Mary cast an apprehensive glance at the long row of native houses. “Homes of a hundred people,” she thought. “Perfectly wild natives.” But now nothing stirred there.

With long, quick strides she made her way where one man bent over the prostrate form of another.

When she was half way there she saw the kneeling man turn his head. Then she knew.

“Oh! Sparky!” she exclaimed. “You’re safe!”

“Sure! What’d you think?” The tall, strongly built young man with black, kinky hair grinned.

“I—I didn’t know.” She was closer now. “It would have been terrible if you had been seriously injured, you know.” Her voice dropped. “Secret cargo!”

“Yes, I know.”

“But Don!” she exclaimed. “Is he badly injured?” She was standing beside Sparky now.

“I can’t tell yet,” was the slow answer. “I have the courage to hope not. He got a bang on the head. That knocked him out. I’ve felt him over pretty carefully. No bones broken is my guess. But he keeps groaning. His hand comes up to his chest. Got a cracked rib or two I shouldn’t wonder.”

“That’s bad, isn’t it?”

“Bad enough, but it might be worse. Anyway, our plane can never be repaired. Not here it can’t.”

“And how will you ever get it out?”

“That’s it,” he agreed. “Looks as if we’re stuck—at least, our plane is. Guess we’ll have to go it alone, Mary, just you and I. It’s the way the Chief would want it.” His voice went husky. “That secret cargo must go through at all cost. Those were the orders. How do you feel about that?”

“How would you feel about going over the top somewhere in Africa?” she challenged.

“I wouldn’t think. I’d just go, same as any other soldier does.”

“It’s the same with me now,” she replied soberly. “I—am a soldier, too. Well, perhaps not quite, but I’m serving in a soldier’s plane, a mighty good one, too. Any man in my shoes would have to have had five hundred hours in the air.”

“And so where duty calls or danger—” he quoted.

“I shall always hope to be there,” she saluted. “But look!” she exclaimed. “Don is trying to sit up. He must not do that!”

“No! No! Old man! Not yet!” Once again Sparky was at his comrade’s side gently pushing him down.

“Wh—where am I? Who—what happened?” came in thick tones.

“You’re here and we’re here. Sparky and Mary,” said Sparky.

“Oh! Then it—it’s all right.” The injured man settled back.

“I’ll go get some pneumatic pillows,” Mary volunteered.

“Yes, and something hot to drink,” Sparky suggested. “That will help a lot.” Mary was away.

When Don had fully recovered consciousness and had been made as comfortable as possible, they gathered around him for a council of war.

“It’s getting dark,” said Sparky. “In another quarter of an hour it will be darker than a stack of black cats. In this land the dawn comes up like thunder, and the sun blinks out in the same way.”

“And there’s no moon,” said Janet.

“All of which means we’re here for the night,” said Mary. “Sparky,” her voice seemed a little strained. “What kind of a country is this?”

“Good head-hunting country,” Sparky laughed.

“No, but really, we’ve got to face facts,” Mary insisted.

“Truth is,” said Sparky, “I don’t know about the upper waters of the Amazon, or the people who live here. Do the rest of you?”

There came a chorus of “no”s.

“All right, then we’ll be prepared for the worst and hope for the best.”

“They scattered fast enough when they saw us coming down,” Don volunteered.

“That was natural,” said Sparky. “It is also natural to suppose that, in the end, they’ll defend their homes. They may come back in the night. There are two loose machine guns in each plane. The Major had them put there for just such a time as this.”

“And for the time when we’ll be over battle zones,” Mary added. “We may be attacked—”

“Just now we’re in a jungle, so we’ll limber up the guns,” said Sparky. “How about you ladies fixing up a little chow?”

“Sure, oh, sure! We’ll do that!” was the quick response.

By the time Sparky had two guns set up in the Lone Star, which he figured might, in the event of an attack in force, be used as a fort, and had dragged the other guns to the spot, a short distance away, which they had chosen as a camp site, darkness had fallen and the girls had coffee brewing over a cheerful fire.

“Say! This is great!” Sparky exclaimed. “I’ve always wanted to go camping but never had time!”

“Well,” Don drawled, “You’ve got about ten hours now with nothing else to do but camp.”

“Unless we’re attacked,” Janet supplemented with a shudder.

“Why bring that up?” Mary laughed. “Dinner is about ready to serve. Let’s make it a date.”

“A date it is,” Sparky agreed.

Their grub box contained a little more than iron rations. Sweet potatoes and sausages each served from a can, big, round white crackers, a square of butter and, aromatic coffee with real sugar and canned cream, made up the bulk of their satisfying meal. Dessert was little wild bananas, and huge, over-ripe grapefruit that were sweet as oranges. These came from the edge of the jungle.

“Um,” Janet breathed. “That was really a feast.”

“Yes, and listen!” Mary exclaimed low, “What was that? Really something different!”

A low rolling sound had come drifting in out of the night.

“A native drum!” was Sparky’s instant answer.

As they listened from farther away came the answer.

“Talking drums,” Mary whispered. “I never expected to hear them.”

She was hearing them all the same and, coming as they did out of the night with the low murmur of the dark, rushing river as their accompaniment, they sounded weird indeed. Now came a roar close at hand, tom-tom-tom sharp and clear, and now from far away with the booms blended into one long roar.

“Night in the jungle,” Mary whispered.

“Crawl into your ship and forget it,” Sparky suggested. “We’ll be here in the morning.”

“Oh! I never could do that,” Janet exclaimed.

“All right,” said Sparky. “Then you girls keep the first watch and I’ll sleep. But first we’ll fix Don up as comfortable as we can.”

It was Don whose eyes first closed in slumber. With soft pneumatic cushions under him and a mosquito canopy to protect him and a soothing capsule to allay his pain, he was asleep before the others could arrange for the watches of the night.

Just as Sparky crept away to the Lone Star for three winks a bright golden moon came rolling along the fringe of the forest.

“Oh! That’s better!” Janet exclaimed.

Was it? It was not long before every shadow cast by the moon appeared to move and the darkened grass houses seemed alive with people.

“Ghosts,” Mary whispered. “Ghosts of native men and women who lived here long before we were born.”

“Be still!” Janet whispered. “I heard a voice. It was somewhere down the river. Listen!”

As they listened a voice seemed to ask: “Why? why? why?”

“That,” Mary laughed low. “That’s a big, old tree frog. He lives in a pool of green water in a hollow tree, way up high. I read about it once. If you drink the water he lives in you’ll go crazy.”

“I think you might,” Janet whispered. “What do you suppose he wants to know with his eternal ‘why’?”

“Perhaps he wants to know why we are here, why my father is out somewhere in Africa.”

“And why my two brothers are in Australia,” said Janet. “Do you know the answer?”

“No,” said Mary. “At least not all the answer. I only know that we must keep on being here, and in Africa, Egypt, Syria, India, China, wherever we’re sent until this terrible war is over and all our loved ones can come home again.”

“Yes, that’s right. But, Mary, you know we were volunteers. We didn’t have to join up. And above all, we didn’t have to go on this long, long trip so far from home.”

This Mary knew was true. They had, in truth, volunteered twice. Joining the WAFS was purely on a voluntary basis. Once they were in they were expected to ferry planes from place to place in their own country. But a sudden, urgent call had come from China for forty planes, all but two of them bombers. There were not enough men available so volunteers were called from among the women.

“All of us volunteered, except those who had children,” Janet said, thinking aloud.

“Who wouldn’t? It’s what I’ve always wanted most.” Mary’s voice rose a little. “When Sparky used to come in after a week’s absence and say, ‘Hello, sister, I’m just back from Russia,’ I was burned up with envy. The next week it would be Africa, and after that London, and there we were plowing through the sky to Kansas City, Des Moines or Peoria. And now,” she breathed, “we are on our way to China by way of Africa, India, and all the rest.”

“We!” Janet exclaimed. “Do they expect just you and me to fly the Atlantic, alone?”

“Why not?” Mary asked, teasingly. “Oh, well—” she added, “Sparky told me tonight that he and I would go on alone.”

“Nice going,” Janet’s tone was a trifle cold.

“Oh, Janet!” Mary put out a hand. “Don’t look at it that way. There’s something aboard the Lone Star that just has to go through. I wish I could tell you what it is. I can’t because I don’t know. Naturally, it’s better that a man pilot the plane, one who has flown the Atlantic many times. It would be natural, too, that Don should go if he were able, but—”

“Oh, sure!” Janet was her old, friendly self again. “I understand. We’ll have to get Don to a hospital somewhere and I’ll stay to see him through.”

“Yes, and you may get to China yet, both of you.”

“Oh, China,” Janet yawned. “Just now I’d love to find myself on Broadway in little, old New York, with a run to Denver waiting for me in the morning. It’s a funny world, isn’t it?”

“It certainly is,” Mary agreed.

At one A.M. Sparky climbed down from the Lone Star’s cabin. “Go on up there and sleep,” was his gruff but kindly order. “We’ve got a tough day ahead.”

They obeyed. While Janet wrapped herself up in blankets, Mary spread out an eiderdown robe her father had once brought from the far North, and they were soon fast asleep.

Three hours later, just as the moon was nearing the crest of the ridge, lying off to the west, Mary crept down from the plane to join Sparky in his vigil.

“Don still asleep?” she asked.

“Sure is. He’s lucky to be able to sleep.”

“Perhaps he’s not so badly injured after all.”

“Bad enough,” Sparky sighed. “We’ll have to get him over to the hospital at Para. Then you and I’ll have to hop the little channel that lies between South America and Africa. Your cargo must go through.”

“Secret cargo!” she whispered. “Wonder what it could be.”

“Some new weapons for destroying Japs perhaps. A new type of sub-machine gun, or just a badly needed medicine for the soldiers up there in Burma. They say it’s plenty bad up there this time of year. Anyway, that secret cargo must go through.”

“‘Ours’ not to reason why—‘ours’ but to do and die,” she parodied.

“Who knows!” His voice sounded solemn in the stillness of the night. “The enemy has our number. I’ve been looking at my motors. They’ve been tampered with, emery dust in the pistons or something.”

“But where could that have happened!” she exclaimed.

“Caracas!”

“But there were soldiers guarding every plane.”

“Soldiers of foreign lands are sometimes traitors. So, too, are mechanics who tune up the motors. We’ll have to be on our guard every moment. This time we were over the land. The next it may be the sea.”

“We’ll watch,” she vowed. “Day and night. Night and day.”

“But it’s all so strange,” she mused after a time. “Why should there be a sudden demand for so many big planes in China?”

“There are rumors of a plan to bomb Tokio.”

“Oh! I’d like to be in on that!”

“Wouldn’t we all! But it’s just a rumor. I’ve heard that we are to attack Burma from two sides.”

“Try to re-capture the Burma Road?”

“Yes.”

“That would be glorious!”

“Then I’ve heard the Japs are going after Russia and that these bombers are for our Russian allies. All these are rumors. We may never know the truth. That’s the way it is in war.”

For a time after that nothing but the low rush of the river and the croaking of the ‘Why’ frog disturbed the silence of the jungle. Then, suddenly, Mary whispered:

“Listen!”

“Singing,” Sparky whispered back after a tense moment. “Natives on the river.”

“The moon has gone behind the hills. They’re coming back. The natives are coming.”

“Yes, and let them come,” Sparky rattled his sub-machine gun. “If they’re peaceful, things will be all right. If not—” He rattled the gun once more. “This is war. The Lone Star and her secret cargo must go through!”

After that for some time they sat there in silence listening to the wild native chant that, with every movement, grew louder.

Then, suddenly, the dark waters of the river came all alight. The long canoes had turned a bend of the river. In each canoe were a dozen torches held aloft. Mary counted nine canoes in all. To her heightened imagination each canoe seemed a hundred feet in length.

“Do they come like that when they want to fight?” she asked gripping Sparky’s arm hard.

“Who knows?” was the brief reply.