Part 21 (1/2)

”Who can it be?” exclaimed Frank in a low tone, not daring even to mention the wild hope that surged in his heart. For a minute he thought that it might be the missing chums, and that even Harry and, to a less degree, Ben, shared his thought he saw by their parted lips and tensely strained eyes.

In absolute silence they listened as the footfalls drew in toward them, but not by even the wildest stretch of the imagination could they make out more than one man's footsteps.

Instinctively each member of the party raised his revolver as the bushes parted and from them tottered a man who was very evidently in the last stages of exhaustion. The figure staggered forward to the aeroplane as the boys and Ben lowered their revolvers, seeing that, whoever the newcomer was there was no fear of violence from him. It was Ben who recognized him first:

”Sikaso!” he cried, as the figure crumpled up in a heap, completely exhausted.

The boys rushed to the fallen man's side as they heard the name.

They bathed the huge black's head with water and after a few minutes he opened his eyes and recognized them with a faint smile. After he had been given some nourishment he completely recovered from his spell of weakness which be called:

”Big fool--all same woman,” quite omitting to state that he had traveled almost eighty miles since the preceding midnight.

The boys sat late listening to what the black had to tell of the attack on the camp--of Professor Wiseman's treachery and death--and of the carrying off of the boys. Then Sikaso went on to gleefully relate, while they warmly clasped his mighty hands, how he had hidden the rest of the ivory and how he had seen Muley-Ha.s.san pa.s.s on his way to the rifled hiding place.

”But Billy and Lathrop, Sikaso, tell us quick, were they with Muley-Ha.s.san?”

The black shook his head slowly.

”No see Four-Eyes--no see Red Head,” he said sorrowfully.

The last ray of hope concerning the fate of the two young adventurers seemed to have been extinguished.

CHAPTER XVII

THE ”ROGUE” ELEPHANT

In the meantime Billy and Lathrop, having been introduced to the chief, were making themselves very much at home in the village or cliff colony of the Flying Men. The morning after the day of their arrival a hunting expedition was organized by their new-found friend and in company with a dozen or more of the Flying Men, and the ordinary natives, who seemed to occupy the position of inferiors to their winged masters, the expedition set out.

They crossed the fields and garden patches that the boys had observed the evening before and, after traversing a few miles of swampy ground overgrown with a tough yellow gra.s.s, they plunged into a forest of mahogany and silk cotton trees.

It was while crossing the expanse of yellow gra.s.s at Billy performed a feat that caused all of them to hold him as a mighty hunter. They had been pus.h.i.+ng their way along a narrow trail with the tops of the vegetation waving a good three feet above their heads, when there was a sudden grunt heard ahead and the noise of great rus.h.i.+ng through the wiry gra.s.s.

”Big pig,” announced the boys' friend as the others got their spears ready to cast. Billy and Lathrop in their eagerness plunged on ahead of the others--Lathrop with a small spear and his revolver--which by the way was useless, he having expended all his cartridges--and Billy with the Arab rifle. Suddenly from dead ahead of the two boys there was a savage squeal and, before either of them realized what had happened, a boar with gleaming white tusks and bristly hair rushed out of the tangle and squarely charged them.

Lathrop went down before his furious onslaught and in his fall carried Billy to the ground with him. In another moment both boys would have been badly gored, perhaps killed, had not the reporter, in the very instant that the boar with wickedly gleaming little red eyes turned to attack Lathrop with his fierce tusks, raised himself on one arm and fired. The bullet struck their a.s.sailant full in the ear and penetrated the brain. With a surprised squeal he turned and ran a few feet and then dropped dead. The rest of the hunting part came up at this moment and Billy received warm congratulations--which, as he did not understand, meant as much as most of such felicitations.

It was not long after this incident that the plunge into the cool darkness of the forest began. The men went warily--as if expecting to be attacked at any moment--and the boys, on inquiring of their guide the reason for this caution, only received the reply that elephant tracks had been seen and that as a ”rogue” elephant had lately been doing great damage to the crops of the cliff-dwellers they were anxious to kill him if possible.

A rogue elephant is one that has become estranged from the rest of his kind by reason of his fierce intractability. He is in fact what in the west is described, in speaking of a horse, as ”loco” or crazy. Such animals--they are generally males--are extremely dangerous to hunt and are generally given a wide berth. They are mischievous in the extreme, moreover, and do great damage, seemingly wantonly, to any crops or garden patches that they may find in their neighborhood. Usually the natives are too terrified to offer any resistance and placidly allow the animal to devastate to the bent of his will. The cliff dwellers, however, had suffered so much from the depredations of this particular animal that they were determined to drive him out of their neighborhood, and that was the real purpose of the hunting party.

”Well, it looks as if we are in for a good exciting morning of it,”

remarked Billy as they trudged along beneath trees that shot up to unknown heights with great rope-like creepers dangling from their upper branches, looking like ladders leading up into ”Jack in the Beanstalk-land.” Occasionally a patch of blue could be sighted through the tree-tops, but for the most part the hunters progressed along the floor of the forest under a regular roof of greenery.

There was plenty of life in this tipper story of the earth jungle.

Troops of monkeys with chattering and gesticulations swung from bough to bough and looked in wonder on the invaders of their realm and then, taking imaginary fright, galloped off through the tree-tops in panic, only to stop a little distance further on and throw down fruit or bits of stick at the men below them. Gorgeous birds, too, flitted about like jewels seen in a setting of green velvet, while underfoot there was no lack of life either. Strange insects, shaped like sticks or leaves or even bits of moss, attracted the attention of the alert boys although they pa.s.sed over hundreds of such nature mimics unnoticed, owing to the perfection of their mimicry.

At last the leader of the party called a halt and they sat down to eat some of the ca.s.sava and manioc cakes they had brought with them.