He shook himself vigorously, stretched his cramped legs, moved from side to side on his seat, and glanced about the spacious cabin which he prayed would soon be filled with the wives and children of the natives. He glanced across the clearing toward the ruin, and wondered what had happened to the Indians they had seen around the place. His eyes sought the tiny pool with its trickling stream moving so quietly one could hardly tell it was there, and wished he dared hop out and drink of its cool water. His throat and lips were dry.

From a distance Bob thought again that he heard a plane, but it was faint and he could not find it anywhere in the sky, although he searched hard, in an effort to get his mind off this anxiety. He knew there were several mail and passenger routes between the two countries but he was far off their course, so it was not likely to be one of them. There wasn’t a cloud, even a tiny one, in the whole sky, so every pilot going from south to north, or back, could follow his course as easily as if it were a green line in a New York subway passage. He sighed wearily, and wondered what time it was, but forced himself to keep his eyes off the clock. He feared lest the limited time allotted had passed. Then, he sprang up, for far off he heard a muffled scream. It came from the forest and sounded as if someone were being tortured. Again it came louder than before, and with mechanical fingers that flew over the buckles, he freed himself from his safety belt, leaped out of the cock-pit, and ran as fast as his legs could carry him to the entrance of the passage.