“Don’t you ever think they did!” answered Jimmie. “The Indians wouldn’t touch it with a pair of tongs! Felix and Pedro probably moved it, the idea being to hide it from view.”
“I guess that’s right!” Carl agreed. “I’m going out,” he continued, in a moment, “and see if I can find any savages. You lie low till I get back. I won’t be gone very long.”
“What you mean,” Jimmie grinned, “is that you’re going out to see if you won’t find any savages. That is,” he went on, “you think of going out. As a matter of fact, I’m the one that’s going out, because the wild beasts chewed you up proper, and they didn’t hurt me at all.”
The boy crowded past Carl as he spoke and dodged out into the forest. Carl waited impatiently for ten minutes and was on the point of going in quest of the boy when Jimmie came leisurely up to the curtain of vines which hid the passage and looked in with a grin on his freckled face.
“Come on out,” he said, “the air is fine!”
“Bales of it!” answered Jimmie. “The savages never touched the _Ann_.”
Carl crept out of the opening and made his way to where Jimmie sat flat on the bole of a fallen tree eating ham sandwiches.
“Then perhaps the others stand some chance of getting one or two.”
“There’s more than we can all eat before to-morrow morning,” Jimmie answered. “And if the relief train doesn’t come before that time we’ll mount the _Ann_ and glide away.”
While the boys sat eating their sandwiches and enjoying the clear sweet air of the morning, there came an especially savage chorus of yells from the direction of the temple.
“The Indians seem to be a mighty enthusiastic race!” declared Jimmie. “Suppose we go to the _Ann_, grab the provisions, and go back to the temple just to see what they’re amusing themselves with now!”
This suggestion meeting with favor, the boys proceeded to the aeroplane which was only a short distance away and loaded themselves down with provisions and cartridges. During their journey they saw not the slightest indications of the Indians. It was quite evident that they were all occupied with the _siege_ of the temple.
On leaving the entrance, the boys restored the vines so far as possible to their original condition and filled their automatics with cartridges.