CHAPTER XV
THE WARNING FROM THE SKY
There was a shock when the prow of the Black Bear struck a canoewhich lay full in its path. The momentum was retarded for only asecond. Then the motor boat was beyond the line of war canoes withtheir screaming, gesticulating occupants.
Looking out of the rear ventilator, Frank saw a smashed canoerunning down with the current, with a dozen or more natives clingingto it. But there was still a large number of canoes up the river,and the Black Bear was struck more than once by forceless bulletsand poisoned arrows as she sped past them.
Armed with modern rifles, the Indians would have made short work ofthe occupants of the Black Bear, but the muskets they used were oldand mostly out of condition. The arrows were far more deadly,although they stood less chance of penetrating the tough panels.
"Now," Harry said, as they passed a racing fleet of Indian boats,"we can open up a little and get a breath of fresh air! I'm justabout suffocated!"
"Not just yet," Jack, who was at the front, said, "for there's amess of the black scamps just ahead. They are on the bank, bothbanks, and seem to be waiting for something to happen. I wonderwhat it can be?"
"Some trap, I suppose," Harry gritted. "Well, all we can do is toran on through them, if they come out in boats, and get out of theirreach. We ought to be able to be out of this blasted country in acouple of hours."
"That's all right," Jack replied, "but you just listen a moment."
But the racing motors shut out all individual sounds, and Harry shutthem down for a minute. Seeing this, Jack dropped an anchor at theprow, and the boat lay pulling at the cable in the current.
"What did you do that for?" asked Frank, addressing both boys fromthe stem.
"Listen!" commanded Jack.
"Look!" ordered Harry.
What Frank heard was the heavy, continuous roar of a waterfall.What he saw, as he crowded up under the plate glass panel in thetop, were the lights of an airship!
"I tell you," Harry cried, excitedly, "that that's the Nelson. Youcan't fool me about that."
"Why doesn't she come down, then?" demanded Jack.
"Because she doesn't know that this is the Black Bear. That is aneasy one! If she did she'd be here in a second."
The boys studied the lights a moment and then turned their attentionto the Indians, who were now making a great clamor. In a short timeit was easy to see what they were up to.
Above roared the falls and the rapids. At this point in the Beniriver there is a swift drop from the mountain plateau above. Itwill be remembered that the Beni reaches away up into the Illimanimountains, with its springs not far distant from the summit of theAndes.
Where the boys were the Paredon and the Paderneira, falls and theAraras and the Misericordia rapids made the navigation of the river,even in the protected Black Bear, impossible for many miles. TheIndians seemed to understand this, for they had gathered at the footof the falls, possibly expecting to see the craft attempt theascent.
Jack watched them from the prow for a time and then asked:
"What's that they are throwing into the river?"
"Logs!" replied Harry, looking out over Jack's shoulder, "andbrush!"
"Well, of all the--"
The sentence was not finished. Frank, at the stern, gave a yell andfired out of the loophole. "Come here!" he shouted, then, "if youwant to see what the devils are doing. This takes the cake!"
A glance showed the others what the plot against them was. Harrywent to his locker for his revolver and Jack drew his from a pocket.
"I guess it is a fight now!" Frank said. "You see what they aredoing?"
"Of course. Anybody can see that."
Jack reached out of the opening and fired a perfect volley downstream. Frank crowded against him to look out.
"Never touched them!" he cried.
"No," Jack went on, "they're forming a bridge with their canoes andrunning logs and brush down against it. They've got an obstructionalready that the Black Bear never can get through."
"What's the matter with dynamite?" asked Harry.
"Oh, we can use dynamite as long as we have it," was the reply, "butthere will be Indians on guard there long after we are out of thestuff."
"I guess that's right!" with a sober drawing of the lips.
"I'll tell you what we've got to do," Harry said, presently. "We'vegot to put on full power and try to run up the rapids."
"Why, there is noise enough for a ten-foot fall," Frank replied.
"We've got to risk it," Jack went on.
"Now, you just wait," Frank cut in. "I don't think you've got thisthing sized up right at all. Harry," he continued, "who does thisboat belong to?"
"To the Black Bear Patrol," was the reply. "You know that wellenough."
"Then we can do what we please with it, so long as we make it rightwith the other members of the Patrol?"
"Why, of course."
Jack looked at his chums with a grin.
"What are you figuring on?" he asked. "One would think you wereplanning to blow the Black Bear into smithereens."
"That's about it," Frank replied.
"And go to kingdom come with her?" laughed Jack. "Not any of thatfor me. I'm headed, eventually, for little old N.Y."
"I'm tired of fooling with these cannibals," Frank explained. "Wehaven't molested them, and yet they are after our scalps. They'llget them, too, if something isn't done--and done right away, atthat."
"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 theBlack Bear into smithereens, and about a thousand of thosebloodthirsty natives with it. The world will be all the better fortheir being out of it. They are worse than the savage beasts in theforests."
"But what is to become of us?" asked Harry.
Frank pointed to the Wolf, tugging at the cable which held her noseto 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 loudlyin order that his voice might be heard above the shouts of thesavages 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 Bearin such a mess away off here in South America, but I don't see howwe are to get her out. The Wolf will carry us all right, Isuppose?" he said, tentatively.
"Sure thing!" Frank replied. "I've been thinking it all out. We'lldo it this way: When we get ready we'll put on full speed ahead onthe motors, with the prow turned against that obstruction below.Then we'll hop into the Wolf and shut everything down tight. TheBlack Bear will weaken the jam below, and the sharp nose of the Wolfwill poke through the rest of the logs and canoes. And there youare!"
"Free of the natives, and bobbing down the river in safety!" criedJack. "That looks good to me!"
"But about the dynamite?" asked Harry.
"Well," Frank replied, "we've got to use the Black Bear for abattering ram anyway, and she'll be all smashed up, so we may aswell go the whole hog with her. We'll put a lot of dynamite downunder the motors and fix a cap so it will blow up when theconcussion comes. By that time the natives will be swarming aroundher, and they'll get what's coming to them."
"And where will we be when the explosion is rocking this half of theworld?" demanded Harry. "Up in the air?"
"We'll be a cuddled up in the Wolf, between the lockers, with plentyof grub and ammunition, sailing down the river in a bullet-proofvessel. This move will burst up our meeting with the Nelson, ofcourse, but there is no other way. They'll get us if we remainhere."
While this talk had been going on, the cannibals had drawn nearer tothe Black Bear, pressing forward from both banks in canoes andpounding at the panels with their arr
ows. It seemed only a questionof time when they would board the craft and force the panels. Theirshouts of victory were shrill and exasperating.
"You see how it is," Frank said, "the Black Bear can never be pushedup over the falls, and we can never get her past the obstructionsbelow, even by the use of dynamite. If we could blow the those logsout of the way, the Indians would board us instantly. We could givethem only a charge or two of dynamite and a few shots before theywould be inside. Now' we can drift down the river in the Wolfwithout fear of entertaining man-eaters on board. They may get ontop of the boat, but they can never get inside."
"And so we'll have to give up our trip!" wailed Harry. "We'll haveto drift down stream in that hot hole and take a steamer at thenearest river town!"
"It strikes me," Frank observed, "that it is a mighty good thingwe've got that hot hole to drift down stream in. If the Black Bearhad only been constructed on the principle of the Wolf, we'd be in aposition to give these heathens the laugh. Well, let us pull theWolf up and throw out stuff enough to give us room. Then we'll getout the dynamite."
The boys drew the Wolf up by the cable as Frank tried to elude thewatchful eyes of the savages long enough to open the hatch on topand climb inside, but a dozen arrows whizzed by his head when helooked out.
"Can't do it!" he said.
"Never in the world!" Jack assented.
"Another good scheme gone wrong!" Harry ejaculated. "What next?"
"Dynamite," almost shouted Jack. "We'll give them dynamite as longas it lasts, and then ram the logs below."
"We may kill, a couple of hundred," Frank said, "but it seems to methat there will be about ten thousand left."
The boys were indeed in a tight box. With their automatics andtheir dynamite they might keep the natives at bay for a time, but inthe end they would be obliged to surrender or starve to death.
"Well," Jack said, grimly, "let's get out the dynamite. I want tosee some of these devils blown up!"
Just then an arrow struck the plate glass panel at the top of theBlack Bear's deck covering and Jack looked up. He gazed a moment inwonder and then let out a shout that rose above the yelling of thesavages and the pounding of arrows against the panels of the BlackBear.
"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. Alreadythe natives were slinking away in their canoes. Those on the bankswere slowly withdrawing into the shelter of the forests.
"They're running away!" Jack cried. "Now we'll have some fun withgood old Ned Nestor!"
For a moment it looked as if the statement was correct; as if thenatives, alarmed at the sight of the aeroplane would disappear fromsight without a fight. But this supposition was soon disproved.
As the Nelson came nearer, a dozen bullets from the forests struckher planes. The boys, in the boat raised the panel and shouted tothe aviator to look out for poisoned arrows.
Then the aeroplane shot up again. They could see that there wasonly one person on the machine, and that he was busy arrangingsomething which looked like a stick of dynamite which he held in hishands.
In a moment something grim and sinister whirled and hissed throughthe air, and then there came a terrific explosion in the forest tothe right. Trees were leveled, and a great hole showed in the bank.In an instant, following close on the roar of the dynamite, therecame 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 animallife, then the sharp call of the tiger-cat, the wail of the puma,the chattering of the monkeys, came to the ears of the listeningboys.
"I guess this coming act will consist of a feed for the wildbeasts!" 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 andslowly drawing closer to the river's banks. The boys on the BlackBear 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 thisdropping of dynamite from the sky," Harry observed. "Anyway, theyseem to have taken themselves off, and we'll open up and signal tothe Nelson! Say, won't it be fine to see good old Ned Nestor again?I wonder how he knew we were here?"
"And I wonder where Jimmie and Leroy are?" Harry reflected. "Thereis only one person on the machine, and that must be Ned."
Jack was about to throw open the top panels when he caught sight ofthe aeroplane again, nearer to the water than before.
"What's Ned doing?" he asked, pointing upward.
"Talking!" exclaimed Frank.
"Wigwagging!" Harry broke out. "Now, let us see what he says."
Slowly to the right and left, up and down, an electric bulb flashedin the sky. Harry counted.
"That's C;" he said, "and that's 'a,' and that's 'u,' and that's't,' and now 'i,' and 'o,' and 'n.' 'Caution!' That means thatwe've got to stand pat for a time yet."
"It also means," Jack said, "that we've made no mistake about thatbeing the Nelson, with a Boy Scout on board. Those wigwag signalsshow the supposition to be true."
"Well," Harry puzzled, "he wouldn't be sending us a warning from thesky if there wasn't some danger we were not aware of. There issomething going on that we are not wise to."
There was a short silence on board and then Frank remarked:
"We must be nearer the falls than we thought, for the water seems tobe a ripple about us. Rear it! I'm going to look out and see itlooks like."
In a moment he was jamming the panel shut and springing the slidesover the loopholes and the ventilators.
Jack sprang to the prow, not knowing what danger threatened, butobeying the sudden gestures of his chum to close every opening.Before he sprung the steel panel over the ventilator he glancedout on the river.
"Great heavens!" he cried. "Get your guns, boys!"
The whole surface of the stream, as far as the boy's eyes reached,seemed covered with savage heads, floating, drifting, down upon theBlack Bear.