"What's your plan?" Scotty asked.

Chahda drew his bolo. "Bamboo cuts easy. Two swings and box falls into our hands. We run like wild men, they not catch."

Rick objected. "The skull is too heavy. We couldn't run with it easily.

They'd catch whoever had it."

Scotty nodded. "And the box is too small for two people to get a good grip on it. We'd fall all over each other."

"Could be," Chahda agreed, but he was not convinced. He said that there must be some way to get the box.

Rick studied the house as though the sight of it might give him inspiration. The house didn't, but something else did. "The purloined letter!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Remember the story by Poe? No one found the letter because it was in the most obvious place--so obvious that no one looked." He whispered his daring plan.

Scotty chuckled. "I'll even forgive you for biting me in Baguio, for that one."

Chahda salaamed. "Mighty is the mind of Rick. I glad you on my side.

Let's go."

They sneaked back to the house and made preparations for the audacious recovery of the box. Chahda tested the edge of his bolo, reached up with it, and measured the length of his stroke and where the blade would touch. It would work. He looked at the boys expectantly.

Rick knew that bamboo was remarkable stuff. It had great strength against nearly everything except a sharp blade applied across its grain.

But it had to be cut cleanly. Also, Chahda would have to make two cuts before the box could drop through the floor. On the first cut, Lazada and Nast would be moving. They could make it down the stairs before the second cut was made.

He shook his head at Chahda. Not yet. He motioned to Scotty and together they examined the stairs, which ran down the outside of the framing.

Scotty gestured toward the boxes stacked at one corner of the house.

They examined them. The boxes were full of a special kind of sea sh.e.l.l used commercially in the Philippines. They were fairly heavy.

Working together, they piled a few boxes on the stairs. Anyone not watching his footing might fall over them.

Then Scotty motioned to a stack of bamboo poles just outside the house pilings. He whispered, "You help Chahda. I'll use one of these." He selected a long one about two inches in diameter and held it in both hands like a lance. With Scotty standing beside the stairs, the pole would reach almost through the door of the hut.

Scotty nodded. Rick stepped to a position beside Chahda and nodded.

Chahda flexed his muscles, wrapped his fingers tightly around the handle of his bolo, spread his feet and swung.

The steel blade hit the bamboo floor and sliced through, flying in a great arc.

There were yells from the men upstairs. Chahda swung again as running feet made the floor vibrate. Scotty gave a wild yell and charged like a knight attacking an enemy. The bamboo pole caught Nast in the stomach and drove him back into the hut.

The box containing the skull slid and caught.

Chahda swung again, in desperation, and the box dropped through! Rick caught it, and the weight would have driven him to the ground had not Chahda given a hand.

They rushed the box to its prearranged hiding place, then Rick gave a piercing whistle. They ran, all three of them, in three different directions.

Chahda headed for the jeep. He ran quietly. Scotty headed south, yelling as he went; Rick ran north, giving an occasional bellow. That was to draw the pursuit away from Chahda, so he could get to the jeep undisturbed.

The pursuit had organized, apparently, because both Nast and Lazada were barking orders. Rick kept yelling, but he was now in the brush. Scotty was yelling, too.

Rick pushed his way through the brush and emerged on the bank of a river or estuary of some kind. Beyond, on the opposite bank, were rows of wooden forms that marked the outline of salt pans. Water was let into the square pools in the early morning, and by nightfall it had evaporated, leaving its salt behind.

For a tense moment Rick waited. Perhaps he was not being followed.

Perhaps they had followed Scotty. Then he heard the brush snapping and knew they were on his trail. He had to keep going. He stepped into the water and went right on until it was over his head. He spluttered, his eyes stinging from the salt. The water was brine, already partially evaporated and ready for the salt pans.

A few strokes took him to the opposite bank. He climbed out onto the salt pans, his clothes dripping and his shoes soggy. He ran.

He was almost across the field of salt pans when a shot whistled past.

He bent low and ran faster, remembering that Nast carried a .38 in a shoulder holster.

The second shot was closer, but not close enough. He reached the field beyond the salt pans and headed for a coconut grove about three hundred feet ahead. The field was covered with a low-growing vine of some sort.

He floundered and tripped, then got to his feet again, looking back over his shoulder. Apparently the pursuers were looking for a way across the water. He couldn't see them.

He reached the shadow of the coconut grove and stopped, glad of a chance to wring out his clothes. He did so, a garment at a time, watching his trail. In a few moments he saw two men emerge from a far corner of the salt pans and start across. For a moment he turned to run, then an idea struck him and he grinned.

There was pretty complete darkness. He could see and be seen in the open. But under the palms he would be invisible from a distance of twenty yards. He need not run; he could wait until the pursuit pa.s.sed, then walk leisurely to the airport, get a cab, and go home. Chahda probably was already there. He thought he had heard the jeep engine start. Even if pursued, Chahda could get away all right. The jeep was faster than the limousine on rough roads.

Scotty's fate was less certain. If two men were after Rick, the other two probably were after Scotty. They had scattered just for the purpose of splitting the enemy forces, and to allow Chahda time to get the jeep underway.

As Rick watched, the two men reached the near edge of the salt pans. One produced a flashlight and they walked along the edge of the salt pans shining the light at the ground.

Rick wondered. Surely they weren't looking for foot-prints. Both the salt pans and the field were perfectly dry. He wasn't particularly afraid of the flashlight. He would wait until they were close to the palm grove, then move laterally away from them and lie flat on the ground. The light couldn't pick him out from any great distance.

The men walked slowly down the edge of the salt pans until they reached the place where Rick had left the pans and entered the field, then, as surely as blood-hounds, they followed the route he had taken.

He stared, amazed. How had they tracked him? Then, suddenly, he knew.

Makahiya! The sensitive mimosa! The field was covered with it. And where he had walked, the mimosa's leaves were rolled up tightly!

Rick turned and ran through the grove, trying to be silent. He used a beacon from nearby Manila Airport as a guide, and in a moment he saw red lights on the other side of the grove. It was the field. They were boundary lights.

He saw instantly that he was in a bad spot. The only way to go was straight ahead, across the open airport. He would be seen instantly when his pursuers emerged from the grove, and from then on it would be a foot race. There was nothing else to do but go on. He climbed over the airport fence and started for the lights of the administration building a mile away.

To conserve his strength and wind he kept his pace to a dogtrot. He crossed one paved strip and cast a look behind in time to see the pursuers climb the fence. A yell told him he had been seen. He started to zigzag, antic.i.p.ating a bullet. His spine tingled and there was a crawling sensation between his shoulder blades. But when the shot did come it was such a wide miss that he did not even give an instinctive duck.

Somewhere down the line a big plane was getting ready to take off, the pilot was checking his magnetos, revving up his engines. He searched for lights as he ran and saw them over a mile down the field. It was a Strato-cruiser, probably bound for America. Then he saw the runway ahead and realized that it would be a race to see whether or not he got across before the plane reached that point. The lights told him that the plane was already moving. He lengthened his stride.

He had a choice. He could stop and wait until the big plane pa.s.sed, or he could run for it and hope to beat it. If he stopped, it would give his pursuers a chance to catch up.

He ran faster, still breathing easily. But there were signs that his wind was giving out. He cast anxious glances down the field. The big plane was rolling, its engines roaring. He tried to gauge the point where it would be air-borne, but it was too hard. It should be in the air by the time it reached him, but he couldn't be sure. The runway was only yards ahead now. He sprinted.

The plane roared down at him. Then he was on the runway, realizing that he would not be across in time. In sudden terror he threw himself flat, just as the big plane lifted. The wheels were only a few feet above him as it pa.s.sed over.

Then he was on his feet, running again, weak from the certainty of a moment ago that he was done for. But the administration building was only a short distance away now, and he found the strength to keep going.

He ran past astonished airport personnel, made his way through the crowd that had come to see the flight off, and leaped into a taxi just ahead of the Filipino gentleman who was about to enter.

"Get going!" he panted. "Hurry!" The driver responded with a burst of speed that snapped Rick back against the cushions. He turned and watched through the rear window, but he couldn't see his pursuers. He had made it!

CHAPTER XX