Part 10 (1/2)

”You don't say so!” exclaimed the young inventor, when Ned had told him the queer news. ”Well, do you know I've been suspicious of that fellow ever since he tried to make friends with us.”

”Suspicious? How so? You don't think--”

”Oh, I mean I think he's some kind of a confidence man who has adopted the respectable clothes of a minister to fool people. He may be a card sharper himself. Well, we won't have anything more to do with him. It won't be long before we arrive at Buenos Ayres, and then we won't be bothered with card sharpers or anybody else but--”

”Giants and fighting natives,” finished Ned, with a laugh. ”You forget, Tom, that there's a war going on near the very place we're headed for.”

”That's so, Ned. But with what we have with us I guess we can make out all right. I'm going to have the electric rifles handy the minute we start for the interior.”

The voyage continued, and was fast drawing to a close. ”Mr.

Blinderpool” made several more attempts to strike up a friends.h.i.+p with Tom, or his chum, but they were on their guard now, and, failing to get into much of a conversation with the two young men, the pretended clergyman turned his attentions to Mr. Damon.

That eccentric gentleman welcomed him at first, until a quiet hint from Tom brought that to an end.

”Bless my fire shovel!” cried Mr. Damon. ”You don't say so! Not a clergyman at all? Dear me!”

And then, getting desperate, and needing very much to learn how long a journey his rivals were to undertake, so that he, too, might prepare for it, Mr. Hank Delby, alias Blinderpool, began to ”pump”

Eradicate.

But the latter was too sharp for him. Well knowing that a white man would not get suddenly friendly with one of the black race unless for some selfish object, Eradicate fairly snubbed the seeming minister, until that worthy had to go off by himself, saying bitter things and casting black looks at our friends.

”But I'll get ahead of them yet!” he muttered, ”and I'll get their giants away from them, if they capture any.”

The box on which Tom set such an importance, and which had so nearly been the cause of a disaster, had been stored in one of the fire-proof compartments of the s.h.i.+p, and now, as a few days more would see the vessel entering the harbor of the Rio de la Plata, thence to steam up to the ancient city of Buenos Ayres, Tom and the others began to think of what lay before them.

”How do you propose to head into the interior?” asked Mr. Damon one afternoon, when the captain announced that the following morning would see them nearly opposite Montevideo.

”I'm going to hire a lot of burrows, donkeys or whatever they have down here that answers the purpose,” replied Tom. ”We have a lot of things to transport, and I guess pack mules would be the best, if we can get them. Then I've got to hire some drivers and some porters, camp-makers and the like. In fact we'll have quite a party. I guess I'll need ten natives, and a head man and with ourselves we'll be fifteen. So we'll need plenty of food. But then we can get that as we go along, except when we get away into the interior, and then we'll have to hunt it ourselves.”

”That's the stuff!” cried Ned. ”We haven't had a good hunting expedition since we went to elephant land, Tom. The electric rifles will come in handy here.”

”Yes, I expect they will. Now come on, Ned, and help me get a list ready of the things we've got to take with us, and how they can best be divided up.”

Thick weather delayed the s.h.i.+p somewhat, so it was not until evening of the next day that they made Montevideo, where part of the cargo was to be discharged. As they would lay over there a day, the boys decided to go ash.o.r.e, which they did, wondering at the strange sights in the old city.

Tom watched to see if the pretended minister would land, and endeavor to force his acquaintance, but Mr. Hank Delby, to give him his right name, was not in evidence. In fact he was turning over scheme after scheme in his mind in order to hit on one that would enable him to take advantage of the preparations which had been made by his rival in the circus business.

”I've just got to get a line on where those giants are to be found,”

mused Mr. Delby, in the seclusion of his stateroom, ”even if I have to take some other disguise and follow that Swift crowd. That's what I'll do. I'll put on some other disguise! I wonder what it had better be?”

Tom and Ned, to say nothing of Mr. Damon and Eradicate, found much to interest them in the capital of Uruguay, and they were rather sorry, in a way, when it was time for them to leave.

”But we'll see plenty more strange sights,” remarked Tom, as the steamer started off for Buenos Ayres. ”In fact our trip hasn't really begun yet.”

In due time they dropped anchor at the ancient city, and then began a series of confused and busy times. In fact there was so much to do, seeing to the unloading of their stuff, arranging for hotel accommodations, seeing to hiring natives for the expedition into the interior, and other details, that Tom and his friends had no time to think anything about the pretended clergyman who had caused them a little worry.

Eventually their belongings were stored in a safe place, and our friends sat down to a good dinner in a hotel that, while it was in far-off South America, yet was as good as many in New York, and, in some respects the boys, and Mr. Damon, liked it better.