there was little room to doubt that the trail they had followed was used by natives as well as by animals, for on their way back they came upon fresh prints of bare feet in the soft earth.
stew had uncomfortable visions of poisoned arrows and darts from blowguns flying at them through the brush, but jack, gripping his automatic, marched straight ahead.
arriving at the spot where the narrow stream tumbled down, they decided to follow it to its source. in just a moment they found themselves confronted with a problem. they had come to a thicket of thorny bushes. these formed an arch over the stream.
“just one thing to do—pull off our shoes and wade it,” jack decided.
“go native.” stew laughed as he kicked off his g.i. brogans.
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“whew! cold!” he exclaimed as he plunged his feet into the water. but on they went. tumbling down a steep slope the stream formed many pools, some fairly large. as he waded through one of these up to his knees, jack exclaimed:
“there are fish in this pool! i feel them tickling my toes!”
“great!” stew was an ardent, though usually an unlucky, fisherman. “got a line?”
“i sure have!” jack pulled a hook and line from his pocket. “i took it from the rubber raft. they all carry them now, just in case.”
“and you brought one along, just in case,” stew laughed. “wait till we’re out in the clear and we’ll hook our dinner.”
just then jack paused to listen. from up stream there came the sound of splashing water, then of rocks rolling down, and after that a hoarse grunt.
“wild pigs!” stew whispered.
“probably doing a little fishing on their own,” jack suggested.
“boy! wouldn’t a young porker taste good roasted over the coals! and here they don’t take ration points!” stew laughed.
“but they do take shots,” jack protested. “and shots are out. we’re not going to bring those natives down on us, not before we’ve had a good look at them.”
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“boy! oh boy! are we in a pickle!” stew exclaimed. “if some old boar comes down this stream looking for trouble he’ll force us into a fight. if we shoot and miss, he’ll tear us up.”
“tell you what!” jack decided after a moment’s thought. “we’ll keep going as long as we can. then we’ll work our way back up the bank into the bush and let that drove of porkers pass.”
“as long as we can” was only another ten yards, for suddenly the old guardian of the drove caught their scent and came charging down upon them.
by a mighty struggle they forced their way back into the brush just before the ugly beast with chop-chopping jaws and gleaming tusks came charging past.
the lesser fry, about a half dozen of them, had just stampeded past, when the old boar turned and came charging back upstream. this time he made no mistake. his beady eyes were upon stew.
as he lowered his ugly head preparing for a charge, stew drew his automatic, but jack, swinging a knife that was a cross between a sheath knife and a machete, struck the angry beast a cutting blow across his ugly snout.
with a loud squeal and an angry grunt, the mad creature came on. jack let him have it again, neatly carving out a curled ivory tusk.
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before he could swing again the pig reared, gnashed its teeth, then tumbled back into the stream, to go rushing away.
“boy! but that was close!” stew exclaimed, when after a short wait they resumed their journey upstream.
at the top of the brush canopy, to their surprise they came upon a tiny lake. all rimmed round with gray rocks, it was blue as the sky above, and in its clear water many tropical fish were moving.
“boy! any rich man in america would give a fortune to have this in his back yard!” jack exclaimed.
“yeah, sure,” stew agreed. “but a fish is a fish and i’m having some broiled for supper.”
“here’s the line.” jack held it out to him. “try your luck. i’m going up higher to find the spring.”
a few yards farther up, the stream forked, and at the head of the first fork he sought and found a cool, bubbling spring. and beside that spring was the telltale mark of a human foot.
“must be a big village of natives,” he told himself. “sooner or later, we’ll have to cast our lot with them, but i’m bound i’ll have a look at them first.”
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jack filled his canteen and stood for a time staring off at the sea. once he imagined that he caught the scream of that mysterious, propellerless plane, but in the end he decided that it was a wild parrot’s call.
at last his gaze was fixed on one spot. raising his binoculars he took a good look.
something out there on the sea, all right! he assured himself. pretty far out. looks like a raft or a partially submerged plane. it’s sure to drift this way. current and wind are both right. if it were only a plane we could put in working order.
when he returned to the small lake, he found stew the proud possessor of a fine string of fish.
“grubs,” he explained. “i got grubs out of a rotten log and used them for bait.”
“come on,” said jack. “we have enough fish for this time. in this climate they won’t keep.”
“just one more,” stew begged as he cast in his line. he had the fish at once, so with a sigh he gathered up his catch, strung on a crotched stick. then they were off.
“the thing that burns me up,” said jack, as they made their way down the slope, “is that the old black bee may at this very moment be ganging up with a lot of other fighting ships for a whack at mindanao.”
“and if she is,” stew groaned, “we’ll miss the biggest show of the whole war.”
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“that’s right,” jack agreed. “biggest and best.”
“‘remember pearl harbor,’” stew quoted. “how can we forget? we’ve just got to get off this island—even if we have to borrow that propellerless plane or walk right in on the natives and say, ‘here! give us a lift in your canoes.’”
“we’ll have to make haste slowly,” jack replied thoughtfully. “we probably couldn’t fly that plane if those fellows gave it to us as a present. imagine a plane that flies without a propeller!”
“i can’t,” said stew.
“but you saw it, didn’t you?”
“i sure did, on the outside. sometime i’ll see the inside of it, too. you watch my smoke!”
“i’ll watch.” jack laughed.
“but they may not come back.”
“something tells me they will. there’s still enough kerosene hidden away in that giant crevasse to take them round the world. looks like their base.”
after that the boys tramped on in silence.
the fish, broiled over a fire of coals, were delicious. when they had devoured the whole string, stew thought of dessert.
“how about a banana?” he suggested.
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“they haven’t had time to ripen yet,” replied jack. stew sprang to his feet, took one look at the tree from which the bananas hung, then exclaimed in a whisper:
“jeepers! look who’s here!”
on top of the bunch, holding a banana, sat a small monkey with a dried-up manlike face.
“wait!” jack whispered. “i’ll give him a surprise!” creeping up very softly, he suddenly popped up within five feet of the monkey.
oddly enough, the monkey did not appear to be the least bit startled. looking jack in the eye, he stared at him solemnly for a space of seconds, then with both tiny hands gripping it, he held out the banana.
“somebody’s pet!” stew exclaimed.
“he sure is!” jack agreed. “and look! there’s a silver chain around his neck!”
“here, monk!” going closer, he patted his shoulder, and said in a quiet voice:
“jump, boy, jump!”
and the monkey jumped. a moment later the little monkey was nestled in jack’s arms.
“what do you know about that!” stew exclaimed.
“and what do you know about this?” jack echoed. “this chain on his neck is tagged. why, it’s the identification disk of an army nurse. what do you suppose that means?”
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“might mean almost anything,” said stew. “perhaps she came ashore here, shipwrecked, or something, and the natives ate her.”
“that, in my estimation, is out,” jack said, stroking the monkey’s head.
“how come?”
“if that were true, this monkey must have belonged to the natives. the theory would be that they saved the tag and put it round the monkey’s neck.”
“what’s wrong with that?”
“just this. monkeys are very particular about the company they keep. if this one belonged to the natives he’d never make friends with a couple of plane-wrecked white men.”
“all right then, he belonged to the nurse. the monkey escaped, but the nurse was eaten.”
“i still think you’re wrong,” jack insisted. “it will be dark in a short time,” he added. “we’ll just wander over for a look at the natives. then perhaps we’ll know what to think.”
“and perhaps we won’t,” stew laughed softly. “anyway, it’s worth trying.”
