"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 a.s.sented.

"Another good scheme gone wrong!" Harry e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "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 gla.s.s 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?"