Ben Stubbs, with a very ill grace, made up a bed for the New Yorker at some distance from the others.
"I"d like to stuff it full of barb-wire," he confided to Frank afterward.
As for Sikaso, he eyed old Mr. Barr from time to time, and then eyed his axe in a way that made it very plain that the two were connected in his mind in a manner that would have made it very uncomfortable for the old financier.
But if Mr. Barr felt the atmosphere of repugnance to him that pervaded the camp he did not show it.
He rolled up in his blanket as if he had been used to a rough bed all his life and was soon apparently wrapped in deep sleep. The boys, tired out as they were and not a little downcast at the turn events had taken, soon followed him. An hour later the River Camp was as silent as a graveyard with the exception of Ben Stubbs"
mighty snores.
It was then that old Mr. Barr, who had seemed so sound asleep, cautiously raised his head from his blankets and peered about him.
After a few minutes of this he slipped into the few clothes he had discarded when he went to bed and tiptoed past the sleeping adventurers down to the river bank and the launch.
There was an evil smile on his face as he went that to those who knew Luther Barr would have said as plain as print "Some mischief is in the wind."
When the boys awoke the next morning the sun was streaming down on their sleeping place with a strength that showed that it had been up some time. With a start Frank sat up and looked about him.
What was the matter with him? His eyes felt heavy and his throat was parched. In his ears, too, there was a wild ringing sound and his limbs felt stiff and inert. Shouting to the others, who were gazing about them in a bewildered sort of way, Frank described his symptoms.
They all felt as badly as he did.
"I feel like I"d been boiled in the ship"s boiler along with the cook"s dish-rags," announced Ben Stubbs.
Even old Sikaso shook his head mournfully and said that he didn"t feel at all well.
"I wonder how old man Barr feels?" said the irreverent Billy rubbing his red-rimmed eyes.
The next minute there was a shout of astonishment from them all.
Mr. Barr"s blankets were empty and he was nowhere to be seen about the camp!
Forgetting their painful feelings in the shock of this discovery the boys hastened to the river bank to see if by any chance he was down at the steam launch.
The launch, too, was missing!
With a cry of rage Ben Stubbs shook his fist down the river.
"I see it all, boys," he exclaimed. "The old scallywag drugged us--doped us--that"s why we feel so badly and--"
"Howling bob-cats! I"ll bet he"s stolen a march on us and got away with the ivory,"--this was Billy.
There was a rush for the spot in which the precious stuff had been cached.
A few broken tusks lay there.
But of the great h.o.a.rd that the Boy Aviators had worked so faithfully to salvage not a vestige remained.
"Bilked, by the great hornspoon!" yelled Ben.
"But not beaten yet," was Frank"s calm rejoinder. "Come on, boys, we"ve got to be stirring. Barr"s got a long start of us, but we"ll get him yet. Ben, you and Sikaso will take one of the Arabs"
canoes--the ones they left at the river bank when they started after us--Harry, Billy, Lathrop and I will fly to the coast in the Golden Eagle II. We"ve just enough gasoline."
"All right, sir," said Ben, touching his forelock with an old sailor trick--a token of respect involuntarily forced from him by Frank"s manly prompt.i.tude in taking the bull by the horns, "We"re with you to the last ditch, the top of the main-top gallant, the bottom of the deep-blue sea, or the ends of the earth."
"That goes for us too, Frank," supplemented Billy.
"And count me in on that," cried Lathrop.
As for Harry, he gripped his brother"s hand and the boys at once set about their preparations to outwit their treacherous enemy. In the midst of their bustle an interruption as utterly unexpected as it was for a moment alarming occurred.
The bushes parted and from them there stepped no less a person than Muley-Ha.s.san.
He was followed a minute later by half-a-dozen fatigued-looking followers.
The boys" hands flew to their revolvers and Ben grabbed up a rifle.
Sikaso"s ever-ready axe was in the air in a second.
But the Arab put up his hand.
"I have not come to fight but to bargain," he said.
"You have beaten me at every point of the game. Diego is dead--"
"Dead," cried Frank.
"He was bitten by an adder as we were vainly searching for the ivory," said the Arab sadly, "he died almost instantly."
Of course the boys felt no sorrow for the death of the treacherous scamp and did not pretend to. They had no great reason to love Muley-Ha.s.san either, so Frank said coldly:
"What is it you want?"
"Permission to take my canoes and leave this cursed country forever."
Frank waved toward the river.
"Your canoes are where you left them the night you made the cowardly attack on our camp. You can have them all but one. That one we need."
"Alas," sighed the Arab, "I do not need as many as I did when I came. Of all my followers these alone remain."
He pointed to the scant six, skinny, fever-stricken wretches who stood behind him.
"Good-by," said the stately Arab, holding out his hand in farewell, "we shall never meet again, but I shall ever remember that you dealt by me far better than I would have dealt by you."
"At all events you have one good deed to look back to in your life,"
exclaimed the impulsive Billy.